More on Future Plans

Just to be clear, we're not planning on moving anytime soon. In fact, we're going to be refinancing in the next few months! And, we're either going to stay here or move to be closer to family -- sorry K, no Chicago 'burbs for us! :)

We're really happy here, for the most part. We have a good community of friends from all over the city, we love our church, and we love living in the city. The downsides are: traffic, taxes (can you say 10.25%?), being far from family. However, when I'm here, I am really happy here and feel that God is using us here.

When I go to Michigan though, I cannot help but think about how much easier life would be if we lived there in a lot of ways. Housing is MUCH cheaper, taxes are less (although in Ann Arbor, we wouldn't see a significant drop in property taxes), good schools, etc. And I get really nostalgic for that area and would like to see my kids have a similar childhood to what I experienced, which they won't get living in the city. We'd love to live closer to family -- that would really be the main pull. Chris' brother & sister-in-law and our niece and nephew (to whom we are very close) live there, as well as just about my entire family.

Although, what trumps all of that is determining whether or not God wants us to adopt internationally (we both have the desire) and realizing that it would take us a LONG time to save up that much money without me going back to work. Which means that I would go back to school. Which also means that I'd most likely be working after we adopt. And I'm somewhat opposed to that philosophically as I'm staying at home with Ben & Caroline in the early years at least and don't want to give this child less than I am giving them.

I don't like the idea of pulling a child (we'd probably adopt a little older) away from their culture and everything they know and stay home for a few weeks and then leave them in daycare/with a nanny/etc. If we moved, we could take the equity out of the house and buy a much cheaper (but probably bigger house!) in Michigan, adopt a child and I could have the luxury (and I really do consider it that, as much as I like to complain about it) of staying home with him/her.

*sigh* Too much to decide.