DTR

Brad and I had a chat this weekend. I told him while we were running errands that I needed to "talk." He asked sheepishly, "Is this going to be a DTR?" (DTR is code for Define The Relationship, a common chat with early-dating couples.) "Yes, it is a DTR. We need to define our relationship with time and money," I replied.

My semester ended on Friday. No more labs. Possibly no more teaching math for the rest of ever. But as is the occasion every year at this time, I find myself with a new schedule, a relatively open summer, time on my hands, and I know there are projects I've been meaning to work on... I just don't know where to start. This year there is an even bigger list of to-dos with moving, paring down, and making arrangements for this summer.

Here are the knowns:

-- Brad has a job at the university indefinitely. This provides income and health insurance. He would like to quit yesterday.
-- I am paid through mid August. I also have two summer school classes which bring in a bit of extra money. These go through June 19th, obligating me to stay here until then.
-- We can move into student housing as early as June 30. (This is new information as of Thursday! A new decision by the housing office allows us to move in even though I won't be taking summer classes after all.) Rent is about $1600 a month. The two move in dates are either June 30 or August 27. If we move in before August 27th, we have to pay for the whole summer, I believe. So it's either-or.
-- We could maybe stay in our current house until classes begin in September. Rent is $1000 a month. Except that our landlord is doing a short sale due to financial hardship. So we don't really know when we'll be kicked out.
-- We want to leave around July 4th weekend. Or at least that's what we've been talking about as a soft goal.

Here are the variables:

-- I've been offered a job (as of 5:30 on Friday night) as an office manager with a gifted kids summer school program that is run by a particular Maryland university. This would obligate me to be in Easton, Pennsylvania, from June 20 - August 11 or so. It's residential so I'd have a place to live, rent-free.
-- Brad is not allowed to accompany me unless he is employed by the program as well. They're working seeing if there are any open positions.
-- It would be a bunch of extra income for me, but not lots for Brad. Plus we'd need to either pay cobra or get another health insurance policy. But it would be rent-free.
-- What would we do for those three homeless weeks between August 11 and August 28 (when we can move in NY)?
-- Brad has a guys' weekend in August around the 15th. Location is TBA.
-- We want to visit people whom we haven't seen in a while. This includes a trip down the east coast (Virginia, North Carolina) and across the midwest (Chicago, Muncie, Columbus, Oil City, PA). This could be what we do with those three weeks, if we go to PA for the summer.

Here are things on my to-do list:

-- scan in all documents in the giant file cabinet
-- go through every single thing in the house and decide whether to keep and bring to NY, sell, or store for a year until we know what we're doing after my program
-- post the sell items on Craigslist-- aim to do this by May 30

This is A LOT! It's a dream come true, a new beautiful chapter for us, and everything we've hoped for. I cannot complain about the chaos as we are so very grateful for all of this.

It was a great conversation and I feel like we have some direction, at least for today. As of today, we're going to plan on going to Pennsylvania for the summer. Hopefully they'll fit Brad in and we'll work together this summer. Afterward we'll road trip for a while until we can move to NY.

Some questions remain:
-- Where do we store stuff? Florida or New Jersey/PA?
-- DO we store stuff, or do we just sell everything?
-- What about Brad's job hunt in NY?

It is fun to see God molding our hearts; this notion of selling our stuff is certainly not naturally happy for us. But yet we are 100% on the same page, of the same mind, and we are just following what we sense God is telling us. It's pretty great.