My Animals Hang With the Animals

Today I took some time away with the fam for a trip to Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. We had fun, aside from Evan complaining about his feet hurting after he insisted on wearing flip-flops. I'm glad I got this time with him, though. I have to work tonight at 23:00, and work twelves for the next 7 nights. By the time I am finished with this stretch, I will be back in class. He is going with his grandma this weekend to King's Island, along with John and his cousin Joanna, then making the trip back to Madisonville with her to spend the week at his grandpa's house. Summer is flying by. At least I got a little bit of time with him first.


By far my favorite pic of the entire trip. The goat kept trying to eat Evan's shirt, so Evan would giggle and step away, then try to pet it again. Each time, it would get a mouth full. It didn't tear the shirt, but it did give me a great photo op.
Too cute for words.
This damned thing. I was leaning over the glass, trying to get a good shot of the sea lion that was underwater playing with a ball. All of the sudden, this #$%^& popped it's head up at me, scaring me to death. Note that the camera was not zoomed for this pic!
Lucy wouldn't wake up for me and I was very disappointed. (See below.)
Awwww. Lucy the Baby Bearcat. Sponsored by the University of Cincinnati. Go figure.
The seductive ape. I kindly left the other one out of the pic, who was showing its hand in its mouth repeatedly. I had just said "What is it, bulimic?" when it purged its food into its hand to feed its baby. Disgusting.
This is "Francois". Some type of monkey that had Francois in it's name. It had a faux-hawk and white muttonchops, and was the coolest monkey ever.
I don't know what in the hell this thing was, but when we went to walk away, it made some weird crying sound until we came back.
The polar bear insisted on showing me nothing more than his browneye as he ate his lunch.
I think John was making funny faces behind me.
So peaceful here. I didn't want to leave this spot.
The big one and the little one take a break to eat popcorn.
I have this horrendous phobia of snakes. Just walking into the reptile house was a huge step in conquering my fear. And it was packed too. As I looked at the snakes through the glass, I was sizing people up to see how much effort it would take to knock them out of my way if I needed to make a break for it. Then I saw this S.O.B.....
Evan kept calling this rhinoceros "Clyde". I have no idea where he got that name.
Evan poses with the likeness of his father.
Is that the Fergie family? Mom, Dad, and Evan.....
The gorillas were pensive.
The bearcat would not be still for her photo shoot. I swear I stood there for about 15 minutes trying to get a good shot. No wonder UC thinks this is a good mascot....stubborn as hell!
I think I interrupted the sexy time of the "Giant Bait", as my hillbilly husband called them.
These lizards were looking at me.
The lemurs. This is when Evan screamed "Look, Mommy, it's Zoboomafoo!"

The Verona

After the drama with the neighbors, I started looking on Craigslist. I wanted to see what was out there. Do I want to move again??? Hell no. But I refuse to live like I have been living over some pettiness. I called this lady about these apartments, and they were cheap and right around the corner from campus. Out-of-state tuition?? Ha! Yet still close to work. I am pumped. I am psyched. I am ready. She knows I am a UC student. She knows what I am looking for. We meet to see the apartment. It is way too small for us. I think she homed in on the "student" part of our conversation more than she did the "Respiratory Therapist" part. As in I am not on a student's normal budget, nor is a tiny shabby apartment going to do for me and my family.
She can tell by the look on my face that I am not thrilled, and asks if I have time for one more. I tell her yes, but am really reluctant. If it looked like that, I really would have rather gone home to my mounting pile of schoolwork.

We follow her through this really horrible area of town, and I am chain-smoking, getting scared of the place she is going to show us. We end up parked on the street on this corner, and I look all around us at the different buildings.Which one. I see this one out of the corner of my eye, and don't really look that way because I couldn't bare the disappointment if she told me I was wrong. John is sure it is fate because in the courtyard, there is a flagpole. Underneath Old Glory is none other than the flag of the United States Marine Corps.

I ask her which building we are going to, and she points. I am sold.

We walk through the wrought-iron gate, past the fountain in the courtyard. The looping driveway, where others are not allowed to drive cars unless moving in, is the perfect opportunity for my son to have a place to ride his scooter and bike this summer. It is beautiful. My breath catches in my throat. My eyes cannot leave the arches on the balconies.
We enter the building and climb the marble staircases to the first condo she wants to show me. It has old-world charm. But it is not perfect. In its state of oldness, it looks kind of shabby. I am thinking is we can make it work with decor. I love the building. She can tell by the look on my face that I am not completely in-love with the living quarters, and says she has another.

We climb three flights of the marble staircase, my hand brushing the mahogany banisters and get to the very top floor. We pass through the beautiful front door. My heart melts.

There are two closets in every room, with custom cabinetry and chests in each. I can see my purses lining the shelves. There are enough that I could have one for shoes, one for handbags, and one for clothes, and still leave enough for John and Evan. I actually open the leaded glass French doors and step onto the arched balcony I was admiring from the courtyard. My office in this little house??? No. I can see myself out on this stone and brick balcony with a cup of coffee, studying or reading, or just getting peace from the chaos of my life. It is a cocoon for me. But alas, I must go inside and see the rest of the space.

The bedrooms are enormous. The hardwood floors in much better repair than the house we are in now. There is a huge dining area between the kitchen and living room with a gorgeous view of the street. My office. Built-in bookcases line the walls in several of the rooms. The future home of anatomy/ physiology, biology, chemistry, pharmacology.

We pass under the antique light fixtures, through the scullery that she calls a "pantry" (a long narrow room lined with cabinetry and counters on both sides, with a bracket for hanging pots and pans, into the kitchen with the worn floor, enough to look rustic and weathered, but nothing I would change. There is this huge cabinet mounted under the window, and she explains to Evan that this is where the milk man used to deliver fresh milk to the families who lived there. I love that is still there. Evan pokes his little head inside, fascinated that there used to be a day when you could not pick up a plastic jug of milk at any store.

I wish I had the words to capture the beauty of the place. Although it is in this enormous building, the space is huge. Our place now is huge, and you could fit three of this one in it. Even though there are many other tenants, it feels like a safe haven. Like we are removed from the rest of the world. Quiet, secluded. Home.

Now for the logistics of the thing. I developer bought the building. One by one, he is gutting the old and remodeling them into modern, gorgeous condos. The new is just as beautiful as the old. The new are selling for about $200K. We can rent one of the old because he is in the process of selling the ones that have already been flipped. He is not flipping any more until he sells what he has. The rent is about $20 cheaper per month than what we are in now. In the long run, with me paying out-of-state tuition, it will save me about $18K in the next year alone, without putting me too far from work. The downside is that, if all goes according to plan, the condo would only be available to rent for about 2 years.
But there is a kink in the works. The new ones he is selling for $200K? They are condos, as in divided into rooms. There are a couple that are loft-style. No room divisions. The same size, but other than the bathroom, no walls. The same finishing touches otherwise. The lofts that he has have roof access in addition to the balcony (the same balcony I love). There is one that has no roof access. He is selling that for a disgustingly cheap rate. As in my car was vastly more expensive than this piece of property. With that being said, if I hired a contractor to create rooms out of the vast empty space, I could still have this gorgeous $200K condo for about the cost of having a nice vehicle. And it would be mine. If I keep my payments about the same as my rent is now, it would be paid off within a year or so. In other words, by the time I finish my undergraduate work and face entering med school, the burden of paying for housing would no longer be mine to bear. I could stop the insane hours at work at the exact time when I needed to. This falls into my plan perfectly. And we would be owners of a luxury condo in my hometown, Cincinnati, right around the corner from UC College of Medicine. You see where I am going with this.

Worst case scenario is we apply and get to rent one of the beautiful places until they are ready to do the work to flip it. My fear is that if I do this, I won't want to leave.

The Smell of Citrus is in the Air

This is the commercial for UC to air during the Orange Bowl on Thursday. I am a big 'ol sap. I got a little teary-eyed watching this earlier this afternoon. This is my school. This is my hometown. It's great to be back, doing what I have always wanted to do, in my hometown. I will not leave again.

I Am A Bearcat...

Okay, so this is home. I saw this video and couldn't help but smile.

This one too...

Where Do I Start???

I am home. As in I can walk outside in the brisk winter air and see the skyline. It is so surreal.
The new house, well it has been interesting. Cable hook-up was an adventure, and my phone and internet were installed before Thanksgiving and we never knew it because apparently the phone jack was not hooked to anything other than the wall. But all is well now. I am back where I have always belonged. Cincinnati.

So I am here in my new office, just off of the kitchen. It is very drafty in here, but I like things cool anyhow. I can see cozying up in here with thick socks and cozy sweats with a piping hot cup of coffee, studying away. The house, or better yet, the part of the house we are renting, stretches straight back. In order, it goes like this: Our bedroom, Evan's bedroom, the living room, the bathrooms and pantry, followed by the kitchen. My little area is at the very back, and all I can hear are noises from the street. Absolutely perfect.

Okay so what next? Evan's school...We started my baby boy in his new private school. It is amazing how they treat the children when you are paying them large sums of money. His first day was consumed by testing. He did very well, scoring 92% overall for the tasks he should have mastered for first grade. On many of the sections, he scored 100%. The principal said he is "exceptional". There are some areas that need work, such as handwriting, so they kept him in first grade. But because they have such small classes, they were able to tailor-make a curriculum just for him, so the areas in which he excels will be handled differently for him than they are for his peers. When we went to pick him up from his first day, his teacher actually walked him out to our car and told us how he did that day. Our only main obstacle is that we need to find uniforms for him. Nothing major: a baby blue polo with navy blue khakis. No problem, right? Wrong! Have you ever tried to find a little boy's baby blue polo in the middle of winter? I am hoping that now that I am back online, I will be able to find what I need via the internet.

I guess the only item left to update is my great return to a higher learning environment. I have officially been admitted to the University of Cincinnati as a Cell and Molecular Biology major. I just officially accepted my small fortune in student loans to pay for this next step in reaching my goals. The stage is set. I'm ready.

Little Fires Everywhere

In healthcare, we have this saying. We call it "putting out fires". This is when you run around like crazy all day, attempting to get something accomplished, and never seem to succeed or make a dent in that to-do list because of little things that crop up randomly. Yet you work your arse off that day. Mr. X's SPO2 has dropped and you need to tweak his oxygen. Patient A calls saying she is short of breath and you must stop and give her a PRN treatment. Mrs. Y's ventilator keeps setting off crazy alarms, to which you must be attentive, even though she is ventilating well and everything seems to be in order. So you put out these fires all day, and when your twelve hours are over and you look back at the day, with feet that are screaming and a level of mental exhaustion you thought impossible, you wonder why you were so damned busy in the first place.

We put out little fires at home to, I suppose. With the upcoming move, I have been busy organizing and checking off tasks from my mental list. I was so releived after Monday night, knowing I had days off, thinking of all of the time I would have to accomplish these tasks, and even planning on getting some other stuff done as well. Well, here it is: Friday night. I am off tomorrow for the much-anticipated OSU/ UM game (Go bucks!), but then I report back to work to start a 72-hour work week on Sunday night. What in the blue hell did I do withh all of that time?

Yes, I did manage to arrange the move. The surveyor from the moving company came by today, so that is done. I have placed orders for the new phone service and internet access (Zoomtown, Yay! It has a very good rep). I paid the deposit on the new property and have the old electric bill paid so we just have to make a call and it will be transferred to the new address. The packing crew is coming by on Tuesday to pack, then the stuff will be delivered to the new address on Wednesday. I guess I did get some stuff done. It just doesn't seem so.

But then little fires kept cropping up. My husband, my soulmate, my light of my life, was to call the phone company and let them know we were to be moving no earlier than December 1st to ensure that we would have telephone service for the duration of our remaining time here. He did call the company, but failed to mention the date, so suddenly we were without home phone service. We tried to get the account reactivated, because at the time, we had no idea we would be moving this week. They actually expected me to pay an installation fee and everything to get it started again, with a new nyumber and everything, as if I have never lived here. For one week??? I don't think so. So I figure for emergencies, I always have my cell. Wrong answer! I forgot that when I activated my cell account, it was mainly intended to be used for the days I work (weekends/ nights), plus I could pick 5 numbers I could call at anytime. So basically, my phone was free to use at the times I needed to use, and I did not need the expensive plan withan enormous amount of anytime minutes. So...Without a home phone, with only my cell with a pitiful number of available minutes, we ran through that resource within 48 hours. Sad...Mainly, right now we are relying on email to communicate. I am praying that the new phone is activated early.

So we go to pay the deposit on the property, and the owner mentioned that there had been missed deliveries. Huh? It seems that the day after I ordered the new phone service, Cincinnati Bell decided to deliver the phone I ordered. But UPS did not leave it. So I was left with this tag that was dated 3 days earlier, letting me know that in 5 days, my package would be returned to the sender. It was 2:00 and John and I had to be back in Indiana by 4:00. But there was no way in hell I was going to make a special trip to Cincy just to pick up this phone. We were 10 minutes away. So we head across the river....

Holy Crap! John is driving because I still am not completely used to driving the new car in close traffic. I can, but judging distance has never been my thing, and cars zipping by me, close enough for me to reach out and touch, in a brand new car kind of freaks me out a bit. As is ohmyGodtheyaregonna sideswipemynewcar! So John drives. Did that fix it? Not really because John is not as accustomed to downtown Cincinnati as I am, and he had trouble negotiating the grid of one-way streets, and I could see his blood pressure rising as I was thinking ohmyGodtheyaregonnasideswipemynewcar! All to pick up the new phone. Not even a cool new wireless phone, but instead, just a boring new cordless for the house.

So then UC decides to mess with me. About a week ago, after making sure I had met the deadline and getting my official transcript sent, I started checking the status online. And it kept telling me the same thing: my file was incomplete. So I would call and check, and the people in the transfer office kept reassuring me that all was golden, and they just have not put it into the system yet. So I wait... Then I call 2 days ago just to be sure. That is when I find out that they need the transcript from a college course I took in high school. Way back in 1995. Are you kidding me? I completed 98 credits in 4 semesters with a perfect GPA as recently as 2 years ago, and they are worrying about one class from over 13 years ago???? Seriously? But it gets better. She then tells me that that day in particular is the very last day to get anything in, and I can have it faxed. So I call the college. I get lucky because they don't purge their electronic files until after 15 years have passed. Yes they can fax it, but they need a written request with a signature! The only way to do that is by snail mail. I have no scanner. My digital camera died about 3 weeks ago. What am I going to do? Then I spy my phone laying on the table. I quickly scrawl my signature on a piece of paper and snap a picture. Then I email the picture to myself so I can save it to my computer and insert it into the typed email to the registrar. An hour later, UC has the needed transcript. Now I play the waiting game for them to put it into the system as well.

So tonight, I have ditched the clothes I have been wearing throughout the day in exchange for the most worn-out comfy sweats that say "Diva" across the butt (which I refuse to wear in public. The person responsible for that trend should be shot!) and I plan to tackle the very last bit of Molecular Genetics, followed by a chapter on Evolution in my MCAT review. Once I get that finished, I will have polished off the entire Biological Sciences portion and can start on my Chemistry review. But Chem will have to wait, as I have purchased a copy of Phillipa Gregory's The Boleyn Inheritance, the sequel of sorts to The Other Boleyn Girl, which I loved. I bought the book expressly for my vacation, and have only read a small bit of it. It is calling my name in a chorus with the comfy spot on the sofa.

Home Again Soon

These are photos I found online of the historic area to which we are moving. They are not my pics, as my digital camera is on the fritz. The first pic is the clencher. This is the view across the suspension bridge from Covington to Cincinnati. You can see downtown behind the bridge. This is the view I missed the most in all of my years away.

Just down the street from our new home are all of these older, gorgeous houses. This one is about a block away from us.

These streets will make a wonderful backdrop for family walks each night.

The cathedral. John and I were going to get married here before we decided to elope all those years ago. Now that my son is going to be going to a catholic school, I will be revisiting my catholic roots. We have talked about John converting to catholicism. We have been wanting to renew our vows on our ten-year anniversary, to have the ceremony we missed out on by eloping. Maybe, just maybe.....

What I Should Have Been Doing All Along???

Okay, just hear me out. John and I have not had an easy row to hoe since we got married in 2000. Things just do not go right for us. We are always fighting against the grain. (Let's see how many cheesy cliches I can use in this post!) Some of the struggle has been the direct result of some really unfortunate events. Some of it, because I am an adult and not above admitting this, were the result of our own poor choices. But regardless of the precipitating factors, we have had a struggle. And we have fought and fought and fought. And some of it has been recent, as recent as this past summer.

So we decide that we need to move closer to my work, which just happens to be in my hometown. We tell ourselves that we are going to take our time and find a place that is right for us. We realize it will be difficult. The events of our lives have left our collective credit in a pretty crappy state, and all of these rental properties will look at credit.

We find this place that sounds great by description over the telephone, so we take a day to go and see it. It is not great. It is a dup of such proportions that we do not even pause as we are driving by. We merely look at each other and say a resounding "No!" in unison. We get turned around on a one-way street, and we see it. An old mansion, like I love, that has been converted into rental units. John reads the phone number off of the "For Rent" sign in the front yard, and I hastily jot it down. We go to a nearby friend's house and we call.

It sounds perfect. Huge rooms, hardwood floors, fireplaces. Completely remodeled kitchen and bathroom. And rent cheaper than we are paying here in Indiana. So I explain that we have some issues with credit, but I have a great job and great ability to pay. I explain that I am in the process of completing the requirements for med school, that we need to be closer. He says he is not concerned with credit, so long as we are good people and can afford the property. We make arrangements to meet, and John and I love the old house. It is in a historic district near downtown, on a street filled with character that you cannot find in any modern neighborhood. We can see ourselves there.

I contact my employer, and they agree to cover my relocation. I call the utility people and the phone people, and no one needs deposits or anything. We tell the landlord that we would like to move in around December 1, but he had other plans and would like to rent it sooner than that. He says he needs to speak with his wife, and he will call back. An hour later, we get the word that they would really like to rent to us, that they would rather wait for us to be ready to move than to rent to one of the others that have shown interest in the property.

We are about 2 weeks away from D-Day. It is all falling into place. I have the new number, have signed the lease. The relocation company has called and we are sure that we can arrange the move without me even missing a beat at work. John took one afternoon and went and applied for jobs at any place he thought he would be qualified to work, and within the week, he already has had some bites. This is way more than he has accomplished within 2 years in Indiana. We met with the administration of a private school for Evan, and within 2 minutes of the conversation's start, they said what I have been wanting the school he attends now, the people who have known him for 2 years, to say all along. "It sounds like he really needs some extensive testing before we place him in a grade level." And should they not deem it appropriate to place him in second grade, to skip him to the next level, the classes are very small and they insist that they can give him more advanced work in the areas in which he needs a challenge.

So what am I getting at with all of this? For the first time in a long time, it is all falling into place for us. I'm not even going to have to pack. Hired men will do that for me. And it all makes me wonder.

The pessimist in me wonders what is gonna happen to wreck this. Things just do not go this easily for my family. But the other part of me, the one who believes everything happens for a reason, is left to look for the hidden meaning in all of this.

I left my hometown in 2001. I remember the tears as I watched Cincinnati disappear through the passenger side window of a U-Haul. I was scared, and I felt this sense of dread, even though I truly thought I was doing what was best at the time. Time marched on and we stayed gone for a long time. We would come up to Cincy and spend long weekends during those years. We would spend our visit doing things tourists normally don't do. Instead of visiting aquariums and zoos and amusement parks, we spent our time visiting our favorite stores and restauraunts. We would get our fix of home, then go back to our residence in Kentucky or Indiana or wherever we were at the time. And everytime I left, I felt like I was leaving the city all over again.

When I graduated from college,and I started to look for work, I loked up here. When I got an offer from a hospital in Southeastern Indiana, I figured that would be close enough. But Indiana has not felt right to us. We would still go to Cincinnati to do things like shop or go out to eat. And we would cross the Brent Spence bridge, where you can see the skyline with such clarity, and I would feel that tug on my heart: This is home. This is where you always will and always have belonged. Where people think like you and talk like you, while still being so different.

So are things going so easily for us because this is what I should have been doing all along? For the past 7 years? Because this will be the place where John and I can be a normal couple again? Because this is the place that has everything I could possibly need to live my life and achieve my dream? I cannot help but feel as if someone is trying to tell me something.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008: Ike Visited Us

Sunday was very interesting. I was gearing up to get ready to leave for work. The wind was kicking. Shingles from the old house were landing on the lawn of the new house. If I wanted to, I could most likely extrapolate some deep meaning for that, but anyhow…I had to go, and John was worried about me in a little car for that drive. I left way early to account for downed trees and more.
Good thing. Even with the extra 45 minutes I allowed myself for the trip, I still ended up being 45 minutes late. On I-275, going over the Ohio River, a semi was blown over! The entire interstate was shut down and my little car did not move for 90 minutes. I am not exaggerating about terrible, creep-along traffic. I mean, I literally turned the car off and got out and was standing along the side of the road mingling with the other poor souls stuck there with me. The huge Indiana sign was blown off of the bridge. The enormous Lawrenceburg exit sign was down. It was terrible. And I kept thinking , “Please don’t let me have the ER when I get to work!”
When I got to work, I was assigned to the ER. Bad. Very, very bad. At a time when over 700,000 households are without power in the Greater Cincinnati Area, it is not a fun time to be a Respiratory Therapist in a busy metropolitan ER.
Every Tom, Dick, Harry, and Sue who is on either a home nebulizer, home O2 concentrator, CPAP, and even home ventilator , or a combination of any of the above, was in that ER. My phone rang constantly. Within 15 minutes, I had 3 patients arrive being bagged, and I ran all over retrieving vents, intervening, and trying to manage the most critical patients. Most of these patients were admitted, and I had to set in motion their respiratory orders per our protocols, and somehow get report to the therapist assigned to the floor to which they were going. It did not stop. Finally, around 7:30 the next morning, someone came to get me when I did not show up at 6:30 to give report to the next therapist coming on.
On the way home, it was awful. Cars were alongside the interstate, out of fuel, because all of the gas stations were closed due to the power outages. Despite the order to stay off the streets unless there was an extreme emergency, it seemed like every fool was out to see the damage. I sat in gridlock waiting to get onto the interstate to take me home, praying for traffic to clear because I only had enough gas in the car for the return trip home and had no manner with which to get more. It was sheer insanity, and I was left feeling grateful that we did not move closer to home like I had intended originally. Our power was never disrupted, and the greatest inconvenience here at home was the straw that blew all over the place from our fledgling lawn,

Riverfest is Coming!

WTF is Riverfest? Well every year, Cincinnatians like myself celebrate Labor Day weekend in style. And others show up from elsewhere also. But it is a Cincinnati thing, and it happens every year.

Well the thing is, this is almost surreal for me this year. We have survived hell. Poverty. A brain tumor. The last year I was there for the WEBN Fireworks was the year before Evan was born. Well, Evan was born at 12:05 AM as the calender switched from August 31st to September 1st 7 years ago. This year his birthday just happens to coincide with the fireworks, and we are going. On the 4th of July this summer, Evan was heartbroken because we did not have the money to purchase fireworks, as we were still trying to recover from the financial aftermath of the brain tumor. He watched the neighbors letting theirs off in the distance, and it broke my heart. John and I told him to wait until his birthday, that he would then see the most phenomenal fireworks display and party I have ever seen. That all of the other kids will be at boring family picnics while he is there. And on his Birthday of all days.

But the firworks also coincide with my homecoming. What better way to celebrate my return to my hometown? I am so ready!

In the meantime, here is last year's celebration.

Who Says You Can't Go Home?

Ahhhh. Home.

For the past two months, I have been driving 75 miles one way to work. It was never really a big deal when I was doing the day shift portion of my department orientation at my new job. And when I switched to nights at first, it wasn't either. But here is the thing about me and night shift: I work 12 hours. I am on my feet for those entire 12 hours. I get a lunch break, but if my phone rings for one of my patients, I am not guarunteed a break. So at the end of my work day, when the rest of the world is waking up, I am exhausted. If you add the fact that I cannot sleep more than a couple hours a day, it leads to a dangerous situation.

Well, yesterday morning, the inevitable, but feared, happened. I was exhausted and having a hard time keeping myself away for the hour and twenty minute drive home. At about the midpoint of my trip, there is this interchange between two different interstates that is really sharp and requires you to slow down substantially. I remember slowing down. But that must have been where I nodded off, because the next thing I know, my SUV is off the road and heading toward a cement wall. I am fortunate that no one was hurt, that my vehicle is unscathed. But it scared the living daylights out of me.

I managed to get home, and as soon as I walked in the door and saw John, I broke down in tears, telling him I fell asleep while driving home. And we realized that while we have been toying around with the idea of moving closer to work because of my $500+ a month gas bill, there are actually even better reasons to relocate, and it now becomes a necessity.

So....We have been looking at properties in that area, and we think we may have found one. Not only will it save me the expense of driving so far, but it is cheaper than our current living arrangement. So while off work this week, my goal is to start packing. I'm finally, after years of wanting to, going back home.