It’s been quite a transitional period this past 9 months. Four years ago, I made a promise to myself to never change job, change church, and buy a house all at the same time. Well, I shouldn’t have made that promise, cause it’s happened again.
Last September, I left my previous job of four years in a less than favorable situation. And at the same time, we left our church of four years during a time of major change. And to make things complete, we’ve also been house hunting.
On the job front, I’m grateful that it has turned out very well for me. When I left the job last fall, I immediately found a contract job that paid a pretty good hourly rate. Since I was only a contractor, I left my resume on several job boards and got daily calls and emails from recruiters. But, none of them have been able to match the rate. During this time, I felt like it was a good opportunity to look for a job in Seattle. Since we were no longer tied to Atlanta, we were free to move. However, I was only able to get an interview with Amazon. It seems like nobody is willing to hire someone clear across the country (and I don’t blame them). The interview with Amazon was good enough to keep them indecisive for a week before I got a rejection email. I then gave up looking in Seattle (and Atlanta too) and resigned to being content with the current high paying contract job. Then about a month ago, a recruiter from a big name internet security company emailed me. She said the position is in Savannah, GA. I replied back that I wasn’t interested. Then she replied back that I could work from home. It wasn’t a Java development position, so I again said I wasn’t interested. Fortunately, she was persistent and said I only had to go there 4 times a year and at least try a phone interview. I said OK and scheduled the interview. It went well and we then scheduled a face-to-face interview in Savannah. And that went very well. And after doing an extensive background check on me, they made me a formal offer which I then immediately accepted. So, in a few weeks, I’ll be working from home for a well known internet company on a permament basis.
On the house front, we’ve spent every Saturday looking at houses for the past half year. Housing prices in Atlanta is getting pretty ridiculous. I don’t see how people can afford new houses. It seems like the only way is for both spouses to work and get interest-only loans. So, to find something affordable for us with a single income, we’ve had to look at houses pretty far away (relatively speaking) – Woodstock, Forsyth, Suwanee, Lilburn. But, my wife and I couldn’t seem to agree on any houses we looked at. If I liked it, she didn’t. If she liked it, I didn’t. Then after we both completely wanted to give up, we visited a neighborhood with a house that we could both agree on. So, we put an offer on it and after some haggling, reached an agreement. It’ll be complete in the summer, so by then we’ll be owners of a new home.
On the church front, we’ve been visiting a lot of churches – Liburn Alliance, Johnson Ferry Baptist, Vineyard, Northpoint Community, Faith Fellowship, Intown Community, First Baptist Woodstock, Perimeter Presbyterian, and ACCC North. So far, we like Intown Community the best, but it’ll be way too far from our new house. It has a more academic feel to it, probably cause it’s so close to Emory University. And I like how they have a humor that is self-deprecating. After a guest speaker gave a sermon, the assistant pastor said, “If the audience says, ‘hey, that kinda makes sense’, then you gave a great sermon.” And it’s the only (evangelical) church that I’ve been to that actually serves wine at communion (hey, what a concept!). And it doesn’t hurt that there’s a Picadilly close by where we can go to for lunch after church.
So, I’m looking forward to this summer when things will (hopefully) all settle down. And I’m grateful that it looks like we’ll be able to land with both feet on the ground during this major transition time.