Westward, Ho!

On a cold and snowy Tuesday afternoon several weeks ago, our family got a much-needed and not wholly unwelcome kick in the ass. 

I and all seven of my departmental colleagues were called to an unexpected meeting with the VP. The company had decided to restructure, and our (clearly sales) department would now report to the VP of Logistics. Our entire department would be moved to our American location. The move itself isn't that surprising - they merged with a US company eight years ago and are gradually transferring everything there. The timing, though.... the timing sucks. First, we all thought we had a few more years. Second, they are closing our department at the end of the summer. Because no-one will need to move and no-one has kids starting school then <eye roll>.

My first thought was "I'm free!" My second was that I felt like I was back in high school, at 3:02 on a sunny summer day... "will he just shut up already and let us leave?" But Mr. VP droned on, and on, and on, explaining the reasons that everyone had, just five minutes prior, ceased to give a damn about. He seemed to be looking for absolution.

But see...here's where the silver lining shines.  S and I have been talking about moving west, but we were held here by my job and our daycare situation. We weren't quite ready to leave stable ground and leap into the unknown without a safety net. With my severance package, we have a safety net. We can leap...but leap where?

Our current plan is for S to get a job in his field and I will follow, and we will use my severance for a down payment.. That plan needs to locked down by the end of May, or we need to move to plan B, which is to look into the possibility of my company transferring me to a position out west. It's already been raised to me by two separate managers, so it is a distinct possibility- I'd get a paid move, a job I didn't particularly want, and no severance package. So bye-bye house ownership. Plan C would be to stick a pin in the map, polish our resumés, and rent a moving van.

So...yeah, that's where we are, with every thing up in the air. I HATE it when everything is up in the air. I like to have it all neatly laid out on a colour-coded spreadsheet that I will probably never refer to again once I enter a value in the final cell. Most of my big decisions may be emotionally-driven and somewhat sudden, but I like to trick myself into thinking I am being logical and well-informed. I hate that I can't even start lying to myself about this one until we know where we are going!

Of course, Panda is devastated. She doesn't want to leave her friends, her school, her life here. I don't either - I finally have some fantastic girlfriends and I'd like very much to keep them. Pickle, who's four, might be a little young to process it all, but he definitely doesn't want to go kindergarten next year (here he would have one more year at daycare, in any other province he will start school.) S is pretty excited, I think.

I guess am too. Nervous about the logistics of it all, but excited. We are long overdue for a change, and this will our last upheaval until the kids are grown.

Well, except for that whole foster/adoption thing! 

Thursday Thoughts

Thoughts for the week.... I had some, but the ol' brain just isn't working so well right now. Too many late nights I guess.

My phone was stolen on the métro on the way home from work Friday. It was really crowded, and I was being jostled a lot, and I think whoever it was just unzipped my purse and took it right out. I know, right? I KNOW. Apple-picked. (Well, more like kimchi-picked. Or bulgogi-picked. Dammit, now I'm hungry.) I was so oblivious I didn't even feel it, but I sure felt the six-hundred dollars needed to buy out the contract and replace it. What bothers me most is my own negligence in not putting a tracking app on it, and not having backed up the photos. Good-bye, Christmas 2014.

We have no land-line, so  I couldn't text my husband to get his thoughts on buying a ridiculously high-priced bundle of happiness for Panda's birthday gift. Can you believe that I waited up until after midnight just to get his agreement for Frozen on Ice tix? Yeah, me either. It's not like there would suddenly have been a  rush on seats at 11:07 pm on a Tuesday, but I get these things stuck in my head and I have to do them NOW. I'm glad I got on it though, because that daughter of mine eats, breathes, and sings Elsa.

Of course there is always a silver lining to life's small setbacks, and losing my phone is no exception. I'd no sooner activated the new one than some pre-installed app popped me up on an old friend's Google+ feed.  G and I go back almost twenty years, and have a surprisingly uncomplicated history considering we once lived together as a couple for two of them. We always remained good friends, but with the curve balls life likes to throw, we've gone long periods without emailing. Last night I got to chat with him for over an hour.

We are moving apartments. I think. I don't know. I really need to sit down with S, decide our course, and make a blood pact to keep it. We can waffle on any decision, I tell ya. If we do move, we need to stay in the neighbourhood so Panda doesn't need to move schools. We need a four bedroom, so we can apply to foster. And we need a yard. All that adds up price-wise, and I find our neighbourhood isn't that reasonable to begin with. So, for the price of a rental, we could own. We could have a nice yard and get a dog. Settle down. But what if the market crashes? What if S gets a dream job in another city and we have the hassle of selling a house? So I guess we are better off renting.
See? Waffling. Belgium's got nothin' on us.

Sigh.

Life's half full of silver linings, or something...

I am pretty determinedly having a 'glass half full' kinda of November, so far. It's unfortunate that glass isn't half full of wine, because I think I deserve some. In the last two weeks...

• S lost his beloved job by being passed over for the permanent position
• I cut my thumb badly enough to require stitches
• Pickle caught a nasty cold, resulting in continuous a snoterfall and persistent cough that keeps him (and me) up half the night. (But not S. A hundred roaring dinosaurs would not wake S.)
• my apartment-sized dryer is absolutely done for. We worked it to death. Mt. Laundry has erupted, and and we are all continually trying evade the lava flows of dirty socks. Apparently the washer is also nearing it's last spin, and the damn things are only seven years old. I have underwear older than the machines that clean it (I know, I know - don't judge.) But hey, it's nothing that fourteen hundred bucks for new ones can't fix!
• Pantry moths. It's buh-bye là to all my overpriced gluten-free dry goods....and an entire 10lb bag of Basmati rice.

I'm keeping my chin up though - all the better to see where the next blow is coming from. But  it ain't all bad...

• I have my guy back at home where he belongs, and he did manage to pick up a 'filler' job right away. Half the pay, but in this economy we'll take it.
• I need nerve-repair surgery on my thumb. Sure, they are going to slice and dice me just after it all healed up, but...wait, what was the silver lining there? Oh yeah,  a WHOLE day in bed, sans interruptions (except said surgery). Sure it's a hospital bed, but I'm counting it anyway. And I figure the added healing time should give me a free pass on cleaning the cat litter box for at least another three weeks, what with the risk of infection and all.
• Since Pickle is awake all night anyway, he comes in for snuggles. Nothing is better than sleepy warm little boy snuggles.
• Full size laundry loads and a dryer that doesn't wrinkle everything! 'Nuff said.
• My pantry is clean, shining, organized, and empty. Now I never need to come up with some way to use up a half-bag of barley and  graham cracker crumbs. Also, I found and smushed a a pair of love-moths. Oh yeah you little fluttery bitches, I bring the retribution DOWN. With a flyswatter.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to trundle off into the falling flakes and pick up some cooking and baking staples, and maybe some newer underwear....