Well it finally happened. Cliff has been applying and applying for jobs in Hawaii for the past 8 months or so. We've been living in a weird state of limbo for so long, that I finally decided to just start living as if we were never going. Except for large furniture purchases, I hung stuff on walls finally, signed the kids up for dance classes and football, and scheduled events out several months in advance.
It's hard living like you might be leaving.
Cliff had a few "bites." One of them came from Maui Memorial right after we got back in July. They wanted to interview him. It was tempting, but since we had taken a trip there and ruled it out, we could confidently say no.
Another time, he got a call from his hospital of choice, but she didn't realize he had a job already... and that we lived in Oregon... and couldn't come in for an interview in 3 days... and that he couldn't start working in two weeks. I don't think she even looked at his application! Anyways, those were the most promising leads. Then nothing. For several weeks.
After applying for yet another job at a hospital in Oahu, they called him back! They scheduled an interview and talked to him for 1 and a half hours. He was among a large number of candidates, but only one of 2 experienced nurses.
While we waited to hear back, Cliff and I sat down to figure out a detailed budget. We factored in giving, saving, airline tickets for the whole family once a year, airline tickets for a few of us twice a year, a padded number for groceries, gas/bus tickets, music lessons, sports fees, rent, utilities, hair cuts, clothes, etc. We tried to think of everything possible so there wouldn't be any surprises. The budget number was quite high and seemed like it would be not likely that they would be able to offer him that kind of number, so we prayed and waited, honestly ready to say no if it wasn't doable.
He got the call on Lochlan's birthday right before he was blowing out his candles. They offered him the job! The pay was probably the biggest clincher besides Cliff wanting to do this for the past 10+ years and the peace (for the most part) we felt about it. The number was $40 shy of our ideal budget! $40 in the scheme of all we had written down was nothing. So after praying and thinking about it a little more, he accepted the job!
That was a weird feeling. It seemed so final. I had a twinge of doubt as to whether we made the right decision, but the salary was pretty amazing and this seems like an ideal time to try an adventure like this. We made the decision to walk through open doors as long as they stayed open and to not fight them if they closed. The past few weeks we've only seen open doors!
I wanted to record them so we can look back and see God's hand in it from the other side:
Cliff got us out of debt in May. That lead to us realizing what a disaster it would have been to try to live in an expensive place like that with debt hanging over our heads. So glad that is out of the way.
A few weeks before the interview and job offer, my brother offered/really wanted to live in our Corbett house, pay a reduced rent, fix it up and potentially move towards buying! This was huge, as it is one of our biggest problems right now. And to have him excited about it and making plans to make it better, is just icing on the cake!
He also agreed to take Annie, our beloved kitty of 14 years. She has really bad arthritis and needs a quiet place to live out the rest of her days. Taking her to Hawaii would have been very expensive and she would have to be in quarantine in a tiny cage for 3 months. Not fun. So, Andy is a huge blessing taking care of her. The girls and I especially will cry a few tears for Anners. We will really miss her.
One of my mom's close friends is getting a job as a stewardess and appears to be able to get airline tickets for a greatly reduced price which is good news for us and her as she will most likely get to come visit more often than we thought!
Our lease wasn't up until June which meant we need to find someone to take it over. If we don't find anyone, or no one responds to the add that the rental agency puts out, we will be responsible for all of remainder. But fortunately, they had 20 inquiries in one day due to the very low rent we pay! They are not allowed to raise the rent until June making this a very attractive property. One application is in the pipeline and I'm sure a few more will follow. Hopefully I can update this portion soon.
A rental that we are interested in in the area we are interested in has come available. They seem to really like us and we are moving towards a deal. The interesting thing is that it comes available February 7th. We wanted to move in on the 8th. How's that for timing?!
Also, we found out about the job 4 days before I was going to pay a bunch of money for winter classes and sports for the kids. Because we found out before registration started, we saved hundred of dollars!
We have several people interested in buying our explorer, so hopefully that will sell right when we leave. And when we ship our van (at least that the plan right now), we hope to borrow one of Andy's cars for the last 2 weeks. Oddly enough he recently purchased 2 extra cars recently. Coincidence or great timing? :) We actually haven't asked him yet, so I guess we should count on it. But I think he will ;)
Kaiah's piano teacher agreed to try lessons over Skype!
Family members and friends have already spoken for most of our large items so we won't have to try to sell those.
I have two totally empty weekends leading up to the move in which to hold garage sales.
The start date of the job was pushed back to accommodate a family trip to Central Oregon that we had scheduled and really wanted to take. And we were able to have a mostly relaxing Christmas knowing we have the whole month of January to pack and get ready.
There are probably more things than that, and I'm sure I will add to the list later, but I just wanted to get them down, because it seems that things are falling together so very nicely.
I'm thankful for a God who cares about silly little details :)
