I took some time last night to read over things I wrote in the move from San Francisco to New Hampshire in 2010. I also read a few things written in 2008 as I went to San Francisco from Florida. I hate moving. No one loves it but I grew up in a family that moved to a new house almost every year. We’d fill up a gigantic U-Haul truck and go some place new. Sometimes, it was a house just down the street and other times, it would be across state lines. Moving as an adult is different than where a child just puts all of their toys in a few boxes and grabs their toothbrush. Adult moving is serious business simply dealing with changing your address with a multitude of corporations and the IRS and transferring utilities and more. Moving in the winter was never a big deal as I’m from the south. I didn’t consider this when deciding to move this time as you tell almost everyone know you’re moving and they respond with, “it’s the dead of winter.” Oops. Reading my impressions with New Hampshire and the cabin I currently reside as voiced by a younger me 2 years ago is fun. A lot of the allure and excitement about this terrific part of America remains.
Why am I moving to a different place? Where am I moving? What in the heck is going on?
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There are a few driving issues for wanting to find a new place. The first is privacy. I’ve enjoyed the small community that is my cabin. 4 guys live below me on the 1st floor of the cabin and the stairway is closed off. There’s a family living in the other side of the cabin where the wash room is. There were 2 more groups living in an off-set converted barn but that place burned down over a year ago. It was a nice community. We had parties, cookouts and I had people who could watch my house, feed my chickens and just keep an eye on things. It was nice and I still enjoy their company but, I can see, hear and smell everything that is going on. I like target practice with my gun in the back yard but not while I’m eating dinner do I want to hear someone else doing it. Stereos, TVs and parties can go late while I’m trying to get some sleep and I feel like I can never really be alone. That’s a big one. The second is the overall situation where I currently live hasn’t been ideal. I’m allowed to have farm animals granted I keep their areas clean and the yard doesn’t smell and that’s really nice but the rent keeps going up and I don’t feel like the owner cares too much that I’ve been here for over two years paying rent every month. Things I need fixed are ignored and it’s not a good situation to be put in especially if rent continues to rise. Overall, I’m looking for a standalone house where I can have more responsibility to pay things myself with a landlord who is present, reliable and does things by the book and expects me to be the same way. I pay on time so you should be there when I need help with an issue.
I currently reside in Canaan, NH. It is a nice place if you want to be left alone. What I mean is, most of my fellow residents are basic. They have houses, work blue collar jobs, pay their bills, have families but there isn’t really a community. Most of the people I meet here were born here and have no plans on traveling or moving away. It’s a nice place to settle down but I have a problem relating to anyone that I meet in this area. You usually make friends while hunting and drinking Budweiser and listening to rock music and going “mudding” and I don’t do any of those things. The place I’m moving to is in Lyme, NH which is in the opposite direction of my work from where I live now. The new place is an hour from my cabin but the same 30 minute drive from my work. It’s closer to Vermont and home to more people who teach or work at Dartmouth college. You wouldn’t believe the difference that makes. It’s sort of like the comparison people make between Oakland and Berkeley. Both town are in the east bay but they are worlds apart in culture, style and activities. Lyme is to Hanover (Home of Dartmouth) like Berkeley is to San Francisco. IT’s smaller, less concentrated but has similar things going on.
If you want, City-Data has a nice page for each town. Lyme, NH & Canaan, NH. What is most telling is that Lyme’s average income is 25,000 USD more, the average home price is 200K more and the college educated population is twice that of Canaan. The average age is also higher but, it’s New Hampshire and it seems like everyone is over 40 and that’s just how it goes.
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The new house is a downgrade in many ways but it’s a move that is in line with my renewed goals.
When I came to New Hampshire, I thought that I wouldn’t be here very long. That isn’t a low blow at my job or the state but I thought soon I’d be moving to Europe to work closer to my team there or they’d move me to Boston to be more centralized in that office. I wasn’t sure why they asked me to move here so I thought, $1400 a month is steep but it’s a cabin with 3 bedrooms, 5 acres on a river with no shortage of what I can’t do with the place. I was certain I wouldn’t be able to live the outdoors life for too long before getting pulled back into a metropolitan area so I went for something that would allow me to explore my farming roots. The past 30 months have been some of the happiest in my life.
It’s now clear that I’ll be in New Hampshire for quite some time and it’s time to renew my goal of eventually buying a home. This means saving money, reducing hobbies and living more within my means. I don’t have any credit card debt but the cabin I was in plus all of the farm related hobbies I had cost quite a bit of money and I’d like to do those eventually but I need to be patient and do it once I have a bit of land to work with and a home that I actually own. The new house is more quaint. The yard is half an acre with no capacity for a garden or chickens. There’s no river access and there’s only a master bedroom with a small guest bedroom that I’ll use as an office. The kitchen doesn’t allow butchering of an entire hog. It’s modern but not spacious. The grocery store is closer to having a pantry stocked full of food is no longer a requirement and I’ll be a short drive from Hanover so I’ll be more engaged in community activities and less sitting around out in the woods all weekend firing off guns and having bonfires. It’s a different take on things in many ways both the location and the home layout.
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Beyond the fluff of why I needed to move to a new place, there’s another aspect to this move that is more special. Elizabeth, who moved here in late 2008 from Washington DC / Asheville, NC is moving in with me. My cabin now is almost an hour from her work. That combined with the privacy concerns I’ve listed never made her feel welcome here. I knew that if I found a new place, it would have to be dog-friendly, more modern and closer to her work. Even though I visited most of the rentals by myself, it was important to find a place that she would like.
Elizabeth and I met online in early October of 2010 while I was in Amsterdam for work. We started dating in November and just celebrated our 2 year anniversary. We’re not moving in together because that’s just what you do. I think that we’re doing it for many reasons. Some are just “it makes sense” and others are “we love spending time together”
A later realization of mine after going through the discussion on moving in was that I’m going to save $600 a month living with her over what I pay now in a new house that actually costs more than I’m paying now. That is another great aspect and one that will help me save money. This is the tangible figure. Other things like 1 cable tv bill, shared food and carpooling are all fantastic incentives for us beyond the initial reasons for moving in together. She just turned 27 and I’m 26 and both of us have had some very mature and great discussions on this move and what it means for both of us. Only time will tell for what other things are in store for us.
The only negative which really isn’t is that I can no longer do AirBNB. Sure, I could rent by the night, a second bedroom but the $100 a night entire rental of my house deal is going away. It’s sad but also fine because I’m saving equivalent to what I made at AirBNB before without all of the hassle and stress. In addition, the smaller place means no farming expenses so that should be great as well.
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What’s next? Well, everything is signed and paid up at the new house. I have some hired help for the heavy lifting since I don’t have any male friends in New Hampshire. My last AirBNB guest leaves before Christmas and then I’ll begin packing and preparing for a New Years Eve move. The reason I’m not going home for Christmas this year is because of the move but, the free time off from work and quiet timing will be nice. Plus, I’m starting the new year in a new house and I get that nice tax write-off line item that I moved in 2012 :)
So, that’s the full details on the move. Sorry for the long post but I tried to cover everything here and give as much info as possible for friends, family and followers who have read my blog for a long time. Thanks for reading and the warm congratulations not the move!
Sorry for the lack of photos. I promise to have some around the time of the move which takes place the last week of December.