What happened? I was doing pretty good posting regularly - and then?

Shortest version possible:

In April, after having deciding on Fort Collins, CO as my next best place to live, I was house hunting. On my last day of a house hunting visit that was becoming more and more frustrating, I saw the Little Blue House. It fit all my picky requirements, the down side was that it already had a first right deal in place. In a flurry of communication and work, making a very long and tedious story short: I closed on the Little Blue House the beginning of May.

Meanwhile my contract I had been working under for a couple years came to an end – June would be my last month of work. Also at the same time some personal business came up out of town that required my attention and lots of work.

I was under a lot of time sensitive stress: closing on a house, working on labor intensive personal business as well as facing the end of a contract. This raised several issues. The biggest concern being that since my employment future was TBD at that point, I didn’t feel comfortable taking days off to take care of all my personal mayhem. For a bit I contemplated taking a few months off before working again, and at any other time, I more than likely would have, unfortunately the timing was very poor with the new home expenses.

I still planned for potential unemployment though – just in case. I sincerely believe in planning for all options, I think it makes me better prepared for different potential scenarios avoiding as many nasty surprises as possible.

Ultimately I had a few offers come in, two of which I considered and ultimately picked one…then we did the dance back and forth on the details of the contract.

It was sad leaving my previous office, I had more or less worked with the same people seven years (under different contracts). After starting my new contract, I realized how important and fulfilling those office relationships had become. Hopefully I will eventually develop the same kind of relationships with people at the new office.

Meanwhile as I closed on my Little Blue House and got a new contract, I learned that the new job would require me to be in Denver for a couple months (providing support for the 2008 DNC). I was extremely excited about this news - it meant I could spend some time in my new house and get anything in order there that I needed to, without having to take any time off as originally planned. Unfortunately, there were only a few I could share my excitement with.

May flew by while I sorted out all my personal work. Then June flew by, as I was excessively busy at work closing up and passing off my old work properly.

I started right away at my new contract – and was crazy busy from day one. No slow break in period as I had thought (hoped).

Fianlly at the end of August, beginning of September everything slowed down, a *huge* personal weight was lifted from my shoulders and I felt very relived.

So that was my summer vacation. Kind of sucked that I didn’t get out climbing much. But I feel like I’ll be able to get back on track with a lot of things now. The amount of changes that happened in such a short period of time was not ideal and has definitly been a cause of stress and depression, but ultimately they were all good changes and I feel much more relaxed and free.

on to the next adventure…

Tags: fort collins, house, Life

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