Holy cow. It's been nearly a year since my last post. I think part of my problem is that I don't think anyone reads this, but of course if I post once a year then why would anyone read it! Or maybe I'm just not really good at this, but I'll try again! Also, no pictures here. First, Daved killed our last camera in a hottub during our winter wonderland vacation in Colorado. Second, any pictures I have are on Facebook. Third, there's too much to write to catch up just on the move.
Okay, little recap. So, Daved and I have been planning on moving to either LA or NYC since about 2 months (maybe not even that) after we met. See, I don't do regrets. I realized that Daved still had a dream of becoming an actor (that he was attempting to squash to be "normal") and I wasn't going to let him wake up 15-20 years down the road and wonder what would have happened if he hadn't met me and went after his dreams. So, the deal was I had to finish pharmacy school (still had 3 years left when we met), then after that he had 3-5 years to do whatever he wanted. This initial 3-5 year timeline was based on me initially thinking I wanted to start trying for kids around 28 (less than a year now!!!). However, I still have zero interest in such a thing, so now he has all the time in the world!
We never planned on being stuck in Tucson for 2 more years after I graduated, but everything worked out for the best. I ended up getting a fantastic job, Daved still got to start acting, and he also had time to show me that he really does have what it takes to be successful. However, the job part also made it difficult to be able to make the decision for me to leave Tucson. We decided on LA since, for whatever reason, pharmacists seem to make a lot less in NYC, plus NYC doesn't have quite as much film and TV as LA. Although, we still would love to live in NYC at some point. So, I finally got to the place where I could leave my job and not have any regrets. Then, I finally got up the nerve to let my boss know I would be leaving within 6 months, pending CA pharmacist license and a new job. Then he says, "Well, we could probably work at a work-from-home option." I almost cried!! But of course I don't let myself believe anything until it happens, but somehow it worked out because I work downstairs now.
So, at the end of April Daved and I ventured to LA to find a place. Daved is pretty much all over the city, so he didn't have one specific spot that was necessarily better than another. We just needed to be central to everything. This left me far too many options, so 100 hours of research later we were here. Everything worked out perfectly (like Daved said) and we both loved Studio City. We found a street we wanted to live on, parked the car and then just walked up and down looking for open houses. The second place we walked in is where we now live! We are of course renting here because of the following:
A. We don't know the area well enough to commit to something long-term.
B. We don't know where Daved will end up spending the majority of his time. Live 15-20 miles the wrong way and you're looking at an hour and a half commute!!
C. Houses are like $900,000 if you want to live within an hour of anything.
D. Hard to commit to buying when you got royally screwed the first time. Although of course it all worked out for the best.
So! The new landlord fell in love with us immediately (me specifically) and allowed only small dogs (George is 95 lbs!!) but he wanted us so he had to take George too! So, we had our place and scheduled our move for June 3, which also happened to be our 4th anniversary. Daved did pretty much everything for the move which was awesome. I took only a 3-day weekend to move, and started working from home Monday while Daved unpacked.
We think we found the perfect place for us to start our new adventure. We can walk to everything which is so nice coming from a 15 minute drive to the nearest grocery store. The area is very safe. I haven't had to yet, but I could walk George by myself at night with no problems. Speaking of walking George, we no longer have a yard, so now we get to pick up George's giant piles of crap several times a day (I swear it's more than he eats!!!) with a cute little blue bag on my hand. This is not really fun. I've also had some trouble mastering the technique of the poop bag (but every real parent gets pooped on right?). However, being forced to take walks every night is kind of nice. The weather is nice, and it's good family time.
Our first weekend, George went to the dog beach in Long Beach and got to swim really for his first time. He loved it, but he also really enjoyed the feel of the ocean tickling his bum as he pooped in it. Needless to say, sprinting towards his poop (twice!!!) before it got carried into the ocean was not really a highlight. Daved also thought the entire area smelled like pee so we haven't been back yet, but I'd still like to go again soon! We'll just be sure George gets all his poop out next time. I thought we'd be taking George to the dog park all the time, but he actually seems to get either nervous or too excited with so many other dogs. He starts drooling like crazy and acts a little weird. Plus, the closest one is mostly dirt which he loves to roll in, so we haven't been back. Instead we've taken to hiking, which one of the trails is off-leash!, and there's a canal-type area less than half a mile from our place which has an enclosed walking path and rarely any other people, so we let George off-leash there and throw his ball. He loves it! One side is a fence, the other side is a hill with lots of trees and greenery, so George hops up there and explores in between throws of the ball. Bottom-line, George is very happy with his stay-at-home mom, tons of walks, and cooler weather. He also celebrated his 2nd Birthday yesterday with a birthday party at his new dog store complete with treats (too many!), ice cream, a Happy Birthday bandana, and picking out his own ball (Daved looked away for a moment).
Working from home was so strange at first! I think it takes a special person to not only do the work, but enjoy it. I have no problem getting up and doing the work without getting distracted. My job is largely project-based and I worked under very little supervision before, so what I'm doing now is really no different. The not seeing people all day long (besides of course Daved and George) is kind of crazy. I do have conference calls daily, so that helps me to kind of stay in touch with my coworkers, so these previously annoying meetings are actually kind of nice now. Plus now I get to mute the phone and yell at them :) I haven't quite worked out my own personal routine yet. If I get out of my pajamas in the morning, it's only into workout type clothes. I eventually have to get decent enough to go outside to walk George. I was doing some workout videos at lunchtime which was good, but we've had a lot of company and I got out of that habit. Then we started hiking several days a week, but then it got a bit warm last week. Then I went back to Tucson/Phoenix for several days (I have to go back once a month for work) and now I have no routine whatsoever. So, that's still a work in progress. But, I'm surviving! It sure is an adjustment though. Mostly good, but it's going to take some work to make this work long-term.
Daved has a manager now and is still working on the agent part. He's taking lots of classes, doing a lot of networking, done some short-films, and getting the hang of the whole thing. I think he's doing a great job so far! For more details, please see Daved as I am just his cheerleader!
Finally, this past week has been fantastic as I finally made some friends! Daved has several friends out here from projects he's worked on, plus making friends is essentially part of his job, so I needed to make my own. Now, working from home in a new state makes it pretty difficult, so I of course have to make my friends on the internet! Sounds dumb if you've never tried such a thing, but millions of people do it! Just like online dating! I found a meetup.com group back in Tucson once allllll of my friends had lots of babies, college friends moved, and Daved was gone most nights so I needed some single girlfriends. It worked out fantastically there, so I've found a few MeetUp groups here. Wednesday night I met up with about 12 people at a nearby Tavern, and it was great! I met some really cool people, have a lunch date planned, got invited to a party, and got several digits. Then, Saturday night Daved and I went to a couple's group MeetUp and had another great night. Scored even more digits that night! I would expect to have come across some weirdos by now, but there are tons of "normal" people out there in the same situation! We've made friends with several engineers, a psychologist, people in the industry for Daved, and other newly transplanted couples. It's just nice to have some options to hang out with people finally, and really nice to find some couple friends that don't have babies yet. It seems to be more normal to wait until your 30's for people to have kids out here, so that's pretty nice to find some people more at our stage of life again (the same stage as 4 years ago, but at least we're consistent!!)
Anyway, so far so good for the CA Team Wilkins. Off to a Dogers game tomorrow night with a couple we met at a concert, then to a little cabin with a hot tub in Big Bear for the weekend with George. Not bad!
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