I hate moving

I have decided that I truly hate the moving process. It is truly awful (unless you have someone to do it for you). I hate packing. I hate unpacking. I hate doing it at all when I know I am going to have to do it all again after a short time. It is doubly awful in the summertime. You see all the moving tips webpages and there are smiling people on those websites. ¡¿¡¿What are they smiling about!?!? I see only one solution--stop moving. Maybe I can get my husband to catch on to this idea.

I have also realized that Juan Carlos and I have a ridiculous amount of possessions. Since our new home is in an area that has a much higher cost of living, I have set a new goal to simplify my life. There is no reason why we cannot be satisfied living in a small space for the duration of our lives, unless we end up having several children, which at our age looks unlikely. Most of the people in the world live in a small home, if they have any home at all. It will be a challenge to learn to "be happy with less" in a world where the ultimate goal of everything is to get more, more and more. I expect that in the new Annie Martin's life there will be a lot less stress about storage, a lot less worry about a mortgage, and a lot more gratitude for the blessings that I have received.
So, the new Annie Martin will stop buying books and learn to spend more time at the public library. She will also stop trying to complete five embroidery projects at once and instead will complete one at a time. The new Annie Martin will limit herself to 10 pair of shoes and will give the rest to the unfortunate shoeless. And she will realize that you can have enough Bath and Body Works lotion. She will stop complaining about the lack of space and live within the space she has.
In the meantime, I guess it's back to packing.

Packing up...

The last few months have been very hectic as we have finished graduate programs, interviewed for new jobs and looked for housing during our preparations for our move to Boston. I finished up the school year last week. The end of the school year is always a little sad for me. After working every day for a year with 120 kids it seems a bit anticlimactic to have them walk out the door and never see them again. It is one of the hard things about being a teacher.
I am surely going to miss North Carolina. We took a short trip up to Massachusetts last month to look for a place to live and so I could interview at several schools. I obtained a position at a great school in Attleboro and that is where we will live for the time being. Hopefully we will love our new place as much as we have loved North Carolina.