An empty house

So I had the bright idea to put all of my furniture on Craigslist this week. I expected to sell all my stuff sometime, but it appears that people don’t screw around with Craigslist adds. My couch, my son’s bed, the coffee table and the dining room table all gone!!! We are eating on the floor now, haha! Right now it is like a picnic for us all, but I’m sure within the next two months that will change. I do have my spare table in the garage, but I have to dig it out. For now I guess it’s pb&j on the floor!

Goodbye to solitude

I got my official start date yesterday. On February 10th, the kiddos and I will start our journey East to our new home. I drove down to Chaco Culture National Historical Park today to work for the day. On my way down I took in the beauty of the vast expanse of unpopulated land. I looked over the BLM land that my friend’s family leases to run cattle on, and looked across the high desert to see Angel Peak in the distance. I make the drive down to Chaco weekly, and I take the beauty of the land for granted. Though I am very excited to go and see new things, I will miss New Mexico very much. It has, after all, been my home for nearly all of my life.

I got a job!

Hi Everyone!

My name is Amberleigh.  I live in a small town in Northeast New Mexico, close to the Colorado state line.  My children and I have a 3 bedroom house on 1 1/2 acre outside of our sleepy little town of around 6,000 people.  I am a single mother and have a really awesome job with the National Park Service at the amazing Aztec Ruins National Monument.  While I completely love my job, I decided that I needed to look for a new job in order to move up and make more money for my family.

I have been looking for a new job for several months now.  I really wanted a job that would take us somewhere that gave us better medical facilities and more things to choose from as far as activities.

I probably applied for about 70 jobs in the past few months.  About two months ago, my co-worker pointed out a job that had come open in the Washington office of the National Park Service in the Cultural Resources directorate.  I applied for it, and made the cert, but didn’t hear anything further and quickly forgot about it.

About two weeks ago my boss pulled me into her office and said, “Washington just called me.”

The knee-jerk reaction in my head was Oh, crap, what did I do?

Then, it hit me.  The look on my supervisor’s face was clear that I didn’t do anything wrong. She had just been called for reference to the position.  Tears filled my eyes and if I hadn’t just gone to the restroom, I probably would have peed myself.  She told me that I would be receiving a call for my interview the following week.

Last week I got the call.  I sat in my friend’s office behind closed doors and talked to three strangers across the country.  I did my best to make myself sound amazing.

Apparently my efforts worked, because I was called a few hours later and told that I needed to do some research and that we would talk two days later.

On Thursday morning I woke with the conviction that I would take the position.  My new supervisor called me and we worked out the logistics.  I accepted a job in Washington, DC!

Now to find someplace to live, someplace for my children to go to school, and childcare.  Yikes!

This blog will document the transition my family has to go through from rural New Mexico to one of the largest cities in the country.