New Years 2011 Update

The Best Moving Crew Ever

We are officially New England residents!  It was quite a process getting us and our stuff moved from Arizona and it took most of 2010 to accomplish it.  This is a rambling narrative about the chain of events around moving and jobs if you are interested in such.

Early summer 2009 we decided to leave Arizona and came to the conclusion that we wanted to live in Massachusetts.  Lots of reasons, but last year’s holiday newsletter was all about that, so I won’t re-tell that story again.  August 2009, Zarah moved from Arizona to live with our friends and their daughter who is one of her very best friends, in Mass.  We did that early change for Zarah so that she could start freshman year high school in Massachusetts and it worked out very well for everybody.

I (Lillith) couldn’t leave Arizona until I finished up a project for my job at the Courthouse.  The software conversion finished up in December and Jonathan drove me and one carload of stuff across country to Massachusetts in mid-January 2010. I took up the excellent hospitality of some other friends and got to know them much better and cook them some food and it was really a delight.  I continued to work my courthouse job by telecommute for a few more weeks to keep the Arizona bills paid and started job hunting here.  Jonathan flew back to Arizona to close up shop.

I got a job here with a 100% work from home and great pay in February.  It was extremely high stress and very difficult but I loved it for the first few weeks.

New job and paycheck in hand, I officially left my job at the Arizona courthouse and rented an apartment near the high school in southern Massachusetts and moved Zarah in with me.  Jonathan packed up a moving truck’s worth of stuff (the majority of our possessions), put the land on the market and drove out. Our dear friend and brother, Kevin, shared the driving with him so we got some great help and visit time with him here in Mass.  A bunch of good friends turned out and helped us move into our upstairs (one flight) apartment and we were a family again.

The job lasted about six weeks and then blew up like a bomb with a sudden ending of the need for my services by the company.  It was a pretty mutually unhappy situation and looking back I am glad it ended.  But at the time it was pretty devastating; hit my self-esteem really hard, and gave me a deep dark scare about our economic stability.  At this point I had all the Arizona bills, plus boarding the alpacas, plus new rent & utilizes in Mass. I don’t think I qualified for unemployment in Mass having just been a 1099 contractor for a few weeks.

The end of March, April and May were pretty dark scary weeks for me personally.  I wouldn’t have survived without Jonathan’s steady hand and heart.  My Mom stepped up and helped us out some too which eased the panic. Friends gave me excellent advice and moral support.  I am super grateful for all their love and resourceful kindness.

So we cashed in my retirement account to make ends meet and cover expenses of moving and so forth. Once I was able to lift my head again, it was probably mid-May, I started job hunting.  Fifty resumes and four weeks later I was head-hunted by a contract agency that got my resume from Monster. So that really does happen!  An interview and two more days and I had a six month contract job doing the kind of IT analysis and implantation work I love on a big call center project. It was a very high pressure project about 25 min away from our apartment at the same pay rate as the job I had just lost. There was lots of new stuff to learn.  I got started round the first of July and dug in.

It was hard, worked 55 hours a week, and I was successful in my work I believe; my contract was extended to a full year so I must have been doing what they needed.  I made some great friends at work.  The IT team I was on grew, things progressed, work with the software vendor’s started, and the project picked up momentum; then suddenly the Titanic hit an ice berg.

One Thursday the project was suddenly cancelled and we got two weeks’ notice. Hundreds of thousands of dollars had already been spent and were committed to be spent. We were meeting deadlines, but it all ended anyway.  The team members were all so stunned we just walked around shaking our heads for two days. For the remaining time, we did project closure documentation and grieved. It was like somebody we cared about had died.  I cried at odd moments. In the end we got another week’s work extension to finish up the documentation and on the last day I had worked a total of 16 weeks on the project.  At least now I qualified for unemployment!

Thank goodness I had gotten that job through a good contract placement firm.  They started hunting for me as soon as we got the project cancellation news.  I went on one interview and didn’t get the job due to the very long commute distance.  That really turned out ok because they wanted a convert to permanent and we really would have had to move which wouldn’t have been so good for Zarah.

Then I went on a second interview and got the job I have now. In the end it was only one week of not working between jobs and I was employed again.  Whew!  I am really glad I have good skills that are in demand and folks who are willing to say nice things about me when they are called for a reference.  In the end I found three jobs in one year and I know a lot of folks having a much harder time.  I am confident things are getting and will continue to get better for everyone this coming year.

I am now working at the Division of Professional Licensure in Boston. It is less money than the last two jobs but plenty to cover our bills. It is a longer commute, about two hours each way. Jonathan drives me to the train station in Worcester and I ride the train to and from work in Boston. I work at home one or two days a week depending on meetings.   I am learning to use my commute time to nap, read and write, and sometimes even do some work. (In fact I wrote this web post on my way home on my trusty netbook.)  We are not allowed to work any overtime so things stay sane and I have a social life again.

Even more on the up-side it is a very low stress job and project. I am a member of a small team of terrifically wonderful and talented people. I really enjoy going to work and for the first time in my life I actually have to be careful not to linger too long over lunch or around the coffee pot because there is so much of interest to talk about with my co-workers.  The project is right up my alley and all my court knowledge and experience is super relevant.  Right now I spend most of my time drawing diagrams and writing up processes after interview discovery sessions with business subject matter experts, which is work I really enjoy. Next will be requirements and vendor selection. I have a year’s contract that will probably extend to two years as we move through the implementation process.

Just a couple of weeks into my new job, our land in Arizona sold.  It had only been on the market five months.  Land in the area where we were does not sell quickly or easily, some parcels have been on the market for years, but our land was particularly beautiful and had a lot of good energy from our time there.  It was such a blessing that it sold and it eased our monthly outgoings considerably and has given us the resources to move forward here.  I feel like we can breathe now.

Kevin moved the last few things off the property for us, mostly workshop & barn stuff, stashed things for a few days at his house, then loaded up our animal travel trailer and drove the remainder across country for us in November.  Only U-Haul will allow you to attach your own trailer to their truck so it turned out to be about the same cost to purchase a small used panel truck ($2800) as to rent one ($2000). I couldn’t stand the idea of paying that much to rent a truck one way, so we bought one using funds from the land sale and we have a truck to sell now. Eventually we can sell it for as much or more than we paid for it and never have incurred the truck rental for the move so I feel pretty clever and frugal overall.  Kevin stayed with us for a week and flew back to Arizona. We miss him and our Arizona friends very much.

2010 was been a roller coaster year for me and I am so glad that things have settled and smoothed out at the end of the year so that I have happiness and adventure to report to you here.  I am not sure my poor adrenal glands could have handled much more of how it was from January until October.  Moving is always hard I know, but this was crazy hard. Having our family all split up and all the ups and downs of the job situation are not things I would volunteer for again.  I am looking forward to having the physical and mental resources to get back to projects and new adventures after the first of the year.  I am feeling so much better already.

We are all really enjoying our friends here in Mass both old and new.  The apartment is affordable and comfy. We have started looking at land and houses here in New England.  We are participating in all manner of activities from Renaissance Festivals to Drum & Dance gatherings.  Now that our economic flow has smoothed out we are looking forward to planning to do more next year like attending some weekend events with our spiritual community.  2010 has been an amazing year, that I wouldn’t care to repeat.

Here is to a Very Happy New Year 2011!

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