alicevangeline

I used to try to be Vague about my location but I'm just kinda tired of everything.

Here is a Story about the Governor and the ICE.

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december: Governor: "There are no plans to build an ice facility in NH."
(whisper whisper - 'there are plans.')

january: Governor:  "Ok, I didn't know about any plans to build an ice facility.  The people who did know and didn't tell me have been sacked."

local officials to newspapers: "the facility is not news to us, we know, the gov's office knew" 



Senator MH to Ice Director convo in early Feb:
"are there plans to build an ice faciilty in NH?"
"yeah, we've been working with the gov's office, I don't know what to tell ya"

mid February: governor:
"ok i'll release the plans about the facility"

the plans: "merrimack NH ice facility will be big and beautiful. OKLAHOMA's economy stands to benefit x dollars from the investment."

YES. They forgot to find/replace 'oklahoma' in their template proposal. 
https://www.nhpr.org/nh-news/2026-02-13/new-documents-ice-facility-merrimack-ayotte-claims-dhs-lacked-communication 

I guess, this is the best summary - thanks gemini 

• Alice informed Dan about job uncertainty due to district budget risks before [at] the March 10 vote.
• Alice concluded they should make a mortgage offer soon, as the commute is manageable while job hunting.
• Dan asked if Alice wants to keep location options open during the job search before committing to a move.

 
Dan has valid point.

Folks if you have any input about staying realistic:
- we kind of loved house number 3 yesterday. It will be a little $400/month cheaper than ours according to my calculations (including property taxes). 

- the arguments against it are: 'do we want to make a change NOW? are we ready?' followed by 'it has a giant barn we could do something with' and 'it's far from alice's current life, but not impossible.'  and "how do we feel about being on main street in a town again?"  (Note that the last one is a question - we actually don't know.)

Well.

After talking with my boss this morning on the mentor & boss level,  being close to 'my current job' really doesn't matter.I mean, I'm not going to get canned immediately or necessarily at all, but a) it's a hazard and b) it might be a dumpster fire of stress next year. 
A lot of that depends on the March 10th vote, which includes things like :

• approve teacher's contract or renegotiate. if we renegotiate, what with - we'll be like 'we have no money for the increases you're used to' and they'll be like 'ok'? doubt.
• one or two towns withdraw leaving three in the district -- if that passes, it'll be crazy next year and I will have the fun task of helping people figure out if they're going to the new school/s or staying.  AND we get the joy of next year's budget, which isn't going to be magically full of breathing room.
• If the withdrawals don't pass, we'll have more stability but angry people and board members (they want to leave but didn't get to, and they're loud voices).  

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So that is all about me & work, but it also relates to me as a parent:

The proposed school might be objectively better.  I base that on a few things:  one, they're standards based (and we're supposed to be but are still figuring out how to do it right).  Two, the potential electives include lots of justice things, which are very Lizzie aligned rn. Also chinese and spanish are language options, and we're fighting about whether we can afford to offer two languages.  (She's been learning japanese, french, and Chess in duolingo.). Three, they literally do have a queer-straight alliance - ours is a 'diversity club' which is not bad.  Chat GPT was explaining to me that VT is structurally more sound for 504 support AND lgbt support. (She's only 13 maybe she'll change her mind, but in the meantime, we support who she is now). 

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If we went for the house, it's far from the Hybrid Job i'm interviewing for in 2 weeks. But that's a) a hybrid job and b) not a sure thing, and c) the house has been on market since sept, I would hope it could wait just a little longer.

d. If the house doesn't wait a little longer then it's not meant to be. I'll keep telling myself that.


FOR THE RECORD:  Toad Hollow had an icejam on the roof and it was leaking into the house (which was cozy AF and smelled of the wooden walls in a good way).   Popple Dungeon was prettier in pictures but was last updated in 1978. 
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Much like my namesake, I do a lot of 'ooh, what's over here?' 
And when I work with my therapist, we remind me not to get carried away on the initial wave of enthusiasm.  Sometimes the wave is actually a river, and the best way to know for sure is to give it time. 

So fkn boring, and sometimes there's urgency like 'if we don't jump on this house it'll sell.'

But that said,  after a few days of mental chaos, and thanks to writing about it, and thanks to husband for sending an alarm bell that we weren't actually ready to jump on a house,  I can go back to 'next right step' things.

So I'm going to try to do this:
- keep on the 'fix up' list and hire contractors.  These things need to get fixed regardless of whether we're staying here.  I tend to send Dan emails for him to review before I reach out to contractors but he never answers me so f that; I'm just gonna send it.

- trust dan's judgement on when it's 'too scrambly'
- go slow
- if a dream-house kind of place pops up, we CAN check it out and go for it. we have the ability to do things quickly when we set our minds to it, but we prefer not to scramble.

UDPATE
4 hours later, here's how that's going:

• made myself a rubric for jobs, and another one for houses.
• went ahead and set up a viewing for a house that may qualify as dream house, IDK, we need to see it.  It's close by enough I wouldn't need to change everything.
• responded to interview requests for two positions

Probably it's not super fun to read my stuff when I'm hemming and hawing, but it does help me to write things out.  So this is another one of those, where I'm trying to both Be Present in the Moment and also shape a desired future.

I probably read too much fiction with devious heroes.  Anyway!  Here's me sorting out the different Influences and also trying to figure what i want.
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Pushes for "MAKE A CHANGE:"

I think I have a job interview this week for a hybrid position in population health as an event coordinator for maternal health.  And unless the pay is worse than I'm doing now, it's likely to be more fun and a bridge to other things.  Doesn't mean I've got the job, but it's nice to have the possibility! (I could get to that location easy from where we are.)  

 At meg's therapy the other night we were talking about how the school change was the right move.  She mentioned the new school is less racist, and also that at her old school, one of our neighbors 'had the police at his house because he joked about shooting up the school.'  Yep, he lives in the neighborhood and has access to guns.  But also WOULD be the sort to joke about it.  Meanwhile I forgot that one of the other neighbor kids, who is little, was holding a rifle and the bus stop kids said hi and he turned to face the kids (with his rifle) and said 'hi guys!' cheerfully, absolutely forgetting he was holding a firearm.  Meg assumes it was a real rifle; the family hunts and drains their deer in front of the house (a weird sight).   So that makes me want to bail from the neighborhood but that's not  super rational; i'm just concluding there are Unsafe People here and again i say i prefer all the OTHER amendments to the 2nd.

Also at therapy kiddo whipped up a fantastic drawing in a minute and talked about cool things with deep perception and I was just struck by how cool she is, but how much she has to fkn struggle at school, and felt even more committed to the idea of her not doing the public high school.  Like, if we HAD to, she could do it, but I think we can find a better match. IDK.  Mostly thinking about those same kids that she wanted to get away from, including the neighbor-with-the-threat and the racists, will be at our public high school. The school may go through some serious changes over the next 4 years including adding grade levels or people withdrawing, IDK. They have block-scheduling now and people are pushing to go to an 8 class period day, which doesn't work for her either.   I THINK she would do ok at the career center for a half day,  but unless her med change is MAGICAL, it's just going to be hard work every day to exist.  Like, meanwhile, she's got gfts and talents she's just developing on her own.  I don't wanna do homeschool because we get on each others nerves so much, and because I have to work.  So.  A different school is worth pursuing, especially thinking about gifted/talented whatever and being at a charter school without bells ringing and timed tests just seems like a better chance for her.

I can't figure out how to predict our tax increase -- what it'll be in real dollars.  Like, what if our mortgage will go up by $200/month, are we ok with that?  Like everyone is telling us to brace, and we have estimates of the Mill.  And I tried to find how to calculate it.  Then I got bored.

So i went into a 'live in Keene for 4 years' rabbit hole because it would be nice to have access to therapist, haircuts, thai food, and her school, all within minutes.

After I sent dan a Very Adequate suburb house he responded with some lovely places (deals, basically) and we're going to look at one in south VT this morning.  But what about Alice's job(s) and megan's school?  IDK.   It would be 45 min from there to current job, hour fifteen to the hybrid one I'm looking at.    Meg school:  she'd have her choice of available schools - the town doesn't have their own high school, so they'd pay tuition for her to go wherever; most kids go to brattleboro or to the next one south which is in Massachusetts.  So, there'd be options, and it'd be a Change, which was the point.  

BTW, I also applied for a specail education teaching job with a 10K signing bonus, but the location is further east in NH, so that would be a different kind of change.  (They'd train on the go. Idk. I think I might have a lot of assets to do that well).

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Pulls to Stay Put and Wait for It

I tried to set up the community corps so that it could exist without me, but not sure if it's there yet and it's growing nicely.

Boss genly said 'just think, you can keep your day job and also do all of that stuff.' Which is a fair point, if they're gonna 'let me' keep doing that stuff. 

The county democrats are like 'come on get involved' and I could imagine a future where I do run for something and use my talents that way, and I've been building a reputation here for 7 years, so moving out of town would cost me some of that hard-won rep.  That's one reason I push for staying in a local-ish radius like Keene - I could separate a little but not lose all my connections.

I also had moments of 'i will miss this place' because there is so much that's magical about it.  And we don't NEED to make a change, I just ... it's more house than we are using, and it has changed a lot.


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Anywho.  the bottom line is to do Next Right Things, and it's okay to plan and evaluate, but also try to be In The Moment.

And one thing on that - we took Ty out to dinner for his belated birthday and he was so happy ;)

Sometimes when I'm being overly dramatic (in my head) about both parents being gone, I hear Lego Batman singing his orphan song, and it reminds me not to take myself too seriously with that.

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I have another one:

Emmett is listing all the odds stacked against them, and he says "there was about to be a but' and somebody says 'you're a butt.' 

Heh.

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I am getting out of my head a little bit -- I'm not sick anymore, so that helps.   

I'm reading something fun, and watching Shrinking and laughing a little.  I'm thinking about my emotional armor:  when to wear it, and when to take it off, and trying to feel what the difference is. 

I stopped giving a crap on Threads and am posting whatever and RTing and DMing and having a good time.  Mychal the librarian and I  were talking** about depression and I invoked choose-your-own-adventure books as a reason To Not Turn Into A Ghost.  (**Saying we were talking is a stretch:  I replied to a post of his thanking him for sharing a story and wondering whether i should. then he did a post, not a reply, thanking people for sharing their stories, so it might have had nothing to do with me, but I went for it and shared a bit about depression.)

It would have been better if I wasn't thumb-typing at 10 pm and like, thoughtfully composing a draft with a keybaord, but c'est la vie, c'est threads.

I'm also giving myself space and grace to Have Feelings about Dystopias.  We took it easy during COVID when we needed to - 'these trying times' and all that - and now we're still trying to hustle but also to add activism in.  Man, I'll do what I can. If I'm less productive, fine, and at least me being productive doesn't, like, enrich billionaires.