I burned out my worry circuits!

Got that goin for me? I would very much like to write a full description of my whimsical adventures in vermont but I have limited time :/ isn't that always the way

1. Magical all expense paid trip to VT/NH for a job interview
2. arrived thursday around 11 pm after flight to boston & 2 hr drive to lebanon nh (near Dartmouth college)
3. all day job-interview stuff at the Museum & Environs with all the staff and many of board on Friday
3.5 quality of life tour of vermont
4. Dinner with my contact (a contractor for museum) and her dad (a board vp) and his wife at "the best restaurant in vermont"
5. farmers market, drives, king arthur flour, house research, shopping, dinner at an interesting turkish place
5.5 it didn't totes agree with me :/ my poor tum-tum sooooo many gas bubbles
6. sunday - i had accidentally gone to andover nh instead of andover vt for house research appt on saturday. whoops. oh well i had a tour. sunday was the reschedule house appt and....it was a great house but too far from museum and too darn big, weirdly enough. Apparently 3000 sq ft is too much.

Then i drove back to boston among back rds from that place.

To be told at another date include stories of:
- why i bought a vermont-farm-lady gyspy skirt
- why i bought a vermont flannel co flannel jacket
- how some crows told me to go look at a different hosue
- who is discounting a dreamhome by 100K for me
- food
-king arthur flour
-norwhich


Also to be told at another date include thoughts & calculations about things. Although i've been a LITTLE quiet on these fronts here and mostly talking about feelings i actually have looked at practical matters like schools (better than ours) cost of living (super comparable) and other considerations.


one of the best things to come out of this is a kind of renewed love affair with my own damn husband for a few main reasons: he is the Software Engineer Type. But, he's also the type that says 'let's move to vermont. it just feels right.' AND the type to say 'but don't listen to anyone else, and that includes me. make sure it's what you want, alice.'

and then i say 'we've known each other 20 years so please tell me if I'm saying anything out of character here' or 'one of my concerns is'

and we don't ALWAYS agree on things, or have the same priorities, but damn, we do love each other a lot, and we're both willing to understand each other and try to make each other happy.
-

part two/ this is fine

ok, so, i do wish I could write out all the thoughts, emotions, and everything about us 'probably' moving to vermont. It used to be maybe. Now it's probably!

They are working on an appropriate job offer to incentivize me. but i just got a raise here. IDK. I think if I made the same and Dan made the same (he can generally work remotely) that we'd do fine.

We wouldn't want to over-reach in terms of houses/mortgage expenses, that is for certain.

However, within our price range are nice old houses that might not need much more than paint, or sometimes even less - with mountain/valley/meadow/creek/forest vistas (pick one) and generally near a very cute small town.

schools:
- dan and i are researching because ty has Mild Special Needs (I think that's the best way to put it) and there are options. first, vt is apparently ranked 3rd in the nation for public school quality. secondly, the schools i saw in the 'region' we'd be moving to are bigger & newer & have better playgrounds & fields than we have. Bigger is a mixed bag - VT can't believe our town is smaller, but our particular town thinks it's new england anyway.
- they have school choice at some high schools - meaning some country elementaries don't have high schools of their own so they bus you to wherever you choose and/or offer you that same dollar amount toward private school tuition.
- I should do a pinterest board for this tbh.
- Once i started at Autism Speaks and looked for resoruces in vt, first htere weren't many but after i found one good one on the site it linked me to a bunch more stuff. Including ABA stuff, sensory network, research unit at Dartmouth, etc, etc. They ALSO have a resources-for-autism page for local schools.

So, while i don't know what we're doing with that yet specifically I do feel pretty confident that we have good choices and i haven't seen anything that'd set us back besides the adjustment period he'll have and also if kids are assholes - and that's not super predicatble.


So the PLAN is once we actually start talking money and making real plans, one of the items on the list would be call school districts and talk to special ed directors. Maybe I'll talk to our people here first for advice.

Megan MIGHT have adhd or OCD or something, she's realllly into routines, but so far she does fine in a classroom.


The only reasons to not proceed would be:
-guilt/obligation feelings to other people to stay
- inertia
- fear
- if i decide it's not actually what i want but just what dan wants ....but, the thing is, one of the reasons he particularly is thinking Vermont is because he knows me, and he knows it's a fit for both of us.



Additional chats with dan were: my very good friend cautioned me to be sure you're 100% in with me and the kids, honey. i gotta say i believe you are 100% supportive of me. I'm not totally 100% sure of your support of the kids, though. And then we talked. And then I was like, oh, yep, we're actually fine, but it was worth it to talk/ask. (Remember how he stayed home with Ty for paternity leave? brought the kids to/from school when possible? right now he works so far away his schedule doesn't allow it. he admits i'm doing everything right now. His adventures in backpacking - are basically to see cool stuff and be in wilderness, and like if we lived in wilderness that would only be A Day Hike not a 3 day thing. It's not about being AWAY from the family. So no real doubts there but I'm glad we talked about it. If i'm wrong, i'm wrong but I trust him.)


i also told him one of the Classic Things about being an adult child of alcoholic (sometimes i hate to bring that up) is that it is VERY hard to know what I actually want vs what makes everyone else happy. It's a woman thing too. But, see above, we've been 'friends' since 1994. He knows me. He actually is very good at Getting people. So, i THINK what i want is coffee on the porch looking at a misty mountain (who doesn't) and then a lazy hike with a scarf i knitted myself. That's what I think i want. My museum has echoey pine floors, miniature steampunk machinery (and lifesize) and 3d printers and robots too. It has an otter and a MILL WHEEL PIT.

How can that NOT be a life i'd love?