5 Years in Our House and Why We Want to Move

Normally on our house anniversary I like to show progress photos, but today I’m doing something a little different. You may have caught in one of my most recent posts that Joshua and I plan on moving, so I’ll fill you in on the thought process behind it.

So, why do we want to move?

We don’t even live here.

We went back and forth for awhile as to whether we would remodel our current house to make it work for us or just move altogether. While Joshua was more “Team Remodel” and I was leaning towards “Team Move” because the amount of work that would need to be done was just way too much.

Eventually, Joshua came around to Team Move because he came to the same conclusion I did: we don’t really live here. And by “live here”, I mean our involvement in the community and lifestyle.

Technically we live in a city about 15 minutes further down the hill. It’s where we do our shopping whether it’s household, groceries, or personal. Our favorite restaurants are there, we go to the movies there, and our pets go for grooming/boarding there. In other words, we live there without living there. Everything we do is in that city.

We even have an ongoing joke about how many times we go to that city a week and take notice of when we don’t go to that city. Anything that we do in our current town is purely convenience.

We like being close by to things.

Growing up I lived in what some may refer to as “the boonies”, but if you are familiar with El Dorado County you know some places are way more “out in the boonies” than others. My parents’ house is about 20 minutes away from the freeway and nearest grocery store. It’s about 45 minutes away from the nearest mall. All my life I have lived far away from things, and I don’t like it.

Some people like to live further from the city as a means to get away at the end of the day (like my parents), but we aren’t those people. Moving to the city we do everything in will allow us to be closer to those things.

It wasn’t until we moved my sister into her apartment in April that the house fever hit us hard. On her move-in day we ran many errands to Target, HomeGoods, Home Depot, etc. and we realized just how nice it is to be that close to everything. It’s especially nice to be close to places we already visit so regularly.

Moving home is not what we thought it would be.

While we have some good memories in good ol’ El Dorado County, it’s just not for us anymore. I always liked the idea of living where we do because as a kid it was still in the county my parents loved but it was close enough to everything else down the hill. But I’m not a kid anymore and now I can live wherever I want now! Well almost, but you get the idea.

When we moved to our current town it was our way of “getting back home” but what we’ve come to realize is that home is where our story began and not necessarily where it needs to continue. We don’t spend the time here like we used to when we were teens. Our lives really aren’t here anymore.

I want to improve my commute.

On a good day, it takes 30 minutes to get to work. Those days rarely happen, and when they do, it’s usually during the summer when school is out. Most of the time my commute is 40 minutes or more. I know it could be worst – one of my coworkers was commuting at least an hour, but thankfully she’s moved to the city we’re planning on moving to so her commute has drastically improved.

Why not move as close as possible to your work, you may ask? Moving to this city is the closest we can be to my work that has good schools. The towns/cities that are closer to my work unfortunately don’t have the best schools, IMHO. That and none of the other towns feel like home the way the city we want to move to does. Believe me, we explored them – this has been a process a couple years in the making.

The city we plan on moving to is huge and we’ve spent months driving around canvasing neighborhoods. We’ve strategically narrowed it down to where I can avoid traffic as much as possible therefore cutting my commute (hopefully) by half.

A fresh start.

Our current house was a good starter house for us. We learned a lot about our lifestyle and the things we want and don’t want in a house. We’ve also unfortunately had some sad memories associated with this house. I know moving won’t necessarily solve those problems, but it will help. We’re ready for the next chapter.