Going from "Life Up North" to "Life Out East"

Hi, Dustin here. I'm excited to announce that I have accepted a position at the University of Delaware! I was offered the position over a week ago but didn't sign the actual contract until today.

I'll start teaching next August and we'll probably move in June. Many of the faculty live in Pennsylvania (a few miles from the campus in Newark, Delaware) because the public schools tend to be better there, so we're looking into it. We will probably be renting an apartment or house for the first year and then buy a home after we become more familiar with the area. By the way, the town is actually pronounced 'new-ark' (Delaware) rather then 'new-erk' (New Jersey). A fun fact about Delaware is that they have no sales tax! So anyone who wants to go on a tax-free shopping spree can crash at our place.

We visited campus and the surrounding community a couple weeks ago and absolutely loved it. Newark is a quaint little college town with plenty of great neighborhoods. Philadelphia and Baltimore are an hour away and Washington DC and New York City are just over two hours away - so there are many opportunities to explore history, culture, arts, and sporting events, not to mention the many beaches nearby.

I am tremendously thankful for this great job after all these years in college and grad school. It will be nice to finally be able to start chipping away at all my student loans. The people I've met at the university have been incredibly supportive and friendly to me (and Leslie and Henry! - they visited too). I love being at Michigan State, but June cannot come soon enough!


Okay, it's Leslie now.

I just wanted to take a minute and talk about my hard-working husband. I'm sure I've said to my friends and family at least once or twice over the past four+ years of living in Michigan about how much Dustin works. I don't think, though, that anyone will ever really know what I mean.

He has honestly not taken a single weekend off since he's been up here. When we travel, he seeks out local coffee shops and spends as many hours as possible studying, reading, writing, etc. He has had to make tough choices. He has had to miss putting Henry to bed on many occasions because he needed to work. He gets up early and goes to bed late. If a football game is on, he watches it while working. Working 80 hours a week is the norm.

It has been very hard, at times, on our relationship. Huge financial stress combined with not getting to spend much time together made things rough on several occasions. It hasn't been super easy.

I know and (hopefully) someday Henry and future kiddos will know that everything he's done and continues to do during our time up here is because he loves what he does and he loves us.

Basically, I think he's amazing. He's certainly the smartest guy I know (even though he somehow can't seem to figure out where all the dishes go when he unloads the dishwasher?!). I am seriously SO proud of him. To me, this milestone of getting a job offer is so much bigger than him actually finishing his dissertation and getting his PhD. I'm glad that the folks at University of Delaware think he's as cool as I do.

The next six months are going to be absolutely crazy around here. Not only will we be having a new baby (hopefully sooner rather than later), but we have to find a place to live (in one of three possible states) and move everything we own over 600 miles.

I'm definitely excited about not living the "student" life anymore. It does definitely stink that we won't be living closer to Ohio, but, quite honestly, it could have been a lot worse. I'm thankful we are only moving 8.5 hours away.

I think that's all for now! I'm sure we'll have many more updates along the way.