Crying Wolf

We clearly cannot make up our mind! We have been planning on selling our house for the past 4 years. Really, 4 years!!! That's when Ken took a job in California and we were supposed to move out to the Bay Area. But, with alot of hard work on his part, Ken made it so that he could telecommute from Austin this whole time.

Anyway, the last couple of years we had decided that we may as well stay in the Austin area. There isn't anything we particularly hate or love about Austin. It's a nice climate, people are friendly, the cost of living is low in comparison to other places we would love to live in, etc. What really tips the scales is that my parents live here (for now),our children really like their schools, and we've made some great friends.

We found a house that we would LOVE to build that would solve the frustrations we feel in our current home. We were so close to putting it up for sale last summer, even signed a contract with a realtor. But,then we looked at each other and thought, what are we doing? We wanted this year to be calm and not crazy busy. I think that was a premonition of what we would later learn about Nathan and his seizures. Let me tell you I was glad we weren't in the middle of building a home when we were dealing with that this winter.

So, we have planned the past 9 months to again list our house in the Spring. I've been telling anyone who would listen to me about all the reasons I wanted to move. We even rented a storage unit this time and have been systematically refreshing and packing up our house room by room. Of course, as I was prepping our house for staging, it miraculously became quite a bit bigger and I didn't feel all the frustrations that have been bugging me. After all, we do live in a beautiful home.

We were in the middle of deciding which realtor to choose and then Ken and I started thinking about if we really wanted to buy a more expensive house (meaning a larger mortgage payment). Which doesn't really make much sense since we found out from the Realtors we could probably get more then we thought we could on our current home, plus we had been planning on building this home on Ken's previous salary (he got a big pay increase a month before).

I started thinking about is this house really our dream??? I have two friends that I totally admire who are living their dream. One friend sold her house and their family bought their dream, which is a ranch that they adore! It's funny cause I have seen her living in three different homes in the area (like completely different styles) but this home totally fits them and they love it! Another friend, my comrade in arms, who has always been talking about wanting to move ever since I knew her, is finally going to do it. They sold their house and will move to the West Coast at the end of the school year. They are totally going after their dream!

I love these ladies and admire them so much. And they have totally made me re-think if building a house here is our dream? It would be more comfortable for our family. But, our dream, not even close! Then again when Ken and I talk about our dreams, they aren't really grown-up real people dreams, we would choose the beach for sure! Probably out of the country! Heck, that's partially why we are trying out Cancun for a month this summer, because it is our dream.

But, for real-life, everyday with our kids... probably not. As an investment property totally! So then I started researching condos on the beach in Florida and rental rates and insurance and... [Florida isn't really our ideal either]

Then we went with Ken to California for Spring Break and I realized how much we miss the mountains and how much we miss the ocean. It felt so good to be in California that I was primed to say "Yes!" when Ken's boss hinted to him about moving there. Ken's boss mentions it pretty much every trip Ken takes to CA in a half joking half not kind of way. We don't consider it as real until it comes with a price tag though.

Also, we know there will be layoffs at his work soon. Probably not affecting us (we hope) but it's still worrisome. Add that to another reason for us to not jump into buying a more expensive house. It's nice to have enough equity in our home that if we had to move for a job we could hopefully sell it fast. It's also reassuring that our mortgage is only 10% of our monthly income, that would be a huge plus if Ken HAD to take a lower paying job.

You would think with all of our worries that we would decide, "Okay, we are totally not moving unless we have too!" But we aren't, in fact thinking about Ken taking a job in other parts of the country has me super excited!

I should totally put a disclaimer in here that he hasn't even applied to other jobs nor do we really want too. He loves his current job, this is just thinking "what if" he was laid off.

I'm also kind of kicking myself. Here we have had the opportunity for the past 4 years to live anywhere we wanted. Why haven't we taken advantage of that??? I mean really, that is half of why he loves his job is because of the flexibility and half of it is for the technology. We have been really blessed that Ken has had such an amazing opportunity. So what does that say if we don't take full advantage of the blessings we have been given???

There is one thing I do know, Texas is not our dream. It's nice and affordable and all those things I mentioned in the beginning. But, when our family "escapes" for 10weeks out of the year, every year, for the past 4 years. I think you really just have to admit that we would probably rather live somewhere else.

Who knows where that is but I am thinking within 2-3 hours of the mountains and the ocean is a pretty sweet spot! Add in low-ish cost of living, lots of trees, and a family friendly atmosphere and I think that would be heaven! Let me know if you have any recommendations.

BTW- Ken and I are pretty convinced that we should sell our house and just go for it and try someplace for a year before Darin starts high school. If we love it then we can stay there, if not we can move back to Texas. Convincing our kids is a whole different story. We won't give the girls a vote but the boys opinion will carry alot of weight.

That's where we are at for the moment, could change tomorrow:-) Which I'm sure no one will ever believe me again anyways given that we have cried wolf about a million times.