Moving Again.

We're moving again... not to another continent, another state, or even another town. In fact, not even another road. Our new house is just two doors down from this one. Why the shift? Each faculty member is required to live in a dorm for at least 10 years. The apartments are quite nice and spacious- even for a family of six. As a result many faculty choose to stay in for the maximum 15 year amount. Which can leave quite a waiting list for the newbies. And with a larger size family there are fewer available apartments which makes the process... tricky. Bottom line: someone else has to move out of one of the bigger apartments for us to move in, and, of course, anyone above us on the waiting list moves first.

In the meantime, we live on campus in what is called a "pre-dorm" house, while Kevin is affiliated with a dorm. He has student advisees and does dorm duty 1 weeknight and every fourth weekend. Not a bad set-up for our first year. A slow integration into life here, with our own space and plenty of time to think through "boundary issues" as we watch how other faculty approach dorm life.

A faculty family who has completed their years of dorm service normally moves on to "post-dorm" housing. It is a sweet deal. 10 years in the dorm equals 10 years in a house... all of which are rent free. The only hitch is that the pre-dorm and post-dorm houses are one and the same. So in the early spring of the year, faculty who are considering leaving the dorm for post-dorm housing tour all of the available houses for the following year. If, as in our case, a post-dormer chooses a house that is currently occupied by a pre-dormer, the pre-dormer is assigned to another pre-dorm house. With multiple folks leaving the dorm and multiple folks waiting to get into a dorm and some people switching from dorm to dorm or from pre-dorm house to pre-dorm house the whole process can get complicated. My hat goes off to the group of individuals here who are in charge of figuring it all out and making the decisions of who goes where, when and how. The academy covers all the moving costs and arranges and schedules everything during the summer months. The campus gets all shuffled up and put back into place in the few weeks before and after summer school.

Thus, in the early spring lot's of people came in and looked at our place and we were informed a week or so later that our house had been chosen as a post dorm house. So we knew we would be moving...but where? During March and April, dorm apartments opened up and people in the line in front of us were assigned to them. We guessed we would move into another pre-dorm house. Just a few days ago we got the letter confirming that. And, since our current house needs quite a bit of work, we will be one of the first faculty to move.

This will be our 7th move in 3 years. 6 moves that were each accompanied by fairly traumatic circumstances... that each had a certain emotional flavor and packed their own distinctive punch. Fortunately we had multiple people who came along-side us to help, lending practical and emotional support every time. It is hard to imagine being able to move so often and through such circumstances and remain unscathed. Community (both dear friends and family) is a powerful, powerful thing.

With three weeks to go, this move could be the easiest one yet. We move only two doors down. Our "new" house is 3 years old and is (in our opinion) one of the coolest houses on campus. It is a LEED award winning house, with geothermal heating and cooling, energy efficient appliances, solar water heating, a beautiful, well designed lay-out and plenty of room for our family and guests. And because the Lord knows that I need baby steps, even though this shift should be the least emotionally challenging... my sister (with her family and dear friends) will be coming to visit within a few days of our move.

If only I could twinkle my nose and have everything glide magically into the correctly labeled cardboard box! As that power is not in my skill set, for the next few weeks I'll be purging and packing.