As many of you know, after a lot of thought and prayer my husband and I decided that we needed to move out of California. It had been something on our minds for a while now, but we never really seriously thought about pursing that move. It wasn't until our vacation in July that we came to the conclusion that moving out of California was something we felt led to do as soon as we could. Then the dilemma became deicing on what state, or even country, to move to. After a couple of weeks we narrowed it down to three states: Texas, Washington, or Colorado. Texas ultimately won out in the end.
One of the main reasons we picked Texas was because one of the bigger well known Churches that our current Church is connected with, is out there. Number one on our list was needing to know that there would be a good and highly rated Church that we could connect to that held the same beliefs and values that we do. Secondly, we needed to be in a state that had great schools and a lower crime rate than Orange County/Los Angeles which is where we are currently established. Right now, the only areas that we can afford to live in have terrible schools. I mean terrible as in they are below a 5 pt rating on the 1-10 scale and have horrible reputations. So horrible that we would ultimately need to place our future kids in a private school of some kind. We also are planning on adopting soon after we buy our first home, which means that we will need plenty of space and we will need to pay off all of our personal debt in order to have the funds to begin the adoption. Currently we are faced with either buying a home or placing all of our beloved pets in different homes and renting in a different area in order to afford adoption.
Now I say placing our pets in different homes because currently, there are little to no homes that are for rent that are allowing pets of any kind. Saying goodbye to our pets is not an option for either one of us. They are members of our family and we would not get rid of anyone in our family just because we wanted to live somewhere else. When we looked at possible places to rent in Texas, we discovered most if not all the places accept pets of all sizes and kinds. They were also okay with multiple pets in many cases as well. That was a hugs plus for us.
Lastly, we needed to live somewhere that did not have such long and horrific commutes like we do now. As of right now, it takes me two hours to get to work and about two to two and a half hours to get home. And that's on a good day. Thankfully I work part time now so it's not as much of a strain as it was when I worked full time. For my husband, if he doesn't have a carpool buddy it takes him almost the same amount of time. If we had any kids right now, my husband would only see our kid on the weekends because he would be gone before they woke up and be home by the time they were in bed. This was not okay for either of us. He has coworkers who actually have that situation currently at home, he also sees how it negatively effects them emotionally and physically. He himself does not want to be put through that. He wants to be able to have dinner with his kids during the week and to be able to build an actual relationship with them. To not just be another Dad that is a 'weekends only' parent.
After thinking through all of these things and having visited each state we were considering, we realized that Texas was the state for us. So, Lord willing, we will be moved out to the Fort Worth/Dallas area by summer 2017. We never thought that we would ever be truly saying goodbye to California and be moving to a different state, but God is funny like that. Like it says in Proverbs, we may put a plan together or think that we have all of our next steps figured out, but God has a better and bigger plan in store for us than we can imagine. We know that by submitting to His plan for us, that we will finally be able to add a child to our home and to have a much better quality of life than we will be able to here in California. It will be difficult to part with our family and to not have the ability to just stop by whenever we feel like it, but ultimately we know we will be able to adjust and find our new normal.
One of the main reasons we picked Texas was because one of the bigger well known Churches that our current Church is connected with, is out there. Number one on our list was needing to know that there would be a good and highly rated Church that we could connect to that held the same beliefs and values that we do. Secondly, we needed to be in a state that had great schools and a lower crime rate than Orange County/Los Angeles which is where we are currently established. Right now, the only areas that we can afford to live in have terrible schools. I mean terrible as in they are below a 5 pt rating on the 1-10 scale and have horrible reputations. So horrible that we would ultimately need to place our future kids in a private school of some kind. We also are planning on adopting soon after we buy our first home, which means that we will need plenty of space and we will need to pay off all of our personal debt in order to have the funds to begin the adoption. Currently we are faced with either buying a home or placing all of our beloved pets in different homes and renting in a different area in order to afford adoption.
Now I say placing our pets in different homes because currently, there are little to no homes that are for rent that are allowing pets of any kind. Saying goodbye to our pets is not an option for either one of us. They are members of our family and we would not get rid of anyone in our family just because we wanted to live somewhere else. When we looked at possible places to rent in Texas, we discovered most if not all the places accept pets of all sizes and kinds. They were also okay with multiple pets in many cases as well. That was a hugs plus for us.
Lastly, we needed to live somewhere that did not have such long and horrific commutes like we do now. As of right now, it takes me two hours to get to work and about two to two and a half hours to get home. And that's on a good day. Thankfully I work part time now so it's not as much of a strain as it was when I worked full time. For my husband, if he doesn't have a carpool buddy it takes him almost the same amount of time. If we had any kids right now, my husband would only see our kid on the weekends because he would be gone before they woke up and be home by the time they were in bed. This was not okay for either of us. He has coworkers who actually have that situation currently at home, he also sees how it negatively effects them emotionally and physically. He himself does not want to be put through that. He wants to be able to have dinner with his kids during the week and to be able to build an actual relationship with them. To not just be another Dad that is a 'weekends only' parent.
After thinking through all of these things and having visited each state we were considering, we realized that Texas was the state for us. So, Lord willing, we will be moved out to the Fort Worth/Dallas area by summer 2017. We never thought that we would ever be truly saying goodbye to California and be moving to a different state, but God is funny like that. Like it says in Proverbs, we may put a plan together or think that we have all of our next steps figured out, but God has a better and bigger plan in store for us than we can imagine. We know that by submitting to His plan for us, that we will finally be able to add a child to our home and to have a much better quality of life than we will be able to here in California. It will be difficult to part with our family and to not have the ability to just stop by whenever we feel like it, but ultimately we know we will be able to adjust and find our new normal.
