K: Happy Holidays, interwebs! Matt and I are way too procrastinate-y to put out an actual Christmas card or letter, so the blog will have to do.
M: I like to call it ecologically friendly.
K: This year it seems even more necessary to really reflect, as we’re not only leaving 2019, but we’re waving goodbye to the 2010s. I’m not just thinking back to January, but find my mind wandering back to February 2011 and all of 2012 and dwelling on lots of 2015 and ’16.
M: And I can’t even remember what happened last Thursday.
K: Not to date ourselves (ha!), but Matt and I were still in high school when this decade started. We’d each been driving for less than 2 years, we weren’t committed to degree paths or jobs or really even needing to think past lunch every day.
M: I don’t know about that, my last class for the day was right before lunch so I was making plans every day after lunch. Like go to a friend’s (parents’) house. Or eat at Taco Bell. Or go to a friend’s (parents’) house.
K: And now we find ourselves ending out a year where we made some pretty major life decisions and flipped everything around once again.
M: Yippee!
K: We rung in 2019 with our Seattle friends competing in an at-home air hockey tournament while wearing footie pajamas. It was thrilling.
M: 2nd place, so close yet so far.
K: Then, January turned out to be a hard and sad month for me. My fantastic grandpa passed away early January and we celebrated his life with friends and family before the end of the month.
K: In February, Matt and I started getting serious about figuring out how to get back to Tucson. The loss of my grandpa was another reminder that we wanted to be close to family, particularly while we still had precious time with grandparents and when so much of our family is in or close to Tucson.
K: We started talking about job opportunities and Matt applied for a few different things. When we left Tucson, we always told ourselves we’d give Amazon 4 years and then we could bail if we wanted. We were a full year shy of that, but it seemed like it was time to go.
M: We were ready to get home.
K: March and April were more of the same, with lots of highs and lows in the job hunt and in our wells of patience. Of course, we continued to enjoy much of life in Seattle and kept grabbing beer with friends, getting out in the natural beauty, and planning for our everyday world to continue there.
K: However, while we tried to be content in Washington, we were also actively involved in buying a sight-unseen-by-us house in Tucson. WHAT?! Decisions like these are par for the course with Matt and me, but when I take 3 seconds to actually think about it, it’s a bit crazy. We did end up closing on our first house in April. It was not thrilling – the process was hard and no one even called us when the paperwork was fully executed… Anyway. This was all a big secret for me because I wasn’t ready to reveal anything to my job since we didn’t have any kind of true timeline. If nothing else, we knew we would have a place to go when we finally did get to move (maybe 2020?).
M: Yeah we are crazy.
K: In May, everything sped up! Matt was in Tucson interviewing with a new company just to see what was out there when Amazon called to offer him a position in Tucson. We were thrilled that we had such a direct route back to Tucson. The only bummer was that Matt then didn’t get to go on the only vacation we had planned for 2019.
M: Amazon literally called as I was walking into the terminal in the Tucson Airport, asking if I could be in Tucson in a month.
K: Matt took off to the great state of AZ and I went on a vacation up the coast of Oregon and Washington with my parents, car camping the whole way. The coast was awe-some and deeply beautiful in a harsh, unforgiving way. And, since Matt didn’t get to go, I know I get to do it again some day!
K: I had to give notice at my job which I really did love. It was not easy but I had a new house and a husband to get back to!
M: New house, new husband; what a life.
K: Matt and I u-hauled to Tucson in 3 days (our 2nd driving trip in 6 months) and unloaded the truck with the help of friends and family. I went back to Washington for a few more weeks and Matt got started on making the house into our home.
M: Not a very fun drive. And I’m definitely not one to strategically arrange the correct dishes in the correct cabinets, so I left all of that… for 4 weeks.
K: 4 weeks later my mom flew up to Washington and we spent one final weekend being major tourists – Starbucks reserve, Chihuly, as much of my favorite Seattle food as possible, and ice cream every day. Then, we started on my THIRD driving trip to Tucson in 7 months. It’s fine. Only 24 hours, with 12 of those being through the desert of Nevada. Blah.
K: Turns out we needed to get to Tucson for more than just family – it was time to get a puppy! 2019 brought me the greatest little crazy terrorist ball of fluff ever. I. AM. OBSESSED. He’s the most fantastic silly creature. He has changed us – I mean, I was adamant we would not be people that had a dog in the bed. Guess who sleeps in the bed every night? Gatsby! AND I LOVE IT!
M: He is a cute little demon. Same as all dads, I only became obsessed with him when I first held him at home. Now he has an Instagram.
K: 2019 welcomed us into the world of homeownership and all its thrills. And by thrills I mean “that noise we heard on the roof every night definitely turned out to be rodents living between our (two?) roofs.” We just discovered this today. Woo. It also brought the thrill of busted main water lines and lots of “huh?” moments when looking at the rigged up way the previous owners handled this place. It brought happy thrills too, like installing solar (leaving us with a -$75 bill after one month! :D), Matt finding a painting we love, me finding a credenza we love, and installing a dog door for my most precious puppy.
M: Rodents are still a maybe, I’m optimistically delusional since I’m working on other house projects at the moment. Other projects include: draining the pool, removing old electrical, installing GCF outlets, removing tree stumps, trimming trees, removing drip system, painting the “dog” room, hanging a cabinet, installing shelving, replacing light bulbs, building and rebuilding couches and bed frames, etc.
K: I started applying for jobs a couple months after we got here and managed to get 2 offers within 5 minutes of each other. Let me just say, that has NEVER happened to me before and it was thrilling. I ended up going with a position at TMC working for the director of surgery. The job itself is not super exciting but I love the team so that makes it all easier.
K: Matt got a new job/promotion (still with Amazon) and we were thrilled! He trains new managers on how to be managers. He actually likes it. He actually maybe even a little loves it. And I for sure love it because this is the first holiday season where, not only is he not working insane hours, he is actually taking time off!
M: I love it. Developing new-to-Amazon managers has always been something I’ve been passionate about; especially after working for a few terrible managers in my early life.
K: We regularly get to see our families and be more involved in the day-to-day life of the people we love, instead of the overview that often comes through on Facetime. We love our puppy, find ourselves frequently dreaming about what to do next on the house, and enjoy an eegee every once in a while. It was hard to leave our friends in Washington (COME VISIT US!) but other than that, moving was so great for us.
K: Also, I get a little burst of happiness every time I can look at the mountains surrounding Tucson (so every day) and enjoy the natural beauty that is here in the desert.
K: Matt and I are looking forward to not only what 2020 has in store for us, but what the 20s have coming. Every year I wonder if we’ll “settle” a bit, but so far that doesn’t seem to be the way we do it. We haven’t had a single year that didn’t include a job change for at least one of us or a move. Maybe 2020 is our year for that?
M: I think it could be… maybe.
K: To wrap this up, the portion of the Christmas song that sings “a thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices” has really been resonating with me this season. I love the definition of the verb thrill: (of an emotion or sensation) pass with a nervous tremor. I’m here for those kind of thrills. Be they difficult or exciting, huge events or moments that quickly slip by, I hope to acknowledge and hold on to the thrills with open hands – particularly the thrills of hope as we look to a new decade.
M: She is so smart, I love her.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our friends and family. May you feel thrills of hope and may you find peace in 2020.
M&K
Sunday Cereal 