Update from The Worst Blogger Ever

This past week marked the one year anniversary of my move to California. It’s one of those things that seems so long ago yet also seems like just yesterday. Let’s go through it month by month:

July 12, 2005: Dropped off my car at the shipping place in Durham in the morning, and was myself dropped off at RDU in the afternoon. I flew to Oakland. Home.

July: The movers arrived with our stuff, much of which was broken. My parents came to visit for 2 weeks. I missed my car more than I thought I would.

August: My car arrived. Yay! I was still unemployed, but not panicking about it yet. During the days I knit, and walked the neighborhood. I found a yarn store close to home, and started going to their evening knitting group. I met a group of women with whom I still spend every Wednesday night.

September: I was still unemployed, and starting to panic. I sent out resumes every day, and didn’t hear anything. I started an e-mail exchange with a local scientist who had just found a job. He had interviewed at a contract lab in Marin and knew they were still looking for someone. I applied and had an interview. They called me on a Wednesday and asked if I wanted to work there on a "trial basis". Um, sure…when do you want me to start? Tomorrow. My 2½ month long unemployment ended abruptly.

October: I began working at contract lab in a remote area of Tiburon. It was an hour-long commute, and the work wasn’t very stimulating, but I was getting paid. I kept applying for jobs, hoping to find something more interesting. I’ve often compared job hunting to dating, and my experiences this month further confirmed my theory. You know how they say that people in relationships are suddenly more attractive to others? Well, as soon as I had a job, I started hearing from other companies. I had phone interviews with two East Bay companies and two live interviews at one of them. I was offered a job, and gave my notice at the contract lab.

November: I started work here on November 7th. My morning commute was cut from one hour to 10-15 minutes. I quickly realized that I knew nothing about working at a biotech company. But every day I learned more, and I was happy to be in an exciting, stimulating environment.

December: Work, work, work. We spent Christmas with my brother David and his family.

January: We started to toy with the idea of buying a home. As I mentioned last year, we weren’t sure if we would ever be able to buy a home in California. But with both of us working good jobs, it started to seem like we could do it.

February: We started going to open houses on the weekends, trying to get an idea of what we could afford. Early on, we visited a house less than a mile from our apartment that Jeff loved. It was down the street from a neighborhood restaurant called Fat Apples, so we nicknamed it Fat Apple house. I wasn’t sold on it, and thought it was a little overpriced, so we continued to look.

March: We found a house. It had been purchased by a contractor and totally remodeled. The price was high, and we were warned that there would be several bids, which would jack up the price even higher. We made a bid. The whole process was very nerve-wracking, and at one point I said to our realtor, "I think my biggest fear is that they will accept our offer." Complete insanity. The sellers came back and asked for even more money, we politely declined, and they sold the house to someone else. We were disappointed, but also strangely relieved. While we were waiting to hear the outcome, Jeff suggested that if we didn’t get the house, we should go back and look at Fat Apple house again, since it was still on the market. I said to him, "You know, if they reduced the price on Fat Apple house by 10%, I’d make them an offer." When we called our realtor to set up a visit, we found out that they had reduced the price by 10% just that day. So we made them an offer, and it was accepted. Within three weeks we had closed escrow and were homeowners again. Yahoo!

April: We were still living in the apartment, and working on the house. We went straight to the house everyday after work, and were there until 10-11 pm every night. We ripped out the carpet, and had the floors refinished. We had the electrical system updated. We replaced light fixtures. We painted every room in the house, including the baseboards and the kitchen and bathroom cabinets. It was a lot of hard work, but it was all worth it, as the house really began to look great.

May: We finished up work on the house, and moved in May 12th. Once again we realized that we own too much stuff, but now we have a garage to store it all! The cats began to adjust to the new place. Floyd took to it right away, but Elsie was a little freaked out. She spent the first few days under the covers of our bed. Eventually she came out and realized that she could sit in the windows and look out onto the world, and she was happy. At the end of the month, we took a much needed weekend trip to Santa Cruz/Monterey to celebrate our anniversary.

June: More unpacking. Yes, it took a long time. It’s still not done.

July: And here we are. We have a house, 2 cats, jobs we love…life is good.

When my parents were here for Easter, my dad asked me, "Did you ever think you’d live in California?" No, I didn’t. Sometimes I’m still surprised to find that I do. Aside from the insane cost of housing, it’s really great here. There are so many cool things going on here that we can now be a part of…like this and this and this. And I get to be close to these people, which is the icing on the cake. It’s been a pretty exciting year, despite the lack of blog entries. I promise I’ll try to do better in the next year.