From NASA to NASCAR

My husband became eligible for early retirement from NASA a year ago, and so he's been looking into possible other jobs for a while now. Neither of us are too fond of Houston summers, hurricanes, or the flatness. We knew we didn't want to live here forever, so when the government started offering "early outs" for which he was eligible, we decided it might be the right time for us to leave.

My husband began looking almost 2 years ago for possible jobs near San Antonio or the Hill Country in Texas (we did still like the rest of Texas!), but not much turned up. Then, he branched out and started looking at jobs in other states. I wrote about this once before, about a year ago when we had a potential lead on a job. That one fell through, though, so we stayed put.

Just a few months ago, after we'd pretty much accepted that nothing better was available right now, my husband got in contact with a NASCAR team in North Carolina looking for engineers. He flew up there for an interview, and it sounds like it's a really good match. They want to hire him, and we are finalizing the details now. So, just like that, it sounds like we're moving to (near) Welcome, North Carolina!

It is tricky enough to move with three young kids, but adding that to the typical busyness of Christmas is maybe not the best idea! They want my husband to start work there in January, so we are going to try to sell the house as soon as we can. We had a POD delivered a few days ago, so we can start de-cluttering. Painters have come the past 2 days to freshen the paint indoors and repaint our front deck, which is very worn. We are in contact with a few realtors, both here and in North Carolina. So things are really starting to get moving. I am already tired of packing. We have way too many books! And so much dust.... (yeah, I don’t dust much around here.)

December has also been very full of music. I have various rehearsals and concerts happening every weekend, and throughout the week, both for me and the girls. We have travel plans to visit my in-laws. We have parties to attend. We have houses to look at online. And my husband is trying to finalize all the retirement paperwork with NASA. Not to mention still trying to homeschool the kids. So, I may not write again for a while....

Got to go – more books to pack!