Time For A New Start

After the new year I decided that I wanted to get out of Charleston. I had originally been planning on moving over to the West Ashley area or into this amazingly located apartment downtown. Charleston is a lovely place, I just came to the conclusion that I desperately needed to get out of town and go somewhere I had no history and that was away from the Air Force. In mid-January I went for a quick weekend trip with a friend up to check out Nashville and see if it was the right place for me. On paper it was: much closer to my family up in Indiana, a completely new place for me, still in the SEC so I can go to Gator games at Vandy AND nearby Univ of Tennessee, and it was a larger city than Charleston which is what I wanted. Anyone I mentioned Nashville to just raved about the place so I thought there must be something good about it and I should check it out. Despite the trip going by incredibly quick, I managed to see enough to appreciate the fact that there is tons to do here, music is kind of a big deal, and there are so many completely different areas to explore. Sold.

The day after I got back from Nashville I told my boss my intention to move. I was terrified and nauseous because my coworkers had become a huge part of my life and my new family, but I wanted to give them as much of a heads up as I possibly could - which ended up being 5 1/2 weeks. Everyone was completely up to speed with my personal life and incredibly supportive. They obviously didn't want to see me go, but they wanted me to be happy so they understood why I wanted to leave so badly. After the decision was made to move to Nashville I had a crap ton of logistics to figure out...and I was on a close deadline: the beginning of March. I mapped out my timeline and decided I needed to get the house cleared out the last weekend of February to make sure it was done before "the evil one" returned to the house. That meant I had to be completely packed and have a large u-haul loaded up that weekend (not to mention somewhere to unload it all on the other end!). I was beyond stressed for those long weeks of packing up an entire 2200 sq ft house, apartment hunting (virtually - not like I could just drive up there anytime and look at some places), fulfilling all the items on my Charleston "bucket list" (Ft Sumter, tons of restaurants, etc etc), and of course job hunting. I was at least calm in the fact that I had finally made a big decision of where I was going - I just assumed that everything else would fall into place, which it all did! (Good things happen to good people, right??) :)

Well, I got an apartment lease signed a couple weeks before the move, got the u-haul and Charlie Brown loaded up (HUGE thanks to JD - never could've gotten it all done on my own!), moved, and unloaded in the new apartment, and had a couple interviews with a great company in between. Once I moved up here I didn't have a job yet, but it was in the works! I had some money saved up from the previous four months living in the house rent-free so I had a good cushion.

Well, Ladies - I emptied out the whole house!! :) Ha, Sir D!!!

My view for the 9+ hour drive up to Nashville. JD was nice enough to drive the 26' beast for me! Charlie rode shot gun in the U-Haul and Molly joined me in the CR-V as part of my effort to enjoy as much girl time with her as possible before I had to give her up!

Part of my Nashville unloading team. You can't really tell from this picture, but there was a lot of stuff crammed into the beast!

I have tons of people to thank for helping me during that super crazy time: LC, Maddie, D, D's dad, JD, Adam, Abby, Jeremy, and my parents and brothers to name a few!