If you think back to your high school social studies or biology classes, then you might remember two of the major theories of evolution - variational evolution, in which evolution is happening at a constant, slow pace, and punctuated equilibrium, in which things stay more or less the same for long periods of time but are occasionally punctuated with brief periods of radical change.

Why the remedial science lesson? Well, it seems like Desiree and I have just experienced the latter, and we’re still reeling.

The timeline (all 2004):

May: Our old house goes on the market
Jun: Desiree accepts new job
Jul (early): Desiree starts new job with significantly different duties
Jul (late): Dan applies for new job
Sep: We accept offer on old house
Sep: We make an offer on a new house
Oct 18: Dan starts new job with significantly different duties
Oct 25: We close on the sale of our old house
Oct 25: We close on the purchase of our new house
Oct 25: We move from old house to new house

There’s some other very major work stuff that happened in that timeframe that I’m not going to blog about (including the reason for the long delay between my job interview and my actual start date, as well as the completion of a major project that I’ve been working on for a couple of years). Fortunately, our new jobs were new roles with our existing employers, so while our day-to-day job responsibilities are now totally different than they were 6 months ago, at least neither of us has had to learn a whole new work culture.

There were also some pretty crazy problems with both real estate transactions which almost made me go prematurely grey, and for sheer amusement I may post about those sometime depending on how much of a carthartic release I need.

Essentially, the past six months have been constant turmoil and, unfortunately, were pretty high-stress. We’ve still got a lot of unpacking to do before we’ll feel settled, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to start looking at my new house as a home instead of a “to do” list in time to enjoy the holidays.