So in 2012 I left my hometown of Westchester CA (LAX baby!) and moved up to Tacoma WA.

4 years later, the hubster and I loaded all of our crap in a 16ft Penske (plus his car on a trailer) and drove across the country back to his hometown of Danvers MA. Family health matters prompted this change, as he is an only child and thus we're the only ones that can help his parents.

We've been here just over 7 weeks now, and I'm still getting my bearings. Need to find a job, preferably something (legal) from home if I can get it. No matter what, our next goal is to get finances in order as soon as we can, and then start looking for a house in Salem.

I hope we can find some geeky peeps to hang out with here. We've both left behind great friends in L.A., OKC, and the Puget Sound combined. I feel so isolated not knowing a soul, but I guess I'm not really going anywhere by myself in yucky weather. (Don't drive, hence wanting to live in Salem for the better transit options.)

PS: The tale of the journey is cray-zee!

Waving from the East Coast,

JC

Oh yah, we all stayed home yesterday. Didn't seem as bad as it could have been tho, like only a little bit deeper than the snowfall a week b4 Xmas. The building owners came and pickuptruck-plowed the driveway last nite, and the hubster did a little shoveling this morning.

Basically, we're bunking with the MIL in the same place where he grew up. (It's an old converted-into-apts 1905 house.) FIL is in a nursing home a few blocks away, where he's been for almost a year now. She goes to spend time with him almost every day, weather and appts permitting. We're heading over in a couple hours to bring the kitty for some animal therapy time!

Hubster has a good job with the VA in Bedford. MIL is mostly all right health-wise, but she does appreciate our help when it is needed. She tends to drive close to home, within a 20min radius.

Lil ol me, as the SoCal girl, is totally out of her element, haha! But I'm trying to deal the best that I can. I might be further from my mom in LA now, but I'm closer to my sister in Philly! We're gonna try and visit her in the spring/summer.

Danvers? I hope you're enjoying the snowstorm we're having right now. This is not the place to live unless you can deal with this weather. If I still had live relatives and could arrange or afford to move south, I would.

I also know what it's like to look after elderly parents, though that was many years ago. I imagine things are crazier now. It's always the so-called 'caregivers' you have to have patience with and much less so the ones being cared for.

At any rate, you invite a crash if you try doing anything out there today. You might as well sit down & listen to our shows to put your mind off things.