One whole year has passed since I arrived in Austin! A year ago from right now, I was settling into Mark Addison’s house and starting to explore the city. I still had two days before my first day of work at Callaway.

I guess it seems like a whole year has passed, but time really flies by faster when there’s no snow or winter to speak of. Both Lauren and I think that our concept of seasons is way off; it’s all just running together. And now it’s full-force summer again with temps nearing 110 this week.

I miss the city of Minneapolis quite a bit. I’d have to say Minneapolis is my favorite city I’ve ever been to, even ahead of Austin, Boston, New York, Las Vegas, Huron, and San Francisco. Even though we have lived in Texas for a whole year, I still find myself reading the Star Tribune more than I do our new local paper, The Statesman. I am still just as big of a Twins and Timberwolves fan as I was before, and haven’t yet been to any Longhorns games. Maybe it will take another year to feel like more of a Texan.

For me, it was a combination of several different things that led to our decision to move: the winter, my inability to find a better job, and wanting to have an adventure. The winter sucked and yes, we wanted to try something new and fun, but without question the driving force for me was the work situation. I doubt I made it very clear to everyone just how hard I looked, but I had applied for roughly 200 jobs over the span of my last four years at MB and found nothing in the Twin Cities. Okay, I found one job, but then MB gave me that five-figure raise to stay. With Austin the third fastest-growing city in the country, I of course was offered several good jobs after applying for eight jobs in one morning that I found on Craigslist.

If Minneapolis had a better job market for someone in my field, and I didn’t have to drive to work in the snow, I probably would never have jumped on board with Lauren’s idea of moving somewhere fun. But those things weren’t going to work out, and now we are here and I find myself considerably happier overall than I was a year ago.

This job at Callaway is way more fun than I thought a job could be… I actually converse with my co-workers, and we do things together outside the office. Very Valleyfair-esque in that sense. The weather is pretty hot most of the year, but it’s not humid, and I have learned to adapt pretty well. The mild winter of 50-degree weather and rain was amazing. The city is jam-packed with fun things to do. There are so many other couples like us who are new here that it was ridiculously easy to make new friends. And of course, we enjoy having guests visit and showing them our city.

Perhaps most amazingly, I am still doing my old MB job–literally everything that I used to do before–and condensing it down to several hours per week, not 40+. I can sit at home and drink a scotch while hammering out e-mail blasts. It is a good gig and almost makes me forget why I was so unhappy there. I was very, very unhappy at that job. And then I went and gave up my weekends to DJ which I don’t miss at all either.

All in all, Year One was a great success. I am not sure either of us really had any idea how long we planned to stay here, but we are now getting our feet wet with house-hunting, so the answer is probably at least a few more years.