1. As I've talked about before, we hope to move out of Chicago at some point in the near future, and I've been pining for a place that feels more like home. But one theme that keeps popping up over again is the extent that family plays into the issue of geography, especially once kids enter the picture. Am I being short-sighted in wanting to move so badly, even though we hope to have kids within the next few years? Will it feel lonely to raise kids away from extended family? In my life, my family's geographic closeness was a positive experience, but it didn't necessarily lead to emotional closeness as I grew up. Will we be able to create our own community/support group wherever we are living? These are the kinds of questions on my mind, especially after spending time with relatives in Arizona and New Mexico, which is a side of Mark's family that he didn't (and doesn't) get to see very often. I'd love to hear from any of you, on both sides of the equation-- are you raising your kids near family? Was this intentional? Or do you live apart from your extended family? What has your experience been like? Did you yourself grow up near or far from family?
Edited to add: We would likely have a few family members in the cities we're considering moving to, but our parents wouldn't be nearby.
2. It looks like this year is going to be another big year for travel for us! Back in 2012, Mark's company asked him to work on a project in Ireland for eight months (if you're interested in our time over there, you can read the Ireland archive on my old blog). A similar project is happening again, and this time they've asked him to go to Israel for four months. We just got the news recently, and he will be leaving sometime in the next few weeks. Since this project has a shorter timeline, I won't be going with him like I did in Ireland, but the plan is for me to visit Israel towards the end of Mark's project and then continue on with a few weeks of travel together once he finishes up. We're dreaming of possibilities ranging from a Eastern Mediterranean cruise to a Thailand/Bali/Australia/New Zealand trip. Bonkers awesome. I'm trying to keep focused on the excitement of possible travel, because if I think about four months apart from Mark, I get a bit anxious and sad. (Also, if you have any Israel recommendations or tips, please let me know! Most likely he will be living in Tel Aviv.)
3. Project Life. *Sigh.* I don't know how I feel about it right now. I fell behind when I made a spread sometime in March that I really didn't like. It was so bad it killed my mojo. Then vacation and life happened and somehow it's the end of April and I have not worked on it in weeks. I have most of the photos placed into my InDesign template to get me caught up, but I'm not at all motivated to print or embellish them. It's funny, I feel like life was super boring over the winter months, and yet I managed to come up with PL spreads. Now that it's finally spring and I have a life again, I'm feeling less desire to document and more desire to just live it.
4. Random and somewhat vague question: Do any of you know any creative people (writers, designers, photographers, artists, etc.) who are using their creative skills for social good or humanitarian efforts? If so, could you point me to their social media? Thank you!
5. My salad obsession continues (especially after our vacation with a few indulgences). I've recently tried this Shrimp and Avocado Salad with Miso Dressing and this Rainbow Chicken Salad with Almond Honey Mustard Dressing. I loved the shrimp salad in particular, and the dressing on the Rainbow salad was delicious (but I don't like blueberries, so I didn't care for that salad mixture as much as this Honey Feta Chicken Salad with Grapes and Almonds, which is a standby favorite).
just weighing in on number 1... I can't imagine raising kids without family nearby. If you have a strong community of friends, or a husband who works for home or has flexible hours it might be different, but Mike's family are who I always turn to when I need a babysitter or extra help. One time I was having a terrible asthma attack, and the first person I called was my mom-in-law to come be with the kids so I could go to urgent care. Situations like that would be way more of a hassle if they weren't nearby. And my parents live in Iowa, so it's only a 4 hour drive to get there, instead of an expensive flight.
ReplyDeleteI've also found a lot of things that were really important to us before kids (free time activities like restaurants or cultural activities) become less important when you have super little ones. I guess it's why familiar gravitate to the suburbs, even though there's less exciting stuff to do, it's not like you're doing super exciting stuff anyway. ;)
um, that's "families" not "familiar", thanks autocorrect.
DeleteThanks for your perspective, Katie! I definitely appreciate your opinion. We have a few family connections in the cities we're considering moving to (including one of Mark's sisters), but I know it'd be hard being away from our parents. Part of the problem is that-- even now-- the people we are closest to are quite spread out. My parents are on the verge of retiring to northern WI 6 hours away, and Mark's mom is 2 hours away (and can't visit us because she's allergic to cats). So I don't know how much our parents would even be available for last-minute/babysitting situations even if we stayed where we are. And I'm NOT moving to northern WI ;) I don't think the structural engineering job opportunities would be that great up there, haha.
DeleteAs of right now, we plan on still trying to move out west in a year. Due to health issues, we're not sure how easy it will be for us to conceive, so we don't want to put our current lives on hold for a hypothetical future. It's not restaurants and activities that makes us want to move; we want a better fitting lifestyle, nature, and job opportunities, and those are really important to us and our well-being. If we end up with kids and later decide to move back to be near family, so be it. At least that's my stance at the moment :) And heck, Mark might not find any jobs out west, rendering all these thoughts moot!
don't have kids (yet), so living away from my family has been a little easier (I guess), however, I do miss my sister and her kids a lot and I honestly don't know what she would do without the help of both sets of parents. I think raising kids completely away from any support is tough.
ReplyDeleteAnd sometimes, it's also hard to build a new community somewhere else that will support you like family would.
Thanks for your input, San! Mark and I are far from his sister and our two nephews in Phoenix, so I definitely understand some of the pain of being apart from siblings. We definitely wish we could see them more than once a year.
DeleteIf you don't mind me asking, do you plan to return to Germany if/when you have kids?
I find it super interesting to talk about the concept of family with different people. For example, Mark and I both come from divorced parents and have VERY disparate family groups, so our perspective on family as a community is often quite different than people raised by strong family units.
For number 1 - I've been living at the other end of Australia (Darwin, NT) to where both my partner's family and my family are in Victoria (down the bottom of Australia). As I enter my late 20's and he's just turned 31 thoughts turn more and more to family and being closer as we think about our future too.
ReplyDeleteFor the travel plans - how exciting!! Really there is nothing better than travel!
Thanks for your comment, Ali! It sounds like you're dealing with some similar thoughts. It's so interesting how this time of life brings up similar questions for different people!
DeleteAnd yes, nothing beats travel. We're so lucky to be able to travel thanks to my husband's job. We've always been wanderlusters, but we never imagined we'd get these kinds of opportunities!
I'm interested to see where you all end up moving! And holy crap Israel - how amazing!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Becky! We're hoping for either Portland, Oregon, or the Denver area. I'm leaning towards Denver because it's sort of halfway between our Midwest and Southwest families and Mark's sister is relocating there soon, but Mark is slightly more in favor of Portland because he hasn't visited Denver yet. We'll see what happens! :)
DeleteMy parents are nearby, and my in-laws live about an hour and a half away (sounds kinda far but not very far at all by Texas standards). It's wonderful to be able to leave the baby with people we trust and who love him a lot, though none of the grandparents are retired so they aren't super available. I like that my kiddo is growing up around family (I mostly grew up in upstate New York with no extended family nearby by... 5 siblings though; of course that made it difficult to afford travel to see the rest of the family!) and to some degree it is a conscious choice. My husband is a software developer and is often approached by companies in the Bay Area, but he'd have to be paid an insane amount of money to justify us up and leaving our support system here (plus he already gets decent pay here with a much lower cost of living!).
ReplyDeleteA support system, whether it's family, friends or a combination is so, so important when you have a baby (especially if your husband happens to work a lot). I'd recommend seeking out midwifery care at a birth center if and when you get pregnant. There's very much a community aspect (both prenatal and postnatal) at most birth centers and I think that could be key to finding your support system if you aren't near family.
Thanks for sharing your story, Julia! I really appreciate your tip about the midwife care and the community it could offer. I already know that's a route I'd want to go, but didn't think about the community aspect of it-- thank you!
DeleteI'm lucky that Mark is VERY intentional about keeping a good work-life balance and has always maintained that family life is more important than work-- even right now without any kids in the picture. I have no doubt he'd keep his work hours totally reasonable if/when we have kids.
As for creative people who want to use their talents for humanitarian purposes. That is a HUGE deal for me, and very much in line with what I want to be doing with my writing and my art. Socially-conscious design, it's called. If you collect some resources for that, would you write a blog post sharing them? I'd be very interested in reading it!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment! I'll definitely work on a blog post; I'm glad to know some others out there are interested in the topic. I haven't received any recommendations from others yet, but I'm doing a lot of research on my own seeing what people out there are doing, not necessarily just with design but as makers and entrepreneurs as well. I'm really interested in reading some books on social entrepreneurship, which I'll be sure to review.
DeleteHow exciting about Israel Caiti!
ReplyDeleteYour thought process on moving very closely echoes the things my husband and I considered when we moved to Colorado. My family is in the Midwest (spread throughout Iowa City, Chicago area, and Madison, WI), which is not exactly close to Colorado, but Iowa City is only a short plane ride or a day's drive away (granted, it's a *long* days drive but just knowing that it's do-able makes me feel good). We thought about moving back to the Midwest, but ultimately decided we'd always regret not trying our hand at our dream locale. Colorado has exceeded our expectations, and I now can't imagine living elsewhere (although of course that may change at some point in the future; it's hard to know what life will look like five, ten, or twenty years from now). To us, the benefit of living somewhere we love so much outweighs the inconvenience of having to travel to see our families. I'll admit there are times that it's tough and I do think more and more about the difficulties of raising children without family nearby (though I'm ambivalent about kids generally...that's another story, I guess). Anyway, I think my point is that there's not a right answer, but as someone who's been through it, I encourage you to follow your heart's calling out West. If you think you'll like it, you probably will. And, of course, I vote for the Denver area. :)
Thanks for sharing your experience, Analiese! Mark and I have been continuing to talk a lot about this, and we basically came to the conclusion that we'd regret not trying to move. Long-distance job hunting might not work out, but we really want to TRY to make it happen regardless of if/when we have kids. We're open to the changes we'll potentially face in the future if we do have kids, but right now, we want to chase after our dreams.
DeleteYou will certainly be one of the people I HAVE to meet if we end up in CO :)