Hey everyone! Believe it or not, I’m still here, though this blog has clearly taken a backseat to the chaos of my everyday home life. I returned to school back in August, and haven’t hit publish on a single post since.
Oh, I’ve written a few, but to be honest, none of them really stood out as things that truly represent the person I am today. There were restaurant reviews, Epcot Festival guides, trip planning posts, even a “Happy New Year” version of the post you’re reading now, but none of them made me say, “Wow. This is it.”
Life has changed a lot since I began posting here. It’s been four years to the day since I published my first post, and set off on this great adventure to become the person I wanted to be. Someone who travels often, tries new things, and is…less afraid, I’ll say, of falling on her face.
I may not travel as often as I used to, but I have embraced the thrill of forcing myself to do the things that scare me. Sometimes it’s little things, like forcing myself to call instead of text, or driving myself across town for an appointment that I’d much rather keep putting off. Little by little, I’ve continued to put myself out there and see what happens, and I’m happy with the person I am today. I’m always changing and improving, and this year promises to bring some of the most dramatic changes of my life.
That’s why I wanted to check in and share the biggest thing that’s been keeping me away, and what you can look forward to in the coming months and years as this space is transformed to suit the lifestyle I enjoy today.
We’re Moving!
Perhaps the biggest news of the year is that Dan and I are officially hunting for our first home together. Last month we took the big step of hiring a realtor and securing financing pre-approval letters, which means we could potentially be in our first place much sooner than we originally anticipated. Eeek! Dan’s lived in Orlando his whole life, and all five of the apartments I’ve shared since arriving in the city have been in the same seven-mile block. I can’t tell you how ready I am to make a change at last.
We are looking at a few areas, but for now all our dreams are pinned on Clermont, which is about thirty minutes away from Orlando. After driving around several cities, it seems like the best fit for our lifestyle and our budget. I love the beautiful lakes and state parks and the hills – the hills! One of the things I detest most about Orlando is how flat and dull the landscape is, and I am so looking forward to being in a city with a little more dimension to it. The city also has a ton of new restaurants and shops popping up, and its rumored that one of my favorite Orlando eateries is opening a location here soon as well. It seems like a place on the rise, and we are eager to get in now before other people start to notice. Clermont truly reminds of growing up in Washington, with its stunning views, its cute little downtown area, and its obvious love of nature.
In many ways, moving out of Orlando and into a neighboring city feels almost as major as the move that took me all the way from Washington State down to Florida back in 2007. I feel like I’ve finally gotten somewhat settled here, and it will be scary to start fresh and look for new doctors, new hairdressers, new favorite local restaurants, new auto repair shops, and more. Will I still drive across town to get my eyebrows threaded, or will I find someone just as good in my new city? If we have kids, what will their education here be like? Am I seriously going to keep driving back to Orlando to go to work every day, or will I find a job at home in Clermont? This move truly is a fresh start for us, which is thrilling and terrifying all at once.
When I moved to Florida in 2007, my best friend and I picked an apartment online, sight unseen, three weeks before our arrival in Orlando. We moved in right away, and blew the $100 Visa rewards card we’d earned from Rent.com on an exorbitant feast at a Brazilian steakhouse. I didn’t have a car, I didn’t have a job, and the air conditioning was broken in our shitty little apartment, which turned out to be in one of the worst parts of the city. We dragged our air mattresses out into the living room whenever we wanted to watch a movie on our hand-me-down TV, which sat on the empty mattress packing boxes.
Eventually we moved on. We bought new furniture, made new friends and new mistakes, sought out new jobs, and moved from one place to the next. Like it or not, Orlando is my home now, and it is scary to think that I’m finally leaving this familiar little seven-mile stretch for a city that is entirely unknown to me. What if our house is in a bad neighborhood? What if our neighbors are thugs? What if the only restaurants for miles are Applebee’s and Wing House!?
Then there are the fears about the house itself. What if we buy an older house, and the AC dies mid-July, or the roof tears right off in a hurricane, or we try to knock down a wall and find a $10,000 mess of code violations that need to be repaired ASAP? What if we buy a new construction, but the insulation was never installed, or the foundation cracks right away, or it turns out no one sealed the plumbing lines and now there’s water seeping out of the walls?
I have a lot of fears about our new home, but more importantly, I have a lot of hopes pinned on it. Moving out of Orlando and starting fresh means everything to us. It represents all of the things we want for our future, and the major step we are taking to get that future off the ground. We’ve been out house-hunting with our realtor every weekend for the past three weeks, and actually came close to putting in an offer on the very first house we saw. It’s been an emotional experience so far, and we haven’t even gotten started! Stay tuned, as I’m sure I’ll be posting much more about our home as we get settled into our new city. I hope it will be a source of inspiration for this blog, and I want to share everything from possible renovation details and DIY projects to our weekends spent exploring our new city.
Read more about the home we purchased here:
- The Buyer’s Guide to the KB Home Design Studio
- 7 Surprising Drawbacks of Buying a New Construction Home
- How to Install Your Own Cabinet Hardware in 7 Simple Steps
- Buying a New Construction Home: 7 Keys to Enjoying the Build
What’s Next?
I have to admit that things will be probably be fairly quiet here as I move into my fifth year of blogging. Between house hunting, moving, working, saving, going to school, and anything else that may surprise us along the way, I can already tell it’s going to be a busy year. We do have one major trip planned in May, which I will of course cover here. I feel lucky to be able to do so much in one short year, but the reality is that until I graduate and things settle down a bit, I won’t be able to travel as much as I’d like.
I wouldn’t really call myself a “travel blogger” anymore, not with all the big changes to come in my personal life. I’m excited to announce that in the coming year, I’m making the leap into lifestyle blogging. I’m eager to share more of the things that I love, without stopping to worry whether those things fit into the “travel blogger” aesthetic. Travel has always been central to this site, and it will still feature heavily in my posts, but I’m excited to branch out and grow this space to become a true reflection of the person I am now and the person I want to become.
Thank you as always for your support! I hope you enjoy the changes as they come. Happy 2019!
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