Welp, we did it. We bought a house in Nacogdoches.

The house sits on a two-acre lot that is heavily wooded around the perimeter as you can see – there’s even a walking trail back in our woods, which is really cool. But even more awesome is that we feel like we’re in the country, but we’re actually smack in the middle of town, so anything we might want or need, including entertainment, is right up the street. This house is nestled in a tiny little neighborhood where most of the houses are just like ours; sitting on a couple of acres and set back from the street, so it’s lovely and shady and seems to be quiet.

It’s smaller than our current house, which was our goal, and it’s only one story as opposed to the two we have now. The owners are already out of the house and aside from some minor repairs it’s ready for us to move in once we close at the end of the month. So yeah, this happened fast!

Selling the house we’re in now is a whole other ordeal; we haven’t listed yet or really prepped for it in any way except for meeting with a realtor this afternoon. But we are doing our best to stay calm, take breaks from the madness, and try to stay focused on the positive end result.

It’s funny when I think about it – the life decisions I’ve made so far, the ones that felt really huge and even scary, are decisions that probably would be considered small to most people. I have friends who have changed states in their lives at least three times and friends who’ve moved to different countries, and I’m nervous as hell about moving three hours away. I’ve lived in Houston my whole life and never intended to leave until this past year. It seems like it should be an easy move at this point in my life – tons of people move after they retire, after all. But for me, this is a scary venture even while I’m super excited about all of it.

Teaching was the same way for me. I know many people take up teaching when some other career doesn’t work out, or as something to hold them over until the ‘real job’ comes in. It’s considered an “oh well if it doesn’t work out I can always teach” sort of thing. But for me, it was terrifying to even consider it. I was terrified for the first five years, to be honest, and I never totally got over the fear that something would go terribly wrong. But just making it through my student teaching year, when I wanted to quit a thousand times, was a huge accomplishment for me. Hell, graduating from college was a huge accomplishment, for that matter, as it was never really emphasized to me that college was something I needed. The expectation was that I would get married and have babies, and my family never cared much about my grades or my future career. To be fair, all of my siblings, male and female, were raised this way, and I was the only one of us who was not married straight out of high school. If someone had asked, I’m sure I would have done it too, but I was terribly shy and kinda prudish so no one was knocking down my door. This turned out to be a good thing, as it forced me to think about how I would take care of myself. Hence the college degree and the teaching career – two things I never thought I would be capable of doing.

And now I’m actually moving. In fact, this is the first time I’ve ever picked out a house to live in. In my twenties I lived in other people’s apartments, and then another person’s house, and then I married Doug and moved into the house he already owned. And truth be told, I’ve never much cared for this house. I mean, it’s nice and all, it just is not at all a house I would choose had I had the opportunity. And now I’m actually going to live in a house that I chose and got to decorate myself. And it’s weird to think of this as something so momentous when most everyone I know did this shit decades ago, but I guess I’m a slow mover.

So things are gonna be crazy over here for a while, and after we get settled I am sure my blog will turn into non-stop pictures of Nacogdoches, but hey, I’ve been bored with everything else I could take pictures of anyway. So, stay tuned!