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Old 10-02-2012, 08:27 AM
 
Location: Rapid City, SD
25 posts, read 70,856 times
Reputation: 60

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I have been visiting this thread for awhile and have been thinking of the women out there in the same boat as me.. Thought I'd share a little and invite others to share their story.
Same ole story.. Economy tanked where we live in SW Florida. Husband is a Master Mechanic (Diesel and Heavy Equipment) and I was working at an Urgent Care Center.. Medical issue caused me to lose the 20 hours a week I was working and his hours went from 60 to less than 40. Yep time for a change.
Long story short, found him a job really quickly in Williston with housing for him. Still under a lease here til the end of October, we decided I'd stay here and spend a couple of months looking for housing up there and then join him.
Only ads for housing near Williston are either too expensive or scams. Beware of CRAIGSLIST!! There is a major scammer on there from South Africa.. Just sayin..
So... What are we willing to do? Decided to move to Rapid City SD. It is a 6 hour drive from Williston, but he has a co-worker that is on the same schedule as him and his family is in SD. They can carpool down every other weekend and I can go up there on the weekends he works. We will be able to see each other every weekend and that is a he!! of a lot better than the NOT AT ALL we have had for the past 2 months.
He has an AMAZING job! Works for a GREAT company! And we aren't willing to give that up. Like most, we will do what we have to do.
I found an amazing house in Rapid City and he went down on his off weekend and secured it for us and I will pack a U-Haul in 2 weeks with my two teenaged girls (only 2 of 5 kids still living at home) and make the drive myself. NOT looking forward to loading or driving the monster truck, but again, you do what you have to do and it would cost too much for him to take the time off. We are so excited to move to beautiful SD and be closer to my husband.
Williston has offered us a life line and we grabbed on for dear life! I am so thankful and excited for the new life with renewed energy and faith that yeah, everything is gonna be allright!
Please share your story, ask any questions, or vent frustrations as to what it's like to have to live seperately. There are plenty of us that know how it feels.
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Old 10-02-2012, 08:57 AM
 
15 posts, read 27,382 times
Reputation: 15
I think this will post under my husband's account. I will make one later as things progress. He just left for ND yesterday and made it to St. Cloud early this morning and is now resting. I will update on his progress later, but for now here is our story.

We are both originally from Indiana and were best friends in high school. We came together and drifted apart over the years. I ended up in Louisville,KY and have lived here for 14 years. Four, almost five years ago we met up again and now we have a three year old son. We got together around the time I finished my MBA in early 2008, right when the economy tanked. Thus, for a variety of reasons, I am still in the same job I was before I finished my degree. My insurance is great and we needed it for our son so I stuck around. The pay is fair and the flexibility is nice so for awhile it has been able to support us. We bought a modest house with a mortgage lower than most folk's rent and we raise chickens and we garden so we don't spend lavishly and are able to feed ourselves well.

However, the pressures of a down economy have effected us greatly. Jacob was working three jobs along with my job and with rising prices we can barely keep our heads above water. We are both of old German, "Ve vill vork hard and like it!" stock and just getting by isn't really getting by at all. So, time for a change. There are no jobs here and things just seem to be getting worse, for us anyhow. We rented our house out to some folks from Kenmare, ND for the Kentucky Derby and in talking to them, first got the idea for this back in May. We sat on it for a while, maybe too long, before it got to the point that something had to be done and so he finally made the decision that he was going to go for it. He left yesterday and we shall see how the rest turns out.

He's hoping for an oil field job, but failing that he has a lot of experience in masonry so we are hoping that construction might be the ticket. I'm a bit worried for him going up there this late in the year, but he has extensive cold weather training due to his time in the army and is well prepared for cold weather. So, now I cross my fingers and hope for the best.

If all works out I'm considering selling the house and moving up there myself, for a while anyhow. My dream home is New Orleans so ND is a far cry from my ideal. However, that said, I have an MBA and I currently work for a seafood company (Yes, in Kentucky. Long story.) doing office management work and while I've moved away from it, I've also done a lot of logistics work for them as well. Despite the fact that my main duties are office work, I work with all men in a rugged industrial (wet, salty, stinky, seafood-y) environment. My daily attire is jeans and steel toe boots, so working in the Bakken, in that regard, would not be culture shock at all. We shall see how that turns out as well.

Anyhow, thanks for putting this up. I'm sure there are many other women in the same position with husbands, boyfriends, partners and the like up there and it's good to hear from others in the same position. I'm sure I'll have more to say in the days, weeks and months to come and I hope this thread will be around for that as I'm sure I will need the advice and support!
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Old 10-02-2012, 09:23 AM
 
Location: Western Nebraskansas
2,707 posts, read 6,212,158 times
Reputation: 2454
My husband headed to North Dakota back in February of this year.

A cowboy by trade, ranching usually pays the bills (and the recession hasn't really hit the rural plains, so it's not like there's no jobs here), but we're also trying to build a house and were really starting to struggle trying to both live AND build a house with cash. So when a neighbor mentioned he'd been driving a truck up in ND since last Sept, my husband decided to put his CDL to regular use. Til this year, he'd mostly hauled cattle and grain, which, near as I can tell, prepare a guy a lot better for the oil field than OTR! lol

We live in northern Kansas, so he's only 12 hours from home and his folks are in Rapid City, which is halfway for both of us. And, having lived in ND for several years, we also have friends around Bowman, ND, Fort Yates, ND and Bismarck/Mandan. So this wasn't nearly as much of a leap into the unknown for us as it was for most other folks.

He got lucky and found a really good job near Minot with a well-established company that is on the grow. It's the first job he's ever had that truly appreciates the drive he has, as well as the fact that he's multi-talented and conscientious. Probably because there's a lot of competition to retain quality drivers...
For us though, there's no way he can do this long-term. Aside from the fact that we're not moving (we have not only a new house in the works, but land, cattle and horses) his job is not family-friendly. He's always on call and can go out on a run with very little notice. His job is set up with a three weeks on, one week off schedule. Or, if he wants to modify it a bit, like six weeks on, two weeks off, he can do so. I LOVE that long stretch of free time that he gets!

Ironically, we had been looking at land when we lived in ND and that was just a couple of years prior to the oil boom, so it was still cheap!
As it is, we're hoping to go another year or 18 months and then come home.
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