In August I received an offer from a company out of New York City that seemed too good to be true and it was closer to the schools Arielle wanted to go to in the northeast. I liked my job in Dallas but we knew we would eventually move so that Arielle could pursue her PhD. It was really hard leaving all my colleagues at Comerica as we had some really good times and most days it felt like home. Once I left we were stuck in a weird limbo. I flew back and forth between Dallas and NY with my company giving me eight weeks before I needed to be moved to NY. I was living out of hotels and corporate housing, working, and trying to find a place to live in NY while Arielle was packing, organizing our move, closing our lease, and working. It was my first time in NY so it was quite the shock.
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| View from my Long Island City hotel. |
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| The view from my corporate office. |
On my end I needed to find an apartment so I had Arielle fly up one weekend to help me look. Being from the west coast I required a minimum of 1,000 square feet, a safe neighborhood, and the ability to have cars. This ruled out most of the boroughs especially with the city tax and the fact that rent is crazy in NY. For example, I stayed in corporate housing on the upper eastside in a 300-350 square foot studio, which was on the first floor (this reduces the price) for $4,200 per month. We ended up looking at a few places over a holiday weekend but some of them were closed so we didn't find anything. I ended up going to New Jersey a few times and found a place that met all of our needs and wants.
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| 300-350 sqft studio. |
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| Corporate housing was near central park. |
The weekend of the move I flew back Thursday night and ended up packing and working until 1am, got up the next day packed with Arielle, the Walkers, and friends. We got up early the next day and drove to Roanoke, Virginia in a day. Then from Virginia to Weehawken, NJ to our final destination. We were lucky to have the Walkers there to help with driving our second car and unloading all of our stuff.
We're glad to finally be all moved to the northeast and have been exploring around Jersey. New York City is too much to handle for extended periods of time but we love Jersey. Below are some pictures from a park near us.
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| Fort Lee Historic Park |
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| Fort Lee Historic Park |
On top of all this my new job wasn't what was pitched to me so I have been searching for a new job during this crazy move and settling in. I ended up finding a job closer to what I was doing at Comerica with my usual work benefits and I start November 30th.
Also to catch up on Halloween, we carved Pooh Bear (Arielle) and Snoopy and Charlie Brown (Dimitri). We had three kids stop by which was three more than we had last year. That has been the crazy of ending summer and fall of 2015 and Arielle is in the process of applying for PhD programs. Once this settles down we'll be excited for a break in the chaos.
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| 2015 Pumpkin |
