Confused? Start here

I have a new reader – one of my favorite brothers! (I have two brothers – they are both one of my favorites.) But I haven’t been doing a good job of keeping close friends and family members appraised of all our changes because so much is going on so rapidly, and anyway, you can just read my blog, right?

But without any context, the poor guy is confused. Who works where? Who lives where? What’s with all the houses!?!?

I figure if my own brother isn’t keeping up with it all, then it’s time I post some explanation.

First the lay of the land. You know how those epic fantasy novels start with a hand-drawn map with ^^^^ to indicate mountains and strange sounding place names penciled in? Well, here’s the modern, real life version of the map of our own personal epic.

It is approximately 30 minutes from Albuquerque to Placitas, almost another hour from Placitas to Santa Fe, and another 45 minutes from Santa Fe to Los Alamos, for a total of over 2 hours.

We don’t actually go up to Los Alamos very often, but I included it on the map because it just happens that John went up there last week and is going again tomorrow, so we’re both staying in Santa Fe tonight. More often, we are commuting to and from Albuquerque, Placitas, and Santa Fe. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the rundown as of this moment in time:

Jobs:

  • I got frustrated with “at home” duties, such as running the remodel (in particular, running the remodel!) and missed the comradery of the office, and missed doing environmental work, which is something I do well. I also felt I was spending too much time waiting for John to get home – which isn’t a good thing because he often works quite late in the evenings. So I recently accepted a job with the Air Quality Bureau for the State of New Mexico, located in Santa Fe. So far, I’m very happy with the new job.
  • John also really likes his current job. However, his team is actually located in California. So although he’s “officially” located in Albuquerque, he is in California about 1/4 of the time. He’s also on business trips to other places fairly frequently as well.

Commutes:

  • John likes living in the quiet of a rural area. And he finds a modest commute to be a good transition between work and home. He actually enjoys driving out to Placitas from Albuquerque when the day’s work is done.
  • Commuting does not work very well for me.  Driving at night gives me migraines. Plus, I have coaching clients scheduled in the evenings (I coach over the phone at home), and wouldn’t have time to coach if I had a long commute. I like to be close to everything and spend as little time in the car as possible.

Houses:

  • We are buying a small townhome in Santa Fe near my new job. I’ll be up there during the week. Then on weekends, we will either be there or in Placitas, depending on what we want to do that weekend.
  • Meanwhile, while we are waiting for the townhome purchase to complete, we are renting a small casita in Santa Fe.
  • We are remodeling the house in Placitas that John bought 20 years ago. When it’s done, he plans to be there during the week. And I’ll come down to Placitas on whatever weekends that he doesn’t go up to Santa Fe.
  • While we are waiting for the remodel to get finished, we have been renting a nearby house in Placitas.

We are looking forward to getting settled into the new townhome in Santa Fe, and the remodeled house in Placitas. We’re hoping both those things will happen by the end of this year, and we will no longer need either of the places we are renting.

To add to the confusion, we sold our rental property in California and purchased 3 replacement rental properties in Albuquerque this summer, which I blogged about quite a lot while that was going on. And we almost bought a house in Placitas this summer. I blogged a lot about that one too. But we didn’t buy it, and are remodeling our original house in Placitas instead.

There’s your rundown. This one’s for you, Steven! I hope that offers enough clarity that you can sit back and enjoy my amazing wit and light-hearted insight about the ups and downs of everyday life (LOL), rather than just shaking your head in puzzlement wondering what in the world your crazy sister is up to this time!