It's never easy moving to a new town, or state for that matter. Not to mention write about it. But that's what I will try to do here for you. Successfully, I hope.
My wife, five cats and I are on an adventure here in Maine. After all, life should always be an adventure, and sometimes you have to sit down and share it with others. Over the coming weeks that's what I'll be doing - sharing with you our new life in Maine.
Why would that be interesting? Well, let's just say we weren't from around here on a year-round basis - not until last December. We're the newbies - the ones who lived for the last fifteen years in the urban jungle of Boston. The ones who rented an 1820's farm house in Chesterville. With wood and K1 oil heat - neither of which we knew anything about before moving here.
There's the first-time wood purchases (I have to move and stack how much wood?); the bats in the house (to paraphrase Indy: "Bats. Why'd it have to be bats? I hate bats."); my first real garden; (everything grows big up in Maine - especially the slugs...); the first season of black fly (tell me again - why don't we all leave Maine for a month in the spring?) And how do you pronounce Dirigo???
Then there's the still fairly novel adventure of working full-time from home. That's right, full-time. Working over the internet. Really. No matter what they say, it can be done. Successfully. I test software and lead a team across the globe in Ireland and India. Right from here in Maine. Global technology - talking to people halfway around the world while munching on a carrot grown in my backyard garden. Now if only I could figure out the time differences. (Let's see, if it's sunrise in Maine on the summer solstice and I'm standing on my head pointing north, it must be the end of the work day in India, but off by a half an hour....) And what is the business casual dress code when working from home? PJ's until noon? T-shirts and jeans? Surely not a Tie! And let's talk about the gas savings....!
My wife? After a successful (but stressful) career in Boston, she quit her job and reinvented herself from an archivist to an on-line antiques and collectables seller. The knowledge and drive to succeed is there, but is the economy? The jury's still out on that one... But the technology is here and it can be done... with a lot of hard work and patience....
So, I hope you'll come along on the Maine adventure with us and look at old and new Maine through fresh eyes. I hope you'll laugh with us as we go, and hopefully we'll all learn something of one another along the way...
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