I haven’t posted in a long time, mostly because I haven’t been able to fully comprehend everything that’s happening and I’ve honestly just felt very low-energy. I feel like I’ve been in self-preservation mode. I’ve been on the same grueling implementation project for almost a year and it’s using up all of my brain power. By the end of the day I just want to collapse into myself, de-energized from around 4-5 hours of meetings, hundreds of Slack messages and constant G Sheets comments. I haven’t been the most present in my relationships and with myself, and I feel stagnant in a lot of ways. Which sucks! I wrote in one of my first posts here about holding patterns, waiting to start a new journey and life and not necessarily enjoying the present moment, and I’ll get to all of that in a sec, but I feel like that feeling is getting crossed with the stagnation I’ve been feeling primarily due to how much work is taking out of me. I’m waiting for this project to be over, I’m waiting to be settled in, I’m waiting for *Stability* before I start taking care of and nourishing myself. So I’ve been trying to knock that off.
Backing up, I spent 2 full weeks in Boston for work last month. It was good in a lot of ways for the project, and I flew David out to join me for a long weekend there which was nice, but overall living out of a tiny hotel room for 2 weeks sucks! I feel like I lost half of my summer. The first week, David had a lot of job interviews which was a nice change of pace! While enjoying a couple of beers the first Friday out there and hashing out details on next steps if any were to come up, he got a call from his top choice organization and got an offer! That was a huge win for him and us and kicked off the whirlwind month we’ve just come out of!
When I got home (June 23) we immediately got back in touch with both of our real estate agents. In 2 weeks, we had our house cleaned, staged, listed and packed up/moved half of our things (July 6). We were ready to GTFO at a moment’s notice for tours and open houses taking place in a home that was starting to not feel like home anymore.
The same week, the perfect house for us came on the market in Montpelier and we put an offer on it (July 7) without having walked through in person (only relying on videos from our wonderful agent!). The following week we were under contract on that house and then shortly after our STL home went under contract (July 14)! David had an emotional last day at his job (he’d been with the state for 8 years!) and then he became a fulltime packer, trash hauler, and Facebook Marketplace seller while I lost my mind in full days of meetings in my office. Miraculously, we were able to get our house completely packed, emptied and cleaned in 2.5 weeks (for real) and we’re now in Montpelier as of Wednesday. Our STL home closed officially on Friday, and David starts his new job on Monday!
We are set to close on the house here in Montpelier on August 11! Until then we are in a tiny AirBnb in downtown Montpelier that we had booked for a month because we had no idea when our close date would actually be. At this point, I think we’ll eat the cost and just check out early because I really need more space and my home comforts! It’s also a huge PITA to bring Bjorn everywhere because we can’t keep him alone in the unit, and there’s no yard here to let him out in.
Everything moved super fast and I’m just now starting to catch up with all the feelings and realizations of it all! Ultimately, I’m really glad we made the offer on the home. We got to see it in person for the first time on Thursday and it lived up to our expectations. Housing stock is very minimal in Vermont in general, and houses like this do not come up every day in this price range. Since we went under contract, there haven’t been any homes that have come on the market that are desirable to us, so there’s really no buyer’s remorse or regrets here!
Here are a few things we really love about the home:
It’s on an acre (we only had .1 acre in STL) and overlooks a 100 acre horse stables/farm. We have no neighbors on our side of the street and spread out neighbors across the way. This is a dream for Bjorn.
It feels very rural and remote, we even have mountain views(!!!), but it’s only 5 minutes/2 miles from downtown Montpelier. We are actually closer to David’s office, our grocery store and other amenities than we were in the city which is mind blowing!
It has a wood paneled bar in the basement, so it feels like we didn’t really leave our South City home.
The same family lived in it from the time it was constructed in 1961 up until a couple of years ago. They took immaculate care of it, even while it was vacant. It has all of the original fixtures and appliances, for better and worse, and all of the bones are really good. We do need to update some of the electrical and probably get a new oven and stove top but everything is fully functional and move-in ready. We’re ready to embrace the 60s style of the home with our design choices!
I took time off to move this past week and while it was super stressful to get everything out of the house and have a 2-day cross country drive with our large furry son it did allow me some time to finally process everything that has happened and somewhat mentally reset. It’s challenging to feel fully reset because while David fully gets to start over right now, but I still have to finish strong this implementation due to go live next month. I want a fresh start too!! It’s not that I want a new job, but more so new routines/tasks/projects and to not be in the thick of this same stress anymore. I want to combine all starts in one. It’s like that superstition of not bringing an old broom to a new home. I don’t want to bring old dust here!
I’ve also had time for it to settle in that we’ve left all of our loved ones behind. It’s been dizzyingly emotional and hit me harder than I anticipated. I walked away from so many conversations in the last week in tears. Saying goodbye to friends and family in parking lots and driveways. Saying goodbye to my therapist I’ve had here for 4 years over Zoom and immediately having to go into a team meeting afterwards. Crying in our empty house as we carried out the last few things to our car. Crying as we drove away from our street for the last time after running into 2 neighbors early in the morning. Crying after picking up Bjorn from his favorite doggy daycare for the last time. I know I’m going to see everyone again, but it wont be as convenient! It’s the end of an era here, and we’re saying goodbye to so many different lives in Missouri. Our hometowns and families of origin, our college lives, and now our South City/St. Louis community. I’m so thankful for everyone and our close circle. We’ll be back, and our guest room will always be open too! :)
With the new start out here, I’m using it as an opportunity to update some of my schedule and routines to help combat the burn out and stress. With it being back-to-school time and close to my birthday as well, it’s the perfect time for new goals and ideas. This is my New Year. David and I talked about how we want to feel at the end of a week, what organizations we want to join here to get involved in the community and make friends, and we made a rough schedule for us that doesn’t feel packed or too ambitious. I’m ready to get into those habits and routines and hopefully feel more like myself again.
Overall, I’m stoked for the changes to come, and while it has been really stressful in the moment, the timeline was worth it. We’re in Vermont before Autumn!! We hit our goal of being out here by end of Summer! We found the best house at the right time! I’m still learning how to relinquish control and the need for things to go a certain way, but this has been very, very good practice. I’m also still working through burn out and getting back into taking care of myself. It’s all part of the process! I think!
Anyways, thanks for reading! I’ll definitely be sharing all the fun of building community and friendships out here as well as all the fun that goes into updating a 60s home!!
What I’ve Been Up To Lately (besides, you know, moving)
Montpelier recently made the national news because of historic floods that took place here earlier this month. It has been so devastating to see how much got destroyed, but the community is coming together and rebuilding. If you can, consider donating to the efforts through Montpelier Alive, especially if you plan on visiting the area for leaf peeping season or to come out and see us! Also consider donating to the local Kellogg-Hubbard library here! Anonymous donors are matching up to $30,000 in donations through the next week or so.
Watching
Because we had to be out of the house so often, we went to see a lot of movies which was awesome! We really enjoyed Past Lives, Asteroid City, and Barbie! Go see them if you haven’t already!
The new season of Righteous Gemstones has been just as hilarious as the first two.
We’ve started getting into The Other Two, but I honestly can’t handle the cringe/secondhand embarrassment of it sometimes. Does anyone else feel this way? Am I just too emotionally fragile for that kind of show right now?
Listening
We decided to listen to full albums (no skips!) instead of playlists on the 20+ hour drive we had to get to Vermont. It helps the time go by really quickly! First Aid Kit’s Stay Gold album was honestly perfect for nostalgic emotional journey music! Same with Johnny Flynn’s A Larum.
Literally cannot get Vampire Empire out of my head. It is simply too good.
Pinning
I’ve been very active on Pinterest as of late in anticipation of furnishing our new home. We purged so much to move here so we’re really starting over furniture and decor-wise which is both exciting and daunting! We’re embracing MCM to fit the design and architecture of the home. I’ve been stalking local antique/resale shops and can’t wait until we move in so I can start jumping on some of the items that have been coming up!!
This is our bar board. We called our South City home’s bar Ruby’s Bar & Grill. For this new home I think we’re going to go for Ruby’s Hi Fi Lounge and lean into retro futurism and some Tokyo bar inspired designs!
This was my original New England home board when we were first looking at houses out there. We’ve strayed so far from that but I still love it! LOL
Tarot fun!
I recently finished my little personal project of doing a digital collage of all of the Major Arcana on Shuffles! The full board with just the major arcana can be found here too :). I had a lot of fun with it and found a somewhat personal collage style through the process. It was also helpful for reenforcing the concepts I learned in the tarot class I took! Now that I’m done with the project, I’m starting to use Shuffles as a way to make little journaly type collages of the spreads I do!