First off I would like to thank everyone who had positive thoughts for me during this process.  When we were at our lowest after the incident at PGE, people asked if there was anything they could do, and I asked people to say a prayer, or think a good thought.  I also put the entire situation in God’s hands and pretty immediately things started happening.  I believe in the power of positive thinking and I believe in a higher plan, so it would be remiss of me to not acknowledge that power at the beginning of this story.

For those who haven’t been keeping track I starting looking for work in earnest in July.   One was from a company that I had no relationship with and it was important to know that my skill set would still be relevant enough to make me a solid candidate.  The other job came through my network and was not one that I actively pursued.  I can’t stress enough how important my network was in this process (both for leads and references) and the best thing I did was use Linked In.  Initially it was a little uncomfortable putting myself out there as searching for work, but people were very nice and everyone gets it.  All that hard work paid off and by the end of September I had two solid job offers in hand.

I have never been in a situation where I had two different offers to choose from, and I was really lucky that we were staying with my friend Cori when all this happened.  She has worked in HR for most of her adult life and was really great with reducing my anxiety and helping me navigate the situation.  It seems kind of crazy to be stressed when two job offers is a wonderful problem to have, but I didn’t want to make the wrong decision.  On many levels they were both excellent choices, but our lives would be very different depending on which job I chose.

One job would be more comfortable and allow more flexibility with our travel. The other job would be more intense and would require being in one location for several months at a time.  One was the known and the other was the unknown and for completely different reasons they were both extremely appealing.  This week I have gone back and forth in my head trying to decide and I talked to my Mom, and my friends Jo and Cori at length.   Lee weighed in as well, but as a friend, and he was very careful to not add his personal needs into the mix one way or the other.  He was willing to try either one and generally was happy for me either way.

The reality is we don’t live in a vacuum.  Our lives are more intertwined and the decisions I make have a significant impact on him.  I also thought quite a bit about my daughter and grandson which brought me back to why I had started this process to begin with.  I want to be able to spend more time with them and provide her with as much support as possible.  One of the two jobs was a clear winner in what was best for Lee and Kyrston and ultimately that is the one I chose.  The fact that neither one of them put any pressure on me doesn’t change the fact that they would be significantly impacted.   At the end of the day one of the two jobs was best for everyone on balance and that was the decision I made.

The reason it took me so long to get there was I wanted to be 100% sure I made that decision for the right reasons and not out of fear of the unknown.  I had gone to a considerable amount of trouble to change my life and I was in a position where I could take a big risk.  My mother was actually the person who helped me work through that.  She said don’t think this will be the only time in your life you will get an opportunity like this.  I realized when she said it that it was exactly what I was thinking and I was limiting my choices by believing that.  I may be a bit older now, but I have lots of good work years left in me and more importantly by being debt free we have put ourselves in a situation where we had options.  We have proven to ourselves we can live  simply and our priorities have definitely shifted.  That doesn’t mean they won’t change again as our lives change, but for right now this is the best decision for me.

All of that being said I am extremely happy with my choice.  I look forward to working in my field again and the money will allow us to replenish the coffers.   From a blog perspective it will also be interesting to see how this compares to the first year we lived on the road when I worked a corporate job.  I had all sorts of anxiety back then that will hopefully be a non issue this time around especially because I know I can find a way to feed myself on less money.  Our plan is to try and live as frugally as we have in the past and sock away as much in savings as possible at least for the first year.  This should put us back in the position we were when we started the lifestyle and keep our future options open.  Thanks again to everyone for the prayers and positive thoughts. Here’s an Oliver picture as a thank you 🙂

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