I haven't written in almost two years, but I have been reading every day! No lie!

I ended up renting the house near the house N & I own together. It was a wonderful transition house. N & I remained on really good terms, helping each other out when we could even though we moved on to different relationships.

Because our town is so small, the dating pool was also small. And the man I ended up dating turned out to be part of the "family." He dated N's kid's mom's best friend (I know, confusing.) N dated a lovely woman that I tried to befriend but she wasn't open to that.

During the summer of 2018, N's sister told her estranged husband she wanted a divorce and he did not take it well at all. She fled with the kids to N's house/my rental house. I was thankful for N's girlfriend to be another ring of support for Sister. Sister and I drove back to her state to file for divorce and it took nearly 10 hours to do it-so many hoops to jump through. Sister, me and her dad were all trying to figure out the paperwork. Three college educated adults (2 with multiple masters degrees) and we had a difficult time figuring it out. How do women without that kind of support system do it??? Luckily, their divorce is finalized now and she is relatively safe.

Also during summer 2018, Kid graduated high school. I wanted to throw him a grad party and invited ALL the families (reminder-he has a mom, stepmom, dad and then me) Somehow it ended up being hosted by his stepmom at her house, but the end result was he got the party and to be celebrated

In fall 2018, N and I decided to resume our relationship. In some ways, it never ended. We still got together for drinks once a week to catch up. There was nothing physical while we were in relationships, but our friendship never ended. We had so many conversations about the difficult parts of our relationship and how to fix them/compromise/come to a different solution about them. We came to a better decision about how to handle our finances and how to make sure we each got enough space. N was apologetic that there was no real room in our house that could be mine alone.

Even though we were in a relationship, I still lived at the rental house. Part of reestablishing our relationship was making sure we each had enough room.

In January 2019 we bought a sail boat! What a ridiculous purchase! We bought a Pearson 26, built in 1976. It was $4500 and N paid for half. N took sailing lessons before we broke up and spent the summer of 2018 befriending people with boats to practice sailing. With our own boat, he could practice as much as he wanted! We kept it at the marina in our town, and while it was a bit expensive ($250/month) it was fun going to the marina and hanging out on the boat. It turns out I am not so much into sailing, but that might change if I take my own lessons.

In April we traveled to Cincinnati to see my favorite band of all time, Less Than Jake, It was magical. We got to be right at the stage. It was one of the best performances I have seen of theres.

The next day we were driving around killing time until his sister got off work. We ended up driving through a small town across the river to see the marnina. We absolutely fell in love with the town. Kids were playing in the streets unsupervised. The town was so incredibly cute. We stopped at a sports cafe to have lunch and they turned on the Cubs game for us! In Reds Territory! The owners of the bar were so friendly and fun and told us the building across the street from them was for sale.

I pulled it up on Zillow and it cost $4k more than our house. It's a 3 story building with a commercial space on the 1st floor and a two bedroom apartment that took up the 2nd and 3rd floors. N & I couldn't get it out of our minds, but it was the weekend so we decided to call the realtor on Monday and set up an appointment to see it the next weekend. N did that and then told me he didn't think it would last and that we should put an offer on it. After hemming and hawing, I agreed. Friends, this is the most reckless thing I have ever done.

Our offer was accepted (contingent on inspection) and after a snafu with getting funding, I did a cash out refi on my house in California, bought the building in cash and then bought a house two blocks away in cash.

I moved out of the rental house, into the house we owned, and then a couple months later (in July) N and I moved to Cincinnati. AND I COULD NOT BE HAPPIER.

I gave my two weeks at the university without having a job lined up. N & I could get by without either of us having jobs as long as we were careful with our spending and could get a tenant into the commercial space (there was already one in the apartment.) We rent a room in our old house to Kid's uncle (he is a grad student at the university and only a couple years older than Kid.) Uncle gets the family rate of $400/month, utilties included. Then we rented the airbnb space to a grad student for $600. Kid doesn't pay rent. Once kid graduates, then we can rent the house for probably $1500, if not more.

ANYWAY, on my very last day of work at the university, I was offered a job AS A LIBRARIAN at the only place I applied for.

FRIENDS!!!! I AM A REAL LIBRARIAN NOW!!!!!

I am only making $2/hour more than my paraprofessional position at the university, but I love my job so much more than my university job.

Our tenant left in October (he was a friend of the old owner and didn't want to pay our increased rent.) We decided to update the apartment to compete with the new apartments being built on the river. (Did I mention we live 3 blocks from the Ohio???) So, that has been expensive and I am embarrassed about how much we owe. Especially since we don't have anyone renting the commercial space still. We've had lots of leads but nothing has panned out yet.

I will leave it here and as a cliffhanger for how much money we owe.

Long story short-life is good and I am happy.