The Boise Adventure | Day 2
The part of our move to Boise I have been most looking forward to is exploring new places and meeting new people. I have all kinds of ideas about what these recent days will look like, but that fun won't start quite yet. First I need to play catch up on work projects post-holidays.
That was our day today. Garrett and I completely headed down, trying to get back on top of the e-mails and work that has been mounting over the last two weeks of holiday cheer and travel. Many people have been asking if Garrett and I still work full-time and the answer is yes. What that means is a whole other explanation.
But I guess that is a great place to start on how we ended up in Boise.
Both Garrett and I have worked as consultants for the past few years. His focus is IT and business operations and mine is finance, business operations, speaking, facilitating, coaching, training, and a lot of other stuff. We both partner with others at times but haven't been employees of any one company.
Our days typically include some working from our home offices and some going to meetings or working on-site at clients. It really depends on the day, which projects we take on, and the needs of the client.
Garrett and I have been visiting cities for a few years, trying to decide where would be the ideal place to move after the kids were out of the house. With Garrett from Denver and me, Omaha, we have always said we would 'go new' once the nest was empty. Denver is too big and Omaha doesn't have mountains.
Over the last few years, we compiled a list of a dozen or so cities that fit our combined criteria (such as not too big, not too small, pleasant weather but snow in winter, many sunny days, lots of mountains, and close to national parks and hiking, close to a major airport, close to family).
Boise stayed at the top of our list, although we were still interested in Durango, Colorado, and Bend, Oregon. After a lot of discussions, we decided the only way to know which city we liked best would be to live there for an extended period. Last fall we decided to spend Jan 1st through the spring living in a combination of Boise and Durango.
For work, Garrett decided to join a company of consultants who specialize in software implementations for a platform called Salesforce. There were many opportunities across the country and he talked to companies in Vancouver, Atlanta, and Boise. The idea was that he would work remotely for 80% of the time and then on-site for 20%. It was a pure coincidence that one company was in Boise. He and I laughed at the possibility of us living in Boise while he is working remotely for a company based there.
As fate has it, he took the job in Boise. But instead of a remote job, he was offered a job where he goes into the office most of the time and travels a small portion. Garrett accepted the job and we extended our stay at our VRBO. He starts next week and this all came together in early December.
As for me, I will continue to work on a few selected clients remotely and will travel back to Omaha one week each month as long as I am needed on these projects. I finished some other projects in order to open my schedule to take on some new ones in Boise. I have all kinds of ideas on what this 'going new' looks like. More to come on that.
We are now completed unpacked and I do love our little rental house on the hill. We overlook the city of Boise with lots of natural light shining in through the day. My desk is set up in a perfect thoughtful spot.
To answer the next most popular question, our Omaha house isn't going on the market any time soon. I look forward to sleeping in my own bed on my week back in Omaha and am a firm believer in test drives before you buy.
The best way for me to 'test drive' a city is to immerse myself in the community and culture. That is what this blog series is ultimately about. Adventures in Boise to fully assess the fit.
So is it now clear as mud how we ended up in Boise? I don't think anything about our lives since we met nine years ago has ever been normal. But it sure has been fun. Now let the Boise fun continue...
Office is set up. My new view.
