Eight years of waiting

My husband has been considering what his next car will be for as long as we've been dating. If you aren't sure, that would be 8 years. He's been saving money for the "next" car for at least the last 4 years. I've lost count of the number of auto shows, showroom visits, and test drives that have gone towards this endeavor. In the beginning, it was fun to think about in a "sometime in the future" way. A few years in, it became a more serious undertaking and I found myself getting invested in each of the cars on the list. A few years after that, I had more or less given up on a new car materializing. I was worn out from the search years before it was over and, by this year, just nodded and (sometimes) smiled when a new option was raised. Mostly I was just hoping it would all get wrapped up soon.

In the end, it all happened far quicker than I would have guessed. After (truly) exhaustive research, we are now the proud owners of a Tesla and are learning about the (frequently weird) switch from gas to electric cars. For starters, it's a lot quieter. Though, compared to the 2003 Mustang with the extra-loud, after-market exhaust system, that was pretty much a guarantee for almost any new car. I'm not sure it has fully sunk in that we will not need to be stopping at gas stations any time soon though my husband has already noted the days he would usually be stopping to fill up. (Not to worry, my Subaru will keep making routine gas stops.) In the meantime, neither of us has any intuitive sense of what a "good" Watt-hours per Mile (WhpM) rate is - something that will take a while to get used to after a lifetime of considering MpG.

My husband has also now gained bragging rights to the nominal title of "best environmentalist in the house," leap-frogging any of my efforts to compost, recycle, and reuse. If I was still living in the UP and bike commuting, I could probably maintain the lead in this household not-a-competition-competition but there's no way for me to manage bike commuting in my current circumstances in TX (I checked). I walk to the grocery store... does that count?

All joking (and Tesla shaped keys) aside, from a technological perspective, the car is really cool. For starters, the largely touch screen based interfaces make me constantly re-think the definition of "car." The driving itself is incredibly smooth and my husband has not yet stopped being as excited as a child on Christmas morning about the acceleration. Especially considering my day job, which involves a lot of LiDAR data collection, analysis, and processing as well as other forms of remote sensing, the technology and algorithms that drive the car's autopilot fascinate and excite me like a child on Christmas. The system has definite limitations but seeing all that technology realized in the day to day world is amazing.

Also the key is indeed really cool. Apparently, we're both five years old at heart.

Unexpected and Uplifting

We sold our home in Texas back in August 2017. At the time, I had six months remaining on my contract at University of Houston. Some good friends of ours were nice enough to take me in and give me a place to live for the duration. Back in August, I was optimistically sure that I would find a job long before the end of January. By Christmas, I was beginning to accept that I wouldn't be relocated to Atlanta by the new year.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I was offered a contract extension for six months and my boss was willing to let me work two weeks of each month remotely. I was genuinely torn between wanting to move to Atlanta and live full time in my own house with my own family and wanting to continue with a job that I really enjoy. I decided to take the contract extension, which left me needing to find a new place to live. I considered getting my own apartment, which sounded really nice in quite a few ways. All of our furniture and kitchen supplies had long been relocated to Atlanta though so I knew that option was possible but impractical.

Another close friend offered me a quick save when they found me a place to live with another woman who was married and living apart from her spouse for a while. The opportunity seemed too good to pass up with one unfortunate downside- the new arrangement would move me across town, over an hour away from the SE Houston area I had lived in since 2015. So, with no small degree of sadness, I let my friends in the area know. I also let the volunteer group I've worked with since 2015 know that I wouldn't be around anymore for routine activities.

By 12 hours after my "last" volunteer meeting, I had received no less than four offers for places to live. I was floored. I was stunned. There was crying involved. Most of all, I was panicked. In true 'me' fashion, I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings and also wanted to work out what would be best for me. In the end, I took up one of the offers from a fellow volunteer.

At risk of repeating myself, this transition has been really difficult. It's been tough emotionally, mentally, and even physically, especially when I'm bouncing from place to place, getting little sleep and plenty of germ exposure. Being surrounded by so many amazing people in both Houston and Atlanta though has made it easier every step of the way. That was certainly true before my most recent move but it was really driven home for me in the face of so much generosity.