Burlington, Vermont?

I have spent the last couple of days organizing everything we own, trying to sell it. We are going to sell basically everything we own and move to Colorado with only clothes, kitchen supplies, and some toys (and maybe the vacuum cleaner?).

So, I've been thinking a bit more about us moving away from here and what that means to us (for those of you not in the know, we are currently living in the Minneapolis, MN area).

*Here's a summary of what will be happening before I go on with this story: Vern will be spending his last trimester of chiropractic college studying under a doctor in a suburb of Denver. We will be moving there from mid-August until late December. After that, Vern will have graduated, and he is going to go on to do some additional chiropractic business training for 6 months (or longer?) in either Naples, FL or (possibly) a suburb of Chicago. And that will be from January through June of 2011. After that, we'll have to figure out where to set up shop and live (theoretically, for a very long time).*


The plan had always been that we would not come back to Minnesota (and that is still the plan, for the most part). I am not entirely in love with a city this size (too big), nor with its suburbs (too homogeneous), BUT (and this is a big BUT), I have made myself a part of a parenting (as well as birth as well as food) community here that is truly amazing and inspiring.

Awhile ago, I did a lot of research on other places we could possibly move (places that met my criteria: smaller in size, had a "crunchiness" factor, good food sources, fours seasons, homeschooling groups, etc.) and we (kind of) settled upon Burlington, Vermont. (Note: I also have a thing for quaint New England towns). And Vernon even ended up being okay with it (he used to have a thing about not wanting to live where it's cold, but that doesn't seem to be an issue anymore).

So, anyway, Vernon recently got an e-mail from his chiropractic business training group saying that everybody would need to narrow down their locations because they are going to need to start focusing on things like site selection, marketing, and stuff like that when they get to their training in January. So, we're both, like, "I guess we'll put Burlington, Vermont then?" With a big question mark in our voices because it still seems just so random (even though I put a lot of research into it) and final.

But here is what I am thinking about moving back here (which is still kind of an option, but not really): This community that we have all so wonderfully created... it won't exist in five years the way that it does now. (I mean, sure, it will still exist... but it will be with The Next Generation and not the original cast members.) If my friends don't keep procreating, in five years time, all of their kids will be school-aged. Therefore, they will no longer be coming to playgroups nor be as central a part of "the community" as they once were anyway. They will enter a different stage in their parenting life (as will I) that doesn't include a lot of mommies-sitting-at-the-playground bonding time.

So, I've decided that we could just start over somewhere else since things are going to change here anyway.

We might as well. We're selling all our stuff anyway.