Tentative Date Set

The trip to TN went okay. Undoubtedly the scenery is far more beautiful. When driving you see rolling hills, farm land, rivers and trees....much different than what you see driving through the city. However, with that said, I would personally trade all of that in to have everything close by. Everything out there is so far away, just to go to wal-mart will be a trip in itself. The manufactured home is small but doable, I know we'll make it work somehow. The 10 1/2 acres is cool to have, but will definitely require some work. I'm so sad to leave, but a small part of me is looking forward to a new beginning and "getting away from it all".  Here is a short video of the girls jumping into the leaves on our TN property.

 So Joe set a date to rent the U-Haul. He set it for January 25th, but also said if we need later that Feb. 1st would also be okay. I am trying to get Joe to set it for the Feb. 1st date instead so that gives us just a little more time. We are having a birthday party for Emily, Nicole, and Ashley on the 20th, and if we leave on the 25th that is just going to be too much of a time crunch. Not to mention that we pay by the month for Ashley's preschool, so I'd like for her to at least be able to finish out the month of January there. I will keep everyone up to date on the date we are going to leave for sure, as soon as I know.

The Notice Has Been Given

Talked to Joe last night, and he gave his notice to his job on Monday (Dec. 3rd). It is a 2 month notice, which means we should be moving around the 1st week of February. There are some things I am excited about....starting over in a new place, kind of like a new beginning. Also there are 2 girls in the "neighborhood" we will be staying at which are aged either 5 and 7 or 6 and 7. Either way, they are definitely in the right age group for Emily and Nicole. There are also a couple of stay at home mom groups in the county, though at this moment I do not know if I will continue to homeschool for 1st grade or let them finish out 1st grade in the public school there. Also (something I am looking the most forward to) is the fact that we will probably be able to own a few goats, bunny's, maybe a pig...I'm just a big animal person, and with having all that property, a barn, and a fenced in pasture, we can really explore having some animals we'd never be able to have here.  A couple of things I'm not looking forward to (other than obviously missing family and friends), is the cold weather and the fact that everything is so far away. Here in FL we are worried about "coastal flooding" and hurricanes, but there we have to worry about the New Madrid Fault. I found out that we are most definitely in a zone that could sustain damage from a massive earthquake. I think living out of the city will be to our benefit, but don't necessarily feel safer when it comes to global catastrophe's.  We are well into that red zone.



I am also worried about the restaurant failing. If it succeeds...awesome! But 80% of new restaurants fail, so we are more likely to fail than to succeed (statistically speaking). If it were just me and Joe fine, but we have our little girls to support, so this takes a huge leap of faith...faith that I don't have. Needless to say, we are leaving on Tuesday to check everything out, so when I get back I will write another post to let everyone know how it all went. I am hopeful.

Counting Down The Days

What I really want to call this is "My TN Nightmare", but truth be told, I don't really know how it will be. I am really nervous (and sad) about moving away from everything I've known all my life...all on a chance that this may or may not work. I won't be posting much here now, but as it gets closer to the time we leave and especially once I get there I will be using this all the time as a means for those I know and love to be in touch with how we are doing out there. As it stands right now the plan is to leave around the first week of February, but that is subject to change. As of right now Joe, myself, my mom, and the kids are all taking a trip up to TN Dec. 12th to view the potential property we are looking to rent from and also to check out the area/neighbors. Please save the web address (or add it to your favorites) so you can check in from time to time.