Most people who’ve known me and/or my wife for a while know that we’ve never really felt “settled” in Ohio. From even before we were married, we both knew we definitely did NOT want to live in Dayton, Ohio for the rest of our lives. For her, it mostly had to do with weather and a general lack of much of anything interesting in Dayton at all (with the major of exception of good people…there will be a lot of people here that we’ll miss dearly). For me, its always been about being closer to family.
Its all about family
I’ve always been very close to my family. Unfortunately however, I haven’t lived anywhere within reasonable driving distance of them since I joined the Air Force right out of high school, which has made it rather expensive to visit them. As a result, I just never get to see them anywhere near as much as I’d like to.
So ever since Crys and I got married, we’ve talked off-and-on about where we were going to move and settle down one day. I was born and raised in Oregon, and that is where my family still lives. I love it out there, but for Crys and her family, the idea of moving out there has pretty much been out of the question. Mostly for two reasons: the ever-increasing cost of living out there, and the mythical ceaseless rain that falls out there (they get their fair share of rain to be sure, but its really not any more than we get here in Ohio…though to be fair, that’s another major reason for wanting to get *out* of Ohio…we just want to be somewhere with more consistent nice weather). So for years we’ve had discussions with both her family and mine about where we might all agree to move and settle down one day.
After years of these kinds of discussions considering places all over the world from Fiji to New Zealand, Northern California to Florida to Arizona. When all was said and done, the only place we were all able to come to a consensus on where we’d be comfortable settling down together as a family was Knoxville, TN. We’d all visited there at some point or another in the past, or someplace near there, and really liked the time we spent there. The city has a lot to offer just about everyone. Its a fairly large city, but still has a somewhat small-town feel. The people are very friendly. The cost of living is fantastic. There’s plenty in the way of jobs for everyone. It seemed like it was the perfect fit. Once we had decided that, then it was just a matter of timing. When would it make the most sense to make the move?
Timing is everything
On December 27th of last year, our entire family welcomed the newest addition to the Yexley clan into the world, Phoenix. He is absolutely the most amazing kid I’ve ever met in my life. What an amazing blessing God has given us. He has changed all of our lives in so many amazing (and yet, subtle) ways that we never could’ve possibly imagined. We literally praise God for him every day. Phoenix is a huge motivating factor in all of this. Being close to both of our families for him and for us is very important to us all.
A few short months later, the contract I’d been working on at LexisNexis was completed and not extended. At the same time, over the course of those three months, Crys had started to reconsider her commitment to Charis in light of a growing desire to stay at home to raise Phoenix. In the middle of all of these things going on, she and I started discussing whether or not this was the right time to start thinking about making the move to Knoxville. We discussed the idea with her parents and my parents, and everybody seemed to agree that this year would make sense to start looking in that direction.
So we started praying for guidance, and started looking into the idea. I talked to my managers about a plan for transitioning, and we started writing down the steps we’d need to take to make the move happen. Once we had a list of things to look into, we started going through them prayerfully, putting together a plan to make it happen. Dozens of little details aside, there were basically three main things that needed to happen in order for this to work out: I needed to find a job, we needed to find a place to live down there, and we’d need to sell our house.
Anybody wanna hire me?
I updated my resume and decided to pull the trigger and start sending out and applying for job listings I found online. So one Friday afternoon back in May, I spent about an hour filling out online applications and submitting my resume to potential employers and recruiters. According to online job listing sites, the job market in Knoxville looked promising, but that can sometimes be deceiving too, so I put it out there and waited.
I didn’t have to wait very long. Within an hour I got a phone call from a recruiter at the local office of a national technical staffing agency. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, I spent a lot of time on the phone with several employers and recruiters discussing a number of opportunities in the area.
Prior to all of this, I had done a bit of market research comparing the Knoxville and Dayton job markets and doing salary comparisons. Based on the research I did, I was expecting to end up making roughly 5% less than I’m making now down in Knoxville.
Long story short, this past weekend I signed an offer letter accepting a fantastic job with Scripps Networks (the parent company that owns HGTV, Food Network, DiY Network, Fine Living and GAC) that I am very excited about. The job itself will essentially amount to a promotion from where I’m currently at making more than I currently am making, and opening up the door for some very exciting opportunities to develop my career. In case you couldn’t tell, I’m pretty excited about the opportunity. I officially start the new job on July 21st.
A roof over our heads
So the next step in the process was for us to find a place to live. After talking about it for a long time, and looking at literally hundreds and hundreds of properties online, Crys and I decided that the smartest thing for us to do starting out down in Knoxville would be to rent for at least a year. Despite the fact that we’ve made several trips down to Knoxville in the past year and are starting to learn the town fairly well (as well as you can when you spend a few whirlwind weekends driving all over the area…we’ve literally put over a thousand miles on our cars around that town in the past year), you just can’t get to know a place well enough to really *know* where you want to settle down for good in that amount of time. So, we decided that it would be best to rent someplace for at least the first year that we live down there. So we started looking at rentals.
A couple of weeks ago, we decided to make another trip down there to take a look at a few rentals that Crys found online. Initially, we chose a range that we wanted to limit ourselves to so that we could try to save as much as possible during that first year or so, and hopefully have enough saved up to make a decent down-payment on a home after that time. I only had one criteria for any place that we lived: it *must* (no compromise on this at all) be in a safe neighborhood/area. I needed to be able to know that when I’m off at work and Crys wants to take Phoenix and the dogs out for a walk that she’d be safe. This is really where we found our biggest problem in our search for a rental.
After looking at several places, it was looking like the only way we were going to get into a place in a decent/safe neighborhood (and that would be big enough to hold all of our stuff), we were looking at probably needing to land somewhere around $150-$200/month more than the range we had set for ourselves. We were a little disappointed with that, but had decided that it was worth it to have a secure, safe place to live. We had narrowed our search down to three places based on location, two of which we hadn’t been able to see the inside of our first day down there, so we had to wait until the next day to see them. Unfortunately, we weren’t going to be able to see them until after 1:00 PM, so we had some time to waste until they were available to see.
As we were driving around the general area of the places we wanted to see that day, we drove through a local condo complex and lo-and-behold, there was one for rent. We called the number and talked to the landlord. To finish up a long story, the place turned out to be *exactly* what we had been looking for, and it was only $50 over our initial target price per month. It was perfect. So early that afternoon, we signed a lease and put down a deposit on what will be our new home in Knoxville. We love it, and we’re very excited to get moved in.
Everything is falling into place
While all of this is going on for us, things have really been lining up for the rest of our family as well. Crys’ Dad was recently offered an opportunity to apply for an early retirement from his job. My parents are finishing up a few things in Oregon in preparation for selling their own house and being able to be ready to make the move themselves too. At this point, we pretty much only have one final thing that needs to happen to make this deal final: we need to sell our house. Anyone interested? 
The next chapter
Dayton/Ohio will always hold a lot of great memories for our family. This is where Crys and I met and got married. Crys has obtained two degrees from Wright State University. We’ve both established our careers here. We’ve survived three cancers in the immediate family here. We started our family here. We’ve made a lot of fantastic friends here. Certainly we’re leaving a lot behind. But the time has come for us to move on.
At the same time, we’re also very, very excited to embrace what the future holds for us in Knoxville. We’re SO excited about the opportunity to be closer to family again. We’re looking forward to meeting and making new friends there as well. We’re excited about all of the exciting new things to see and do there. I can’t wait to be closer to all of the water and the Smoky Mountains too. We just can’t wait to see all that God has in store for us in this new chapter of our lives. Please pray for us.
Recent Comments