30 Years, 30 Things: 26

I turned 26 shortly after finishing my Masters. I had applied for a few jobs at schools in the Boston area, and even applied for a position at NECC's sister school in Abu Dhabi. Steven and I were also discussing moves to Tennessee or Vermont. Ultimately preparing to get married and have a baby, we decided to move somewhere a little more affordable than the Boston suburbs, and somewhere closer to family. I applied for two jobs in the Burlington, Vermont area, and was hired rather quickly. I've always felt a little hippie at heart, and Vermont appealed to that side of me. Here's a desciption from hubpage.com:

Vermont is an Amazing Place

Vermont is a world apart from the one most people live in. The people of Vermont come from traditions that seem to have disappeared in other areas of the country. Honesty is not only admired it is a way of life. Organic is the norm. Exercise comes from daily chores and from the desire to live a healthier lifestyle. Micro Dairies sell raw milk to neighbors. Organic eggs can be bought on the honor system. Bartering is a normal part of life where one person hays the fields for their neighbors and rather than buying the hay, pays for it by plowing the driveway.

Town Meeting is not a televised, staged event for politicians. It is the way the citizens come together to make decision on how to run their own town. Little attention is paid to politicians that day. It is a day to think of how to care for the elderly, where to obtain gravel for the dirt roads and should the library expand into the basement or is it big enough already? Vermonters go out into the forest to pick fiddlehead ferns to sell at the Farmer's Markets which by the way are open year round despite the many months of winter. Vermonters grow cucumbers to make pickle recipes passed down for generations. Maple sap is gathered from century old trees and made into syrup.

All year round you will find fairs and festivals celebrating the artists, craftspeople, cultural heritage, innovations, and technology produced in Vermont.

From back to the land movements, to secessionist movements to staunch conservatives Vermont has a full range of thinkers, but thinkers who are willing to work politely and honestly together to create a wonderful community.

In many ways, the area is not that different from where I grew up, just an hour away across Lake Champlain in New York. We would often travel to Burlington, Plattsburgh, or Glens Falls for shopping, movies, and anything else our no-stoplight town lacked. I even had a Vermont cell phone number (the area code in all of Vermont is 802) from the time I was 18 and got my first cell phone at the Verizon Store on Shelburne Road. I never changed my number living in New York or Massachusetts, and it suits me perfectly, 11 years later, now that I am living here permanently. Although I still say the area code when I recite my number and the natives just raise their eyebrows expectantly at me ("Yes, 802. We know. Please continue.").

So Steven and I got married at a lovely garden near our place, packed up and moved to Vermont. Our families are amazingly understanding and patient and their support helped through this year, through new jobs, buying our first place, settling in, and getting thrown into the whirlwind of impending parenthood. Our son, William Gabriel Grimes was born February 12, 2010 at 8:58PM, at Fletcher Allen hospital after 15 hours of labor. He was 19 3/4" long and weighed 6 pounds, 13 ounces. When I first saw him, I remember saying "He looks like Isac!" (my brother).