settling, unsettling

I like it here. I really do. Ucluelet is a nice little down and we have some great friends here.

I haven't spent a winter here yet, but I hear it's sleepy (no tourists) and rainy.

Well, now that we are no longer waiting for the brewery to get moving, we are considering a number of options:

Yuba City, California
Marquette, Michigan
Lakewood, New York
Sauk City, Wisconsin

and others as they arise. By 'considering' I mean that Dan has applied for jobs/opportunities in these places and may or may not get an interview.

It's an interesting thing, and we went through this last fall too when we were looking for work. A job would come up in X place, we'd research the area, look on Google Earth, perhaps send away for the brochures.

We do have some criteria. The place has to be near water. The last three on the above list are on lakes. But it is for this reason we would not consider Boulder, Colorado. Not to mention the altitude. When we were on our honeymoon last fall, we decided that anything above 5,000 feet was unbearable.

We have now decided that if we moved to a place where there was a proper winter, that that would be okay. In those eastern states, they have maple syrup! And it would sure be a good excuse to knit non-stop. One more thing - hardneck garlics grow better in climates where the ground freezes in the winter.

I grew up in Alberta, remember walking to school in temperatures below 30 degees Celsius (that's lower than 20 degrees Fahrenheit). I learned how to drive in the snow. I can do winter no problem.

I mentioned garlic above. One of our dreams is to have a garlic farm.

And the price of real estate! The 60x80 foot lot across the street from us is $199,000.00. You can buy 32 acres with a house, barn, mill, and all kinds of timber for $105,000.00 in upper New York state.

If you remember the week before last I had a depressive episode, and that spurred a conversation about us being settled here. I told Dan that until he had a contract, I wouldn't feel settled here. Now that I know he won't get a contract, I feel strangely settled in being unsettled. I don't know if I can explain that. Like we are once again taking control of our fate and not waiting for other people to make up their mind.

I'm really on the fence. If we stay, great; I have lots of ideas for things we could do and we have a business plan in the works. If we move, that's fine too. I mean, we hate actually moving (it's never fun), but knowing that we could, if we have to, drop everything (except the kitty) and move somewhere else, then that would be okay.

So that's what's happening with us. I've been holding a lot of this in over the last three months, the anger (more like fury!) about not getting the contract, not getting paid. We don't have a lot of money right now but I know that this situation is temporary and within a year, we will be on our feet. At the end of the day, we still have each other (mush, mush). And that's the most important thing, right?