ravnsdaughter

Ok, so. Now that we've told all of our parents, and none of them have freaked, I can make an open post here about this.

Ian lost his job back in late May or early June, something like that. Things have been fine financially since then, we haven't had to postpone the wedding or anything like that, thankfully. But it has really made it obvious that it's time for us to think about the fact that Ian needs a career, not just a string of crappy jobs. We've talked about him going into a trade in the past, and he talked to my dad and brother about it (they're both electricians), so he started looking into that as a serious option.

But here in the Lower Mainland, going into a trade requires taking a foundations course at a college (likely BCIT) first, and then hoping that you can get an apprenticeship afterwards. But elsewhere... you can do like my friend Marilyn's husband did. He walked right into an apprenticeship in instrumentation at a reasonable, livable wage, simply by having references that vouched for him being a hard worker and other good traits, and being willing to pick up and relocate within 2 weeks. So I contacted Mar, and asked her all about it. Ian had a conversation with her husband, and we did some research, and then talked to our parents, and we've made a decision.

A week or so before the wedding on October 13th, Ian is going to start contacting companies up in Fort St. John looking for an apprenticeship. He's just about guaranteed to be a shoe-in for one as soon as there's one available - people aren't exactly clamoring for positions up there, and the fact that he is a relatively stable, married 37 year old guy who is looking for a career is definitely in his favour. Apparently they get a lot of young guys looking to make a quick buck, who get bored quickly with nothing to do outside of work, very few single women, and not much in the way of exciting nightlife etc., who go up there for six months or so and then bail. We definitely wouldn't be looking to do that - we'd be looking to settle down, get Ian firmly established in a career (an apprenticeship takes 5 years, going to school for a short period each year, during which he gets unemployment benefits), and definitely not moving anywhere else until he's earned his journeyman ticket. I will qualify for spousal relocation unemployment benefits for the first while after the move, but the job market for other stuff - especially administrative/clerical - up there is pretty good too, and I don't expect to be unemployed for too long.

In the meantime, we're going to be paring down our belongings seriously to make the move as easy as possible. We have tax return money coming in the next month or so which will allow us to finish up all of the wedding preparation as well as pay for the move, so that's going to help a ton. But we're both feeling really anxious to just get the wedding over with so we can get going on things. To top it off, work has been extremely dead and boring lately, so I have far too much time to think about things and get anxious. So that's driving me nuts.

But that's where we are at this point. Hopefully he will get something fairly quickly after the wedding, and we'll be able to be up there by the end of 2012.