In October, I moved from a little town in southern Indiana to Denver Colorado. I have a sister who lives out here and my boyfriend and I had been talking about moving west for a couple of years. We hike and camp and Indiana left something to be desired for us, although most of both our families still live there. It took a long time for us to actually set a date for the move.

We were saving money by living first with his 91 year old grandmother, helping her with day to day chores. She thought that my cat Simon was evil, if not actually a demon and that my boyfriend and I were living in sin and going to hell. After a couple of months of eating most of my meals upstairs and constantly cat wrangling so that she wouldn't get upset when she saw him on the dining room table, we moved out. Grandma 1 Us 0.

In the neighboring town there was a house in my boyfriend's family that no one was presently living in, so his mother granted us permission to live there rent free while we saved up money for our move. We thought that we would be there for 5-7 months and then be ready in our minds and financially for the final push. This house was just across the Ohio River from Louisville Kentucky. I worked in Louisville in an optical lab and drove back "home" over the river every night. We lived in that house for a year, and then finally this October, had saved enough money to leave. But one last thing...3 days before we were to move...my boyfriend asked me to marry him. There was a lot on our plate.

We are now living with my sister and her husband while we save money to get our own place. My fiance has found a job in his field, but I am still looking and it has been almost 3 months. Of course, it could be helpful to move to a new city and already have a job all lined up, but I wanted a life changing career move, and that was hard to pull out of my hat from across the country. I decided not to transfer with my old job because I have been doing it and being bored with it for 7 years and I was afraid that I wouldn't look for something new if keeping the old was so easy...and brain numbing. So here I am, in my pajama pants at 4:38 in the afternoon on a Monday.

The saving point is that I love where I live now. The landscape is inspiring and I swear that people in Colorado are happier than the people in Indiana and Kentucky. Even the kid at Taco Bell who makes my seven layer burrido seems nicer. In stores sales people talk to you in a casual way, proving that they aren't robots, and a girl in line behind me at the sandwich shop I have never been to is happy to tell me what she usually orders. Everyone just seems a little more content. Is it the generally sunny weather, that they get their own brownie making instructions for high altitude (it really does make a difference) or is it that people feel more healthy and therefore happy in the west?

There are more parks, green spaces and walking/biking trails here than I have ever seen. I feel like a KFC poster girl for not owning a bike and being winded when I walk up the three flights of stairs to my sister's condo. It makes me want to be a better person living out here among the healthy and seemingly pretty green communities. I want to learn to alpine ski and snow shoe and to make sure I even recycle the empty cardboard toilet paper roll.

I still have a list of things I have to take care of to make this move official, like register my car at the DMV, cancel my old bank account and change my phone number to a local number. All of this I seem to be putting off until I have a job. I am still paying for student loans and my car so nothing seems quite as important as money in my pocket right now. Even being engaged is on the backburner.

Having not had a real home of my own for over a year, I feel like a gypsy. It is lonely and discouraging, but we do love this area of Colorado. It was a stressful journey, we lost our U-Haul rental papers out the truck window 2 miles away from our place in Indiana and drove separate cars for 18 hours through some pretty boring states. Being here now, I can relax knowing...as soon as I get a job, we are moving every item we own under our own steam to another home.

Here is a list of things to think about if you are moving soon. Lists help a lot I found. Good luck!

Change address and phone # with...

1. credit card companies
2. loans
3. car payments & insurance
4. utilities (phone, gas, electric, cable, internet, water)

5. friends & family
6. employer, including anyone you worked for in that year so that you don't miss your last paycheck or your W-2's at tax time
7. bank
8. old landlord (to get deposit back)
9. subscriptions: magazines, cheese of the month club

May need to...

1. change banks
2. change car insurance
3. re-register car and get correct plate
4. don't forget to update your account info with auto-deduct bills if changing banks!
5. change to local phone number
6. make sure your pet's vaccines are up to date for travel
7. find a new doctor/vet/dentist (try to get a recommendation- I just used the yellow pages and got a very bad dentist's office--left before my name was called)
8. fill out a "change of address" form from your post office. They will forward your mail for 6 months