So I made this post a while back and now that the move is finished (as chronicled here) I'm sort of blown away.
We pulled off the move without any major hitches. We love the house we rented on the basis of a few blurry iPhone pictures and some short video clips. We love being up on a mountain with ravens hopping around the backyard. The property backs right up to a national forest. We narrowly escaped the polar vortex in the northeast and the climate in our new home is being super kind to both of us, after years of waking up in the morning aching and stiff. My partner started getting freelance work literally the Monday after the Friday we arrived. And in under a month I had a job that should (cross fingers) be extremely secure, for more money than I was getting before despite the cost of living being around 75% of what it was. I struggle to think of literally anything that went seriously wrong with the whole process.
I say all this not to brag about how awesome I am and how great my life is. I say it because I am acutely aware of how ridiculously, absurdly fortunate I've been, and I don't want the universe getting to thinking that I expect this. So this is my version of Polycrates throwing a ring into the sea.