(Part 1, Part 2)
At that moment, and for the next few hours, I felt mostly excitement. Whether we accepted the job or not, it was a great honor for him to have been chosen and to even have the option to accept. We got to sit through another Sunday - just like the one a month or two before - of refraining from grabbing our friends by the shoulders, shaking them, and yelling, "WE HAVE A JOB OFFER IN DUBAI AND OH MY GOSH DUBAI JOB OFFER DUBAI DUBAI."
To add to the sense of an emotional roller coaster, the official, written offer didn't come for two days. They had said they would send it the day after the informal, verbal offer, and when it didn't come...well, that was a really hard day. Had they changed their minds? We were both extremely edgy until Jeremy finally got up at 3am on Tuesday to check his email since he couldn't sleep anyway and found the official offer waiting for him in his inbox. So all at once it was very real. Again.
Then, THEN, my mom came into town on a visit that had been planned for weeks. Jeremy and I had already decided we weren't going to tell anyone about the job offer so that we could be sure to make our decision without outside influence. But with the mood in the house so tense, and with the job offer and negotiations taking up almost every moment of conversation between Jeremy and me, I knew we'd have to let my mom know what was going on. But I asked her not to discuss it with us too much. Instead, I got to use her as a sounding board to try out all the variations of plans that were going through my head, which was a great blessing to me (but pity my poor mom). Jeremy was figuring out and considering the career side of things while I was suddenly faced with such dilemmas as:
-the logistics of shipping all our stuff but keeping it within the limit.
-oh yeah, all our stuff - what is even worth shipping?
-dear goodness, do we need to have a yard sale???
-what about our car?
-what school will Miriam go to, and how will I sign her up from however many thousands of miles away?
-do we renew our lease and then sublet, or move out in two weeks?
-speaking of two weeks, that's when we leave for Egypt, remember?
-so everything has to be done before then.
Yes, everything had to be done before "then" - May 14, when we were leaving for Egypt. But first, there was the small matter of accepting the job, which we had yet to do. Which we weren't even sure we were going to do...
To be continued...
At that moment, and for the next few hours, I felt mostly excitement. Whether we accepted the job or not, it was a great honor for him to have been chosen and to even have the option to accept. We got to sit through another Sunday - just like the one a month or two before - of refraining from grabbing our friends by the shoulders, shaking them, and yelling, "WE HAVE A JOB OFFER IN DUBAI AND OH MY GOSH DUBAI JOB OFFER DUBAI DUBAI."
To add to the sense of an emotional roller coaster, the official, written offer didn't come for two days. They had said they would send it the day after the informal, verbal offer, and when it didn't come...well, that was a really hard day. Had they changed their minds? We were both extremely edgy until Jeremy finally got up at 3am on Tuesday to check his email since he couldn't sleep anyway and found the official offer waiting for him in his inbox. So all at once it was very real. Again.
Then, THEN, my mom came into town on a visit that had been planned for weeks. Jeremy and I had already decided we weren't going to tell anyone about the job offer so that we could be sure to make our decision without outside influence. But with the mood in the house so tense, and with the job offer and negotiations taking up almost every moment of conversation between Jeremy and me, I knew we'd have to let my mom know what was going on. But I asked her not to discuss it with us too much. Instead, I got to use her as a sounding board to try out all the variations of plans that were going through my head, which was a great blessing to me (but pity my poor mom). Jeremy was figuring out and considering the career side of things while I was suddenly faced with such dilemmas as:
-the logistics of shipping all our stuff but keeping it within the limit.
-oh yeah, all our stuff - what is even worth shipping?
-dear goodness, do we need to have a yard sale???
-what about our car?
-what school will Miriam go to, and how will I sign her up from however many thousands of miles away?
-do we renew our lease and then sublet, or move out in two weeks?
-speaking of two weeks, that's when we leave for Egypt, remember?
-so everything has to be done before then.
Yes, everything had to be done before "then" - May 14, when we were leaving for Egypt. But first, there was the small matter of accepting the job, which we had yet to do. Which we weren't even sure we were going to do...
To be continued...