As Lauren mentioned over on her blog, she begins her dream job tomorrow! It’s everything she had been hoping for–everything from the company itself to the location downtown to the ability to take a bus rather than driving. I discovered the news via text message while I was at that training in Chicago. Since I assume everyone is really interested in hearing about me all the time, I had kept my co-workers very abreast of Lauren’s job search saga, and they were all excited to hear the news too.

We had been inching by on my paycheck alone, but had been unable to save any money or pay off any debt, so having that extra income is going to be the nicest part. I’m sure Lauren will be plenty relieved to get out of the apartment and stop tediously job-searching every day. Now that Lauren will be taking the bus and not driving, I will start taking the nicer car to work instead of leaving it at home for her to drive during her daily errands.

There are of course some minor downsides, like what we’ll do with poor little beagle. I sure don’t like the idea of him sitting in the house all alone from 7:30 to 5:30 every day. At the very least, I’ll have to start coming home over lunch break and taking him out, but I’m a 20-minute drive away so it’s not very convenient. Perhaps on occasion he can come to work with me, but I think the best short-term solution is to take him to a fun doggy daycare a couple times a week.

The other downside is I won’t get to come home to a delicious home-cooked meal every night.

Barring some unforeseen incident with either of our jobs, I think we can now declare the Austin relocation a total success!