The house
After a few visits to Asheville, I really liked it and was so excited to live there. We started looking for a house in June and were having no luck. It was really hard for me to try to look on the internet from Ohio and Jason couldn't decide on anything without me down there to help him. I would come into town and look with him, but never quite found what we were looking for. We couldn't decide between living in the country with lots of land or in town, close to everything. Around August 1st, I was in town to look at houses and we stumbled upon the perfect house. It is actually a new build, in town, between West Asheville and Downtown. We'll be able to walk to restaurants and other little shops. It totally fits our style. Modern, open floorplan with gorgeous bamboo hardwood floors throughout. Jason closed on August 29 and moved in that same day. The apartment he was living in was furnished, so he doesn't have any furnture and is sleeping on an air matress until I can move down. So we'll be packing up the house in Columbus and moving down this weekend!! I am so excited to live in a new place and do something different, but I'll miss all my friends...
First Impressions
When Jason got to Asheville, he had a couple of days to explore the city before he had to report to the store. He would be living in a hotel and driving a rental car while he was getting himself ready to move down there. I really wanted to find out what the downtown area was like so he drove through and told me that there were a lot of people walking around and that the downtown was busy at night. Sounded pretty cool to me.
I did as much research as I could online about the city and realized that it was A LOT smaller than Columbus. I work at a newspaper and the population of Asheville was not even as much as our daily circulation! I got really worried when I found out that they were at that time building their first Target! Jason said the town was really nice so I began to plan my first visit so I could see for myself. I visited at the end of September.
I really think I set myself up for disappointment before I got there. I had this idea in my head that Asheville was this hip, trendy urban paradise in the middle of the mountains and that it would be just like living in a big city, but on a smaller scale. I dropped him off at work and headed downtown. I parked the car at a meter and walked for about 1/2 an hour before I decided that I didn't like it. I called my friend Melissa and told her how disappointed I was and that I didn't think I could live there. She told me to relax and that I really needed to give it more than 30 minutes before I made up my mind and reminded me that I had the whole weekend to explore and find out what the area was all about.
As the weekend progressed, I told myself to be a little more open minded and gave it a chance. We went to some awesome restaurants downtown and walked around the crowded streets at night. In Columbus, there are only a couple little areas downtown that have any activity in them, so this was a welcome change to see the whole downtown alive with energy and people.
I started to become cautiously optomistic about this whole moving thing...
Welcome
Welcome to my blog! Exciting, isn't it...
So, this is my first post. My intention here is to chronicle my move from Columbus to Asheville. I think before I begin with that, I should give you a little background.
September 13, 2005 - my boyfriend Jason is currently an assistant manager at World Market in Columbus, OH. We are enjoying life together and getting along really well. There had been a scare earlier in the year where he had the opportunity to move to Wilmington, NC to take over a store as a General manager and I really was not ready to quit my job and make that kind of move. He turned it down, but told me there could be other opportunities in the future and he couldn't turn them down forever if he wanted to grow with the company. I could tell something was up and that evening he told me he had been offered a job as a GM in Asheville, NC - the store was going to open in about a month and the girl that was supposed to be the manager quit, so they needed someone down there right away. He wanted to talk to me first, but he was going to accept the job...the catch was that he had to be down there that weekend to start the move-in process and meet the staff.
I don't even remember what my first thought was, but I told him I couldn't follow him blindly down there without seeing the place first and that I really didn't want to move. I love the house I live in, enjoy my job and have a lot of really good friends here.
I remember the rest of the week being very sad. I didn't know if this was the beginning of the end, or what the future would hold for us.
