A lot has happened since I introduced all two of my readers to Betty Jean.  Today, I’ll try to catch up.

Shortly after she was born, we visited Jamie’s hometown, and spent a few days with her family.  For the first time, the thought occurred to me, that I could be happy living there.  This was early March.  We talked about it, and came to the conclusion that maybe a year down the road, or around Christmas, we’d start looking at getting away from our long-standing home.  We mentioned it to our respective mothers.  Hers, to let her know we’d like to bring her granddaughter closer to her, mine, to let her know that we’d like to take her with us, when we go.

There were a lot of things to take into consideration.  Our shop, our respective jobs, our house, all things that were kind of tying us down to our current location.  A lot of planning, and a lot of preparing.  Or not…

Near the end of the school year, Jamie’s mother (who teaches for one of the local middle schools)  contacts her, to inform her of a job opening at the school corporation.  Figuring it couldn’t hurt, I applied for the position.  Systems Manager, computer networky stuff.  They weren’t originally going to keep the position open for very long, so I expected to hear a “thanks but no thanks” response fairly quickly.  At least I could say that I had given it a shot.

Then they contacted me for an interview.  I took unpaid time off to cross the state and interview for a job that was a slight pay cut from what I was currently making, but had a good deal more room for personal growth.  Jamie was still on maternity leave, so we made a weekend of it.  The interview went well, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  Besides, this was all a lot faster than what we’d had in mind.

6 days later, they called and offered me the position, and asked how quickly I could start.  I needed at least a month to wrap up things at my current job.  Suddenly, we were moving away.  I informed my current job, and we started making arrangements to find a replacement.  Being there for 8 years had made my list of duties an eclectic collection of seemingly unrelated things.  Jamie, meanwhile, was about to start back at her job after maternity leave.

The shop was another issue.  We hadn’t been active there in a while, and had left a friend to handle most of the responsibilities of it, so it only made sense to see if he wanted to make that a permanent arrangement.  Though it took some time and wrangling, that has been taken care of, and we no longer own a hobby gaming shop.

Jamie started applying for positions around our soon-to-be home, and quickly had two interviews.  So another road trip was in order.  When Jamie moved to my neck of the woods, several years ago, she looked for a job for 2 and a half years, before finally taking a position nearly 60 miles away.  She looked for a week in her hometown, and a  week later, had the job that she wanted.

So now all we had to do was move…