This is the first in a series of posts catching up from where I left off.
It was January of 2010. Samantha's job was over, thus relieving us of our need to live in Danbury in order to split commutes. With no immediate job prospects for her, all signs pointed towards moving to Middletown to be closer to my job, which is what we did. After doing some hauling of boxes over several days of commuting, we rented a truck and loaded it (all by ourselves!) one Saturday morning. We did have help at the other end, thankfully, especially since we moved into the second floor of a house.
We ended up spending three years in that house. It definitely was not perfect: our landlords were quite absent to the point of being neglectful sometimes (more about a critical failure on their part later) and all the stairs were a hassle, especially after our daughter arrived. But the location was perfect: a five minute walk to work. The space was a good size and very comfortable. We enjoyed living there. I'll talk more about life in Middletown as I go on, I'm sure.
Also during that time, Samantha worked at Wesleyan on three month cataloging project. (This was the Brief Period of Co-Employment mentioned earlier.) That was very nice and we spent a lot of that time wishing things would have worked out differently so it could have always been that way.
I remember the first three or four months of that year as being very pleasant. We settled in and explored Middletown. We had a housewarming party. We watched the Winter Olympics. We visited our friends on the Cape. My brother-in-law came for a visit. I started a fantasy baseball league at work. Good stuff.