Going away party and update

We had a great time at our going away party on Saturday night. My parents invited a bunch of our friends and we had fun playing games, spending time with people, eating dinner, etc. It really was a lot of fun! They all spent a few minutes praying for us and our move (which is now less than 2 weeks away) and even got everyone to sign a picture frame which we'll take with us.

As far as our plans go, things are moving right along. Our truck is reserved, a ton of boxes are packed, and I've made all kinds of phone calls to cancel various services up here and start said services at the new place.

Our apartment is really starting to look like a packing zone...boxes filling an entire corner of the living room and other areas getting steadily emptier and emptier. There's still a lot to do, but we're making serious progress and we'll definitely be done in a week and a half...we hope. :-)

The updates are likely to come faster now, so be sure you stay tuned!

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Laid Off, Set Free, and Writing a Book

You read that right, Shelsy and I were laid off today. The company we've been at for over 3 years decided not to honor our original stated departure date of mid-May and to let us go early. The fact that they couldn't even give us the extra two or three weeks we'd asked for is kind of a slap in the face, but whatever.

We were planning on leaving in a few weeks anyway, so all this does is push our move date up a bit. So don't be sad for us. We're happy to be out of that place...its been no secret that we haven't exactly been proud of the company recently and we're actually quite excited to be gone.

Feel sorry for the other people who were laid off and were completely blindsided. But even when you're excited about leaving, it still hurts a bit.

So! What now? Well, I am continuing my job hunt process and if we end up moving before I find something, then I'll be able to apply in person. Shelsy is still pursuing the plan of auditioning for a performance role at Disney. In the meantime we are looking into our eligibility for unemployment--hopefully we can collect some so the process of being laid off isn't completely wasted. We're both seriously looking forward to the move and excited about this head start.

Our official move date is now the second weekend in May. We now have to reserve the truck and finish packing! :-)

In other news, I am in the process of writing a book about our experiences at PALCS. That's all I can tell you at present...look for it on the NYTimes best seller list next summer.

(cross-posted at The Dastardly Report)

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Our Second Home

In 2006, approximately 80 million Americans owned a second home. Ryan and I are now a proud part of that number. Well, except that both of our homes are apartments, so we don't actually own anything. And it's only temporary. But there aren't any actual statistics for weirdos like us so we'll just pretend.

As of yesterday we officially have a home in Florida. We've never seen it and have no idea when we'll get to move into it, but it's there, just waiting for us. It's kind of a cool, pointless feeling. :-)

Number of boxes packed to date: 16.5


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Air Conditioning

So it was pretty warm in Pennsylvania today. The high today was 71, which doesn't compare to the high in Orlando, which was 88. But still, 71 in early April is pretty warm. As I was driving today, I was very tempted to turn my car air conditioning on.

I decided not to, however. I thought to myself, self, you're moving to Florida, it's going to get a lot hotter than 71...don't be a wimp and turn on the air conditioning now.

So I thought back to myself, self, you're right. I'll wait until we move.

And that's what I'm doing. I have decided that I will not turn on my car air conditioning until we get to the tropical weather of Orlando. Now this isn't a hard and fast, "I PLEDGE!" kind of thing...if it gets into the 90s here for some reason, I'm definitely changing my mind on that decision. But I'm going to try.

Think I can do it? :-)

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Video of our new apartment!

A very special thanks to David Gilland of Metro Life Church for taking time out of his day last Saturday to head over to our new apartment complex and take a few shots for us. I've put a 50 second edit together which you can watch above. Looks pretty nice, doesn't it? :-)

David was speaking through the video as he wandered around the complex, telling us what various buildings were and stuff like that. Money quote from David: "It's just starting to get warm here in Florida..."

Guess he doesn't realize that we're coming from the frozen tundra of Pennsylvania where the 68 degree weather yesterday was cause to bust out the shorts and flip-flops. :-)

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Two Weeks From Everywhere

"Well ain't this place a geographical oddity! Two weeks from everywhere!"
--O Brother Where Art Thou

So today I realized something. We can move into our new apartment in two weeks. So, from here on out, when I get a job, I can tell them I can start in two weeks. So Shelsy and I are now on two weeks alert, I suppose. :-) Having the possibility of moving in two weeks constantly there is a bit scary. Guess we should start packing a little more, eh?

Speaking of that, we had a more serious packing day today. We went through the storage closet and consolidated everything into boxes and labeled them all. We're quickly approaching the limit of stuff we can pack in advance. It'll soon just be a waiting game. Once we know for sure when we're moving, we'll pack up things like dishes, clothes, the TV, stuff like that.

So this is about to get exciting. I have applied for some pretty cool sounding jobs over the past couple weeks. A few of you may have heard about the blogging position at the advertising company that I applied for. Unfortunately, that one didn't work out. But that simply means that God has something better out there for me. I'm confident that He'll provide...and, to be honest, two of the jobs I applied for yesterday sound just as, if not more exciting than the blogging one.

We'll keep you all posted. We may still have over a month left in the slowly thawing north, but we could be up and moved pretty quickly if an opportunity presents itself. Stay tuned!

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(APRIL FOOLS!) Change of Plans

UPDATE: As most of you guessed, this story was, indeed, an April Fools joke. I hope it made you laugh. :-)

Yes, after very little thought, Shelsy and I have decided on a fairly drastic change of plans. Instead of Florida, we have decided to move to Australia. As in, the land down under.

I managed to get a job at the Sydney Opera House sweeping the stage, but they say I can move up to Choir Master in 25 years or so. Shelsy's going to work at a local telecommunications firm doing network infrastructure troubleshooting and integrated systems management. Either that or McDonalds, she hasn't decided yet.

What are our reasons for moving, you ask? Well, we've always wanted to visit, firstly, and what better way to explore a new place than to move there? Also, they say that the water swirls the other way when going down the drain and that's definitely reason enough. They also have cool accents down there that we both plan on adopting immediately.

Another reason for moving is that the seasons are completely reversed. Cold in June and warm in January. I could have a barbecue on my birthday! How brilliant is that? If that's not reason enough to move, I don't know what is.

We plan on exploring the outback, too. Maybe adopting a pet kangaroo or two. Eventually, we hope to start our own preservation society and kangaroo adoption and placement service. We just both have a heart to live among the animals and live off the land.

So if you could pray for us, that would be great. This is a big step of faith and since we haven't really prayed about it or discussed it with anyone, we'd appreciate it if you guys could, at least.

UPDATE: As most of you guessed, this story was, indeed, an April Fools joke. I hope it made you laugh. :-)

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