We're Moving!!!

So, by now you probably know we are moving soon. The official date is Tuesday, May 6th. That will be the last day that we are Florida residents (not necessarily legally or academically, but you get the idea). That is a weird concept to me. I have always considered myself a Floridian. Soon I will be a Florida-native. That's a subtle difference, but one that I have had on my mind for a while now. Our complete schedule for the next several weeks looks like this:

April 1st: I defend my dissertation
April 13th-17th: We travel to Monroe, NC to look for housing
April 21st: Final approval status deadline (UF graduate school)
May 3rd: Graduation!
May 6th: Move to Monroe, NC
May 12th: I start work at Allvac
~July 10th: We welcome Emma Ruth to the outside world

The last few weeks have been unusual for us. First, my dissertation is complete and I am just working on my presentation and a small paper to be published in JOM (Journal of Materials). As a result, I have a fair amount of free time on my hands and we don't have much of a schedule. Krista, on the other hand, is sewing baby things. And sleeping. That's about it right now. To fill my time, I have been researching homes in the area we are moving to. My favorite home search websites are below if you would like to take a crack at it:

Multiple Listing Service (MLS)
Geographic Information System (GIS Maps)

These two websites are very powerful if you work with them a little to learn what they can do. The GIS maps are especially fun. They allow you to locate tax data by parcel using a map that can also overlay various layers like flood planes, contour lines, municipal districts (city, county, subdivision, school, fire, etc.), and many more. The mls website is much improved over the mls website I used a few years ago looking for a home in Gainesville. By the way, Monroe is in Union county (area 10) for those that want to dabble. We are very excited about the move, but nervous as well. There is a lot of planning to do and not a lot of time to do it. Hopefully, when I pass my defense I can finish my corrections within a week and be completely finished about a week from today. Then I can focus all my energy on moving. Stay tuned, because a lot is going to be happening in the coming weeks.