The Boring Life of a Hockenberry

Have you every had one of those days where you are just bored with everything? I mean, sometimes life gets boring. That's just the way it is. It's not always a 3-ring circus, although if you lived my life for a week, I'm sure you'd beg to differ. Especially when Kevin gets yet another crazy idea in his head (which he is supposed to be banned from doing.) That's how we ended up with a boat. And an RV. And a Jeep. Now it's the reason we will be moving back home to Michigan in a few weeks. Yes, a few weeks. As in less than 3. Don't worry, we've had plenty of time to prepare for it. Like, 2 whole weeks so far.


It's a little strange to think of Texas as not being home. It started out as our 2 year experiment turned into 6 full years. I don't think anyone saw that one coming. But I guess things were getting too comfortable and boring around here so it's obviously time to change things up. When Kevin's current company eliminated his position a couple of weeks ago, they offered him either a stellar severance package or a new position with a smaller salary, a smaller territory, and a smaller commission. (They couldn't possibly have expected people to jump at such a great opportunity like that one, right?) Then he gets a call from a competing company offering him a position back in Michigan (which is ironic, since that's exactly how we ended up in Texas in the first place.) Everything started falling into place, and since we're not ones to mess with fate, we're going with it. Which means that in less than 3 weeks, we'll be back in Michigan for good. (Yes, 3 weeks puts us in mid-December. No, I don't know what kind of morons move to Michigan in mid-December. Well, I obviously have an idea...)


Since we were planning on heading up to Michigan for hunting season in mid-November anyway, we used that time to look for a house to lease for 12 months. We didn't want to buy, since we didn't want to tie ourselves to a specific area until we figured out where I'd end up working. So we picked out a rental house in Brighton, Michigan. It’s nice. Not perfect, but it would definitely work for a year and was pretty much the only one that we liked out of the 5 that we looked at. So we go through the lease application and credit checks. Everything is good. We hop in the RV and head back to Texas early so that we could start packing. I think we were going through Missouri when we get a call from the realtor saying that the owner changed his mind and wouldn’t entertain anything under a 24 month lease. Are.You.Freaking.Kidding.Me. Had we known THAT 1) we wouldn’t have chosen that house and 2) we would have stayed in Michigan a few more days and kept looking for other ones. We were hoping to buy in the Spring/Summer anyway if possible, so there's no way we wanted to do anything over a 12 month. We would be lucky to be in there 9 months. So we said no. Then the guy came back with 16 months. We rolled our eyes and again said no.  By this time we’re back in Texas, moving in 3 weeks, and are homeless. We start looking online again and find a beautiful house to rent. Love it. It finally looks like this is going to work out after all. We started moving forward with it, only to find out that the owner had another offer for a 3 year lease with an option to buy at the end. Seriously people? Can we catch a break here? The realtor told us that the only way to put ourselves ahead of that guy was to buy it outright, which (as you'll recall) we had already summoned all of our financial responsibility-ness and decided against until we'd been up there for a while. Which means that the following day, Kevin was on a plane headed up to look at it to see if we wanted to buy it. I have no idea if this is a good idea, a bad idea, a horrible idea, or the worst idea we could possibly have. All I know is that we're moving in 2.5 weeks and still have no where to move too. It's a little stressful. 


After we made the decision that we were moving, the next question we asked is what am I going to do once we get there? (The correct answer is sit at home and pop bon-bons while Kevin is at work and Greyden is at daycare). As much as I'd LOVE to be the stay-at-home-mom type, I'm not. At all. I was the person begging my boss to let me come back to work 2 weeks early from my maternity leave. I need structure and routine, both of which Greyden pretty much sucks at. Don't get me wrong, I love the kid more than anything, but I could only take so much playing Bump on the Log with him. And to those people who told me that I would change my mind and want to stay home with him once he got older and more interactive:  WRONG. Now he's nice and mobile and never, ever where I left him. Yes, he's fun. Until you're ready to fall over from exhaustion and he's still going strong. Then he's not so fun anymore. 


When I told my boss that I was leaving (I'm surprised she could understand me with how hard I was crying - professional, I know) she was as upset as I was (minus the bawling like a baby part). She immediately asked me to do contract work for her, to which I happily agreed. I love my job and I was going to jump at the chance to keep doing it (even though I know she'd give me the shit jobs as punishment for leaving her). But even with having that opportunity, we still didn't want to buy a house, just in case I eventually needed to find a permanent job in the future. So why are we suddenly okay with buying? 1) We can't find a house to lease, 2) we tend to be the "go big or go home" types, 3) apparently life just wasn't exciting or stressful enough for us, and 4) my boss offered me the opportunity to stay on as a permanent, full-time Lexicon employee working remotely. She actually text me and asked if I was interested while we were still in Michigan. Excuse me while I bounce up and down in my seat like I just won the lottery. YES I WANT TO STAY ON! That's the only hesitation I had with moving in the first place. I didn't want to quit my job. My boss is amazing, my job is amazing, my company is amazing. So it looks like that's going to be a go! NOW I'm excited for this move (and not nearly as terrified as I was when we started this whole process).


The final step in this process is praying that everything goes through and we have a house to move into in the next few weeks. Hopefully we'll know for sure by the end of the week. If not, I guess it's a good thing we have the RV, because we'll be Cousin Eddie-ing it for the next few months!