At this point of finally getting around to posting, it has been a collection of big days that can be lumped into one giant day. Athena and I have made several big life changes—all big improvements—that have occurred in a short period of time.
- New Place – We moved from Clermont to Breckenridge, which is a lot closer to the Sunset Transit Center and Forest Park. The walking score is not as good, but the public transit access and bikability is much better and I would like to start biking. We found a 2 bed, 1 bath for just slightly more than we were paying before. It is a major trade up. There’s even a community garden!
- Engagement – We had been discussing it for a while, but Athena was the one that actually, technically proposed. She put it to question, “Do you want to marry me?” And I said yes, of course. Then, one weekend recently, we were out shopping and stopped by a Ben Bridge and happened to find the perfect ring. She was prepared to be too specific and not able to find it, but we did and now we are officially engaged!
- New Job – My contract ended this week and my going away party was brief and bittersweet. The only thing that sweetened it was that the week before, I had been given two offers to choose from. I am completely unfamiliar with this position of choice and it was uncomfortable. After much soul searching, I chose the job with less pay and benefits under a contract rather than direct, full employment because I felt like I would enjoy it more and may indeed open more doors than it would close. My start date is August 8th and I will be making almost double, hourly—to be an Engineer I!
- New Puppy – Her name is Sweet Pea! She’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel mix (probably Papillion or Chihuahua), which we were not expecting to find at an adoption event. Pure bred, they can cost upwards of $2,000. We didn’t name her and aren’t planning to because she already responds to her name and she did seem like quite the Sweet Pea. However, she is aggressive to other dogs, which will take quite some time socializing because she is already 5 years old. If we do end up renaming her, we are considering Guinevere.
Really exciting changes. We even made the move just the two of us. We rented a U-Haul and hauled all of our big furniture in one day. I had to take a day off during my last week of work to do it and I was exhausted and drained the next day back at work. I did my best to take care of all of my responsibilities and finish up all of my projects at work before I left, but I didn’t exactly have enough time. If I had been in the position to put in my two weeks’ notice, as I thought I was going to have to do with the two jobs that I had been interviewing with for months/weeks, I would have been able to prioritize things to get done and do them. But, getting down to the last week, I was still receiving new assignments and daily tasks and I was not able to just focus on tying loose ends.
There were a lot of interesting aspects of my job at Nike, but I was never able to operate as an engineer to my full capacity in my role in the lab or as an assistant. Daimler will, in stages, give me more and more responsibilities and opportunities to operate on my own, nearly free reigns. The other job offered the same, but on a much more focused task. My role at Daimler is to basically implement custom engineered solutions (which sounds perfect to me) in a multifaceted environment of CAD software use, desk work, hands-on work in the shop, and ad hoc troubleshooting/problem solving. I can’t wait to get started.
