Back story: My husband and I both grew up in Michigan. We really never considered the possibility of living anywhere else. Of course our kids would grow up there and raise their families there, right?! 5 years ago we ended up living in my hometown where pretty much all of my family is and it's fairly small. Only about 20,000 people. It's surrounded by corn fields and the nearest Target is 45 minutes away! So when my husband lost his job in March, it was hard to figure out where we wanted to be. We didn't want to leave family but finding a good paying job in our small town was going to be impossible. We started looking on the West side of the state where my sister lives. My husband had an interview or two but it wasn't promising.
Fast forward to the end of May, I was getting desperate. We had 4 small kids to feed and it had been 2 months without a job. We knew we needed to do something and soon. I googled "best cities to raise a family in." Out of the top 10 places, only one was within driving distance to our families in Michigan. It was an amazing town called Fishers in Indiana. We decided to take a little family vacation in early June to visit Fishers as well as Indianapolis. Indy has an amazing children's museum and we just fell in love with Fishers. Everything about it felt right.
We sold our house in June and moved out in early July. That was a hard pill to swallow but we were excited for bigger and better things for our family. My kids and I spent July living with my dad while my husband basically lived in Indianapolis looking for work. After 5 weeks apart we just couldn't do it anymore. We needed to be together as a family. We rented a house and moved to Indiana in August. My older two kids started school - first grade and kindergarten and my husband kept on networking in hopes of finding a job soon. It was October when he finally got his first job offer and he accepted!
In our rental house
My husband and I love spending time together, so having those almost 8 months (minus the 5 weeks in the summer apart) together was nice. Although there was always this cloud over our heads of "i need to find a job" and honestly that robbed us of a lot of happiness. So many highs and lows were had during those months. During that time I had to get over anger, grief, sadness, and anxiety over what our circumstances were. But I am definitely a better person after everything that has happened. And for the first time ever in my life I can say that I love the city I live in!
my youngest helping me clean our rental house
God definitely kept us on our toes but was also watching out for us this past year. I trust Him now more than ever because He got us through this difficult time.
I'd still like to share our big renovation in our last house because that was a huge process and also a dream come true for me. Hopefully it will help some of you if you're planning a renovation in the near future. And here we are, about to buy house #4! So you can only imagine the excitement I have and want to take you along for that ride too. Exciting things to come and we're just getting started.
P.S. Only 2 days until we close on our house! I'm hoping to have a post up with this weekend with all the fun Before Pictures!
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