Bittersweet

Well a couple of weeks ago Tyler was offered a job at the hospital in Wenatchee. It's pretty crazy that the only two advertised clinical pharmacist positions (which is what he wants to do) were in Wenatchee and Olympia. He interviewed at both, but Olympia was going to take about a month and a half to get back to him, and Wenatchee had their decision within two weeks. Meanwhile, I was STILL waiting to hear back from Evergreen about grad school, whose website said it should take 6-8 weeks and it had been about 12.

So the hospital wanted a decision from Tyler right away. He was going to ask if they could wait till he would know about the Olympia job (and I would know about grad school), but they pretty much gave him 24 hours to decide. It is the perfect job and he said he wanted it more than the one in Olympia anyway, which had a worse schedule and would be doing more "boring" stuff. Since we didn't know if I had got in to Evergreen or not (and wouldn't know about Oregon or Colorado for another month at least), he decided to accept.

Fast forward to this week, when I got my acceptance letter from Evergreen. Tyler had said he knew I would get it, and I was obviously hoping so as well, but every week I waited past week #8 I figured they were just taking their time on rejection letters. I had joked that if I got accepted I would cry, but that's the first thing I did, I sat on the couch and it all came out. I realize there are a lot bigger problems out there than not being able to go to grad school, but this was such a obvious family-over-work choice for me, and it was really hard. I've always said Tyler's job would be the most important, because you can't have two leaders and two people always getting what they want, but when push came to shove, it was really really hard on me. It would be different if this wasn't something I was passionate about, and I just wanted to go back to school because I couldn't find a job I liked. I can't imagine not working in the clean energy field and I don't know how I'll really get into if I don't get a Master's in Environmental Studies. I've always really wanted a Master's anyway.

So it's been a few days since I found out, and I posted it on Facebook that I got in. The really crappy part is that I'll I'm getting is sympathy (which is of course what I want...) but it's like, hey, only 40 people get into this program a year, this is a big accomplishment! Be excited for me! But they can't, and neither can I. Now I wonder if I should have called Evergreen when Tyler got the job to let them know I was no longer interested. But I had to know if I'd get in.

So the "plan" now is to move to Wenatchee, live there 2-3 years max, and then re-apply (which hopefully will be easy to do) and move to Olympia. Tyler keeps trying to get me to think about commuting, since classes are only Tues through Thursday, but I really don't want to drive 4 hours twice a week. Or live with his parents, or have him live with mine. It just doesn't make sense, plus it's not very environmentally friendly to commute across the state all the time. :-) I think he keeps suggesting it because he doesn't want me to think going is out of the question, but it really is. I also think he's worried that he'll love this job and love Wenatchee and won't want to move so quickly, which is what I'm worried about too. Not for me though - you would think I'd be really excited but I'm not - I just didn't plan on ever moving back, at least not before we had kids...

Anyway, through all of this I'm trying to be supportive of him because he's so excited about this job, and about Wenatchee. The one exciting part is that we're going to buy a house, so that's really fun. I just need to be thankful and remember that we're lucky that he could get a job so quickly and that it's exactly what he was looking for. Maybe I'll find something great in Wenatchee too... at the PUD? :-P

***UPDATE***

I talked with the director of the program and they are going to defer my acceptance up to five years! So whenever we can move back over to Olympia I've got a spot saved! I feel SOOOO much better. God is good.

Half Marathon, here we come...

Tyler and I (well it was my idea) have decided to run a half marathon this spring. I'm not very good about exercising unless I have a good "reason" to, and with the wedding over and no tropical vacations planned for the future, I needed some motivation! After starting to train, I realized we probably should have started out with a 5k. At this point I can only run about a half of a mile before stopping to walk, and we've got until May 2nd (about three months) until the big 13.1 miles. I've never been too athletic - I can remember the mile we'd have to run to warm up for soccer practice killing me - but I figure it can't be too terrible if lots of people run double that amount! Tyler hasn't done much as far as "training" goes. We go to the YMCA ever Monday & Wednesday, but he mostly plays basketball. Still, with his track background (400 hurdles on the WSU track team!) I'm sure he'll beat me to the finish line with a couple of hours to spare! Sheesh.