Since half of the conversations I’ve been having with friends and family lately seem to be fielding questions about our big transition, I figured I’d bring the conversation here as well and give you a little glimpse into what we’re up to. 🙂
Over the next few months I’ll commonly refer to getting out of the Army as ETSing, which stands for Expiration of Terms of Service. So many acronyms in the military; It’s a miracle I’ve learned so many. 😉
As a writer, I’m not even quite sure where to start or how to organize this conversation because there’s truly so many working pieces of this puzzle right now. There’s so much unknown about where we’ll be next spring, but there’s peace knowing that by summertime we’ll have answers to everything that seems so foggy right now.
We have three big things to figure out between now and March.
- Jamie’s new job
- Selling our home
- Figuring out what kind of home we’ll rent or buy
Here’s where we’re at with each.
Jamie’s job search
Jamie’s self-motivation to find the right job is through the roof. There are a ton of reasons we’ve never second-guessed if getting out of the Army is the right decision for us, and one of those reasons is because Jamie gets so fired up doing tasks related to finding a job.
For months and months, he’s spent every evening talking on the phone, reading books, perfecting his resume, looking for jobs on his own, as well as working with a head hunter (and all that that entails). He’s doing a certification course right now that makes him more marketable, among a zillion other things.
Words cannot express how proud I am of him. I’ve never, not one single time, heard him gripe about the mile-long “job hunt” checklist of things to do. When he talks about the things he’s learning or the conversations he’s having, he has this passion in his voice that makes me really excited. It’s still too early to land the types of jobs he’s looking at, but we both feel good about the place he’s in and the direction he’s heading.
Selling our home
Our handyman came by a couple of weeks ago to fix a couple small things, so now we’re just in maintenance mode until it’s time to list. We’ve met with our realtor once already, and she’s coming by again when I get back from Alabama to give me a list price and set up a timeline for pictures, the listing to go live, etc. Buying and selling homes isn’t my favorite thing in the world because things always seem to come up, but we’re anxious to get this ball rolling!
What home we’ll move into
Oy. This one gives me a bit of a headache. So much to figure out.
In our ideal world, we’d find a perfect house in the perfect price range that we could close on the week after Jamie is finished with the Army. The odds of this happening are slim considering we’d also need to find time to visit wherever we’re moving to to house hunt.
The Army will hold onto our stuff for six months free of charge after they pick it up and then move it into our home when we say go, so we’d really like to avoid moving into a rental home for a year, since we’d then have to move ourselves later on. We’ve gotten use to the convenience of free packers and movers via the Army, so we’d like to avoid the work of moving on our own down the road if we can. 🙂
So, we’re not really sure how this will look. Our goal is to buy a home immediately and move in in April, but we only want to buy a home that we truly love and can see ourselves raising our kids in. We did enough big moves in our 20s that we’d like to stay put in our 30s. 🙂
So, a ton of unknowns, but a ton of things to be hopeful and excited about. I can’t wait to look back on this post in a few months and see how all of these gray areas became more colorful.
Hi! I’m Erica, and I absolutely adore sharing my life on this website with you! I come here almost daily to blab about all of the things related to being a regular wife and mother in today’s ever-evolving society. I share about our new home, what’s on our kitchen table, what we’re hanging in our closets, where we’re traveling to next, my crazy 5 a.m. work outs, how I make time for girlfriends, our faith, and much more. We always have a lot of balls in the air and somewhat thrive on the chaos. I believe in the power of story-telling as a form of inspiration and entertainment, so I’m here to do both! I was born and raised in north Alabama and recently re-planted roots here again after my husband transitioned out of the Army (he is now in the Reserve and it’s going so well!) I’m a super proud mom to three little girls (ages 7, 4, and 1) who seem to be the stars of the show around here (for good reason – they’re pretty great!) I’m so glad you found me and are here reading! I hope we can get to know each other here on the blog as well as Facebook and/or Instagram. xoxo