Up to speed

There’s some statistic that says over 50% of physicians stay at their first job for less than 3 years.  That’s exactly why we were going to rent when we moved to Mankato last summer. But with a rental market geared for college kids and our “dream acreage” for sale we decided to buy.  Mankato is a nice Midwest college town of 60,000 people or so. It reminds me of Ames, IA when I was in high school (ie, home).  Directly 3 hours between our parents and 90 miles from our friends in Rochester, we thought it would be the kind of place we could live forever. Unfortunately Ben’s job was not all he had hoped with the hospital going through a lot of growing pains. He didn’t feel challenged by the cases he had or supported by the hospital. It was a tough decision to look for another job so quickly, but if we stayed just to stay Ben would lose his skills and be less competitive for other jobs. We also thought it would be harder to move in a few years when we were connected to the community and Scarlett was in school.  So the job search began.

Ben spoke with a few groups in Minnesota and Wisconsin (all wanting to hire him because, between you and me, he’s top notch ;) ).  I couldn’t get excited about any of the options though. I tend to go with the flow, so either it was the pregnancy or God nudging me to hold out, but I asked Ben to see if anywhere in Colorado was hiring.

We have both wanted to live in Colorado for as long as I can remember.  When I finished college I planned to move to Denver and got my CO nursing license but ended up getting a job at Mayo so had to transfer my license. Ben applied for residency in Denver but ultimately wanted a better training program. He looked for jobs right out of residency in Colorado but to no one was hiring. This was attempt #4 to move to CO and everything fell into place this time. Ben contacted a group in Boulder that, just days before, agreed to higher another anesthesiologist. They already had a pretty full list of applicants to interview but were impressed by Ben’s resume so we flew out for an interview. Several long weeks later, they offered Ben the job.

We 100% agreed that if he was offered the job he’d take it, even though every logical part of us knew it was crazy. Taking the job meant repaying Ben’s sign on bonus to Mayo, putting our house (fresh off the market) on the market, repacking everything, moving a toddler and newborn 1,000 miles, living away from our family, going from a salaried position to an entirely commission one, downsizing to a house less than half the size. Are you getting that feeling in your stomach that you are about to jumping out of a plane? Me too. Actually I have jumped out of a plane and I didn’t feel this nervous. Probably because I didn’t have  children then.

Are we making the right choice? We asked ourselves that 1,000 times. It’s a hard question to wrestle with, especially when you have pregnancy brain and know you are incapable of making a decision. I found peace knowing God cares about how we live, not where we live.  If we have always dreamed about living near the mountains then let’s live near the mountains. We'll take the better weather too.

I was still nervous about selling our property. It may be our dream house, but not everyone is up for 10 acres and 4,600 sq ft house. The idea of showing our house while packing and living life in the disastrous wake of Hurricane Scarlett sounded terrible.  Wondering how long it would be on the market, paying rent in CO and the mortgage, and hiring someone to mow and oversee the property for an unforeseeable period of time sounded pretty bad too. I’m not a worrier but the reality was things could get ugly fast. Considering we had 3 offers within 24 hours of putting our house on the market in Rochester last year, I figured our luck had run out.

I was at my play date and mentioned we were selling our dream house. As I was describing it, another mom said it sounded liker her dream house too. She and her husband came to see it later that day. Just like that we sold our house without a realtor. God is good. The practical side of me had been worried about the financial part of selling the house, the emotional side of me was heartbroken to sell the house I dreamed of raising our family in. Knowing who was buying our house and being able to see her family enjoy it through Facebook photos is far above and beyond the best situation I could have dreamed up. Did I mention that God is good!

Today we closed on the sale of our house. We are officially Coloradans! Good bye Mankato.

Our dream house

Miss cleaning this kitchen already

Ben wanted to someday put a baseball field in the front yard. I tease him it's his Field of Dreams "if you build it, they (sons) will come". He doesn't think I'm funny.