Round Two

For the second weekend in a row we went to a town where Ben is interviewing to scope things out, have lunch with the search committee and just get a feel for things.

What a difference this was from last weekend. It is much closer (only 40 minutes - albeit in no traffic early on a Saturday morning) than last weekend. There is an actual town with many people - 13,000 as opposed to 5,000 last weekend. There are stores and restaurants and all that located in an area sort of like the rte 9 strip, but then you leave that and enter into this lovely town where there's space between the houses and there were people out in their yards with their kids. There's a new high school being built, there are lots of horse farms and walking trails. The beach is 2 towns over. There's a fabulous Y with tennis courts and a pool.

This church also has a parsonage where we'd have to live, but again, soooo different. I totally fell in love with this house even though it will never be mine in any way. Built in the 1850's it has all kinds of charm, but has been kept updated. Lots of nice space, good storage, 4 bedrooms, 2 and a half baths, a kitchen I could totally live with in a very happy way a nice deck and backyard as well as a 2 car attached garage. I could see having parties here and having our kiddos running around all very happily.

All that said, there are still drawbacks. It is far enough from where we are that I feel somewhat fearful to leave. The house isn't in a neighborhood so easily meeting some people isn't there. My close friends are in the city and while I don't see them often, I can just call them up and meet somewhere easily. My professional life is here and my commute would become pretty long. In general, the time our family has together will alter significantly if Ben were to go back into the ministry. I don't relish not having family weekends and not seeing each other every night. We also wouldn't be buying something which is what we really want to do - having your first mortgage in your 50's is not all that appealing, frankly. I suppose we could buy either an investment property now or a retirement home, but that seems a bit more on the complicated side.

So many decisions and so much information to ingest as all of this moves forward along with a few other professional irons he has in the fire. I'm anxious to begin making my own professional changes and hope, hope, hope, we'll know something soon.