Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Watershed Moments - Silicon Valley

Even if you know us, you probably didn't know that we were in California when Andrea was born. We lived in Silicon Valley just down the road from the then struggling Apple Inc., about 15 miles from Gilroy the garlic capital of the world and about two hours from the Napa Valley vineyards.
We rented a house on a little postage stamp lot and I planted all the neglect flower beds to vegetables. Andrea's daddy was a "vegetable freak" even then. When Isaiah describes the Messianic age to come in Isaiah 35 as "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad; the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus." That describes our place pretty well.

'Silicon valley has 340 days of sunshine a year. It rains for about two weeks in the winter, so it is effectively a desert, but has great soil if you can water. We grew snow peas, broccoli, baby lettuce, onions, leeks, carrots all winter long and added tomatoes, peppers in the summer. I also reseeded the lawn and trimmed the tart lemon and sweet Bing cherry tree in the back yard. My landlord told me I had a green thumb, but it was more like a green toe as you hardly ever had to wear shoes in the mild climate.

Andrea being born was a major watershed event.

We could have stayed in California if we wished, I decided to come back to the Midwest after being in the Valley for 18 months, because it was VERY expensive, very crowded and very far from our families.

I analyzed this decision using a tool called a decision matrix. I wanted to make sure that I could incorporate the emotion of expensive, crowded and far away with the facts. To make the move I would also have to leave a company I had worked at for 12 years.

In a watershed moment we packed our bags and moved back to Rochester, Minnesota.

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