The Maine Event

Guess what! We're moving to Maine. By which I mean the state. On the other side of the country. That Maine.

I think a lot of you knew this already, at least in passing, but I figure that now that our house is completely devoid of furniture and our internet and power are scheduled to be turned off, and we sold our cars and bought a new one solely to get us across the country, and Todd has initiated his Home Depot transfer, and all that, it is safely official enough to make a real announcement.

You will be wondering why. Here's the reason, in a very large nutshell:

 Sandpoint is an awesome place to live for a lot of folks, but it is NOT an awesome place to live if you are young and just getting started and don't have established careers yet. Todd has a bachelor's degree, but not in something that is easily employable, so that didn't work out too well; thus, he decided to become an electrician, which he has found is his real passion anyway in addition to being (seemingly) practical. He has been going to electrical school for two years and applying EVERYwhere in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho that you could possibly apply to work as an apprentice electrician, but to no avail - there are just too many tradesmen out of work around here as it is. If an electrical company can hire a desperate journeyman or master electrician at a rock-bottom price, of course they're going to do that instead of hire an apprentice with 0 hours of experience on his apprentice card. We've come to terms with it at this point, and Home Depot has been a fine place for him to work and has taken good care of us. I repeat: Sandpoint is just not a good place to get started, unfortunate as that is. Meanwhile, I just completed my first year of college, trying to get prereqs for nursing school done. I was able to take a lot of online classes this year, but most of the classes I need at this point are only available on campus in Coeur d'Alene, which is a good hour from where we live; not an impossible commute, but pretty darned difficult when you have 1.5 kids, work an hourly job with an unpredictable schedule, your husband works an hourly job with an unpredictable schedule, and you can barely afford gas. So, going to NIC for me is also looking rocky at this point (plus I've not heard the best things about its nursing program), unless we were to move to Coeur d'Alene, but then we would lose our babysitter (my mom), and wouldn't be able to afford childcare.

Anyway, we're at a fresh chapter in our lives, and we are turning the page! We're off to new ground to see what else might be out there for us. We will be staying with Todd's parents for awhile to establish ourselves over there and pay off our debt (student loans and car) and also provide them with a good opportunity to do the grandparent thing! :-) I will be continuing school at Central Maine Community College, which from what I have heard has a killer nursing program. Todd will transfer his Home Depot job and continue the search for an apprenticeship.

Meanwhile: the lease on our house is up in August, so next week sometime we will be moving temporarily into an apartment in Ponderay that we can rent month-to-month long enough to get the baby born and be able to spend those first postpartum weeks without being homeless. (From what I've heard, homelessness is generally something you want to avoid when you have a new baby.) Because we don't know exactly when the baby will come and how long it will take until we're feeling up to driving across the country with two kids (there was a reason we got a car that has a DVD player in it), we can't say for sure when *exactly* we're moving to Maine, but at this point it's looking like the end of September or October 1st at the latest.

We're sad to be leaving the friends that we've made these past three years, but very excited about our new adventure and what the future holds! Plus, you'll all be reading my blog, anyway (right? ...RIGHT???), so you'll be able to keep apprised of the doings of the Nichols clan, and we can keep in touch. Also, you can totally be that person who's all, "Oh, we have friends in MAINE! Let's go have a cool vacation with lighthouses and lobsters and stuff and we can stay with our friends for FREE!" We'd love to be the catalyst for your rad Maine vacation, and I mean that in all seriousness. :-D

Updates to follow!