My Pretty Pink Office

Jeff's mom was in town this weekend and we had all kinds of family fun on Saturday and Sunday.  Monday, we took some time to work on my office.   Unfortunately, I don't have a before picture, but the above is definitely progress - even if it's still a hot mess.

It seems that even though the office is one of the rooms furthest away from the front door, every miscellaneous-mystery-item box got stuffed in there.  Unpacking meant that we were making piles (and piles and piles) of items to go into other rooms. If can open the door, I'll get some pictures of the TV room another day so you can see what I mean.

Here's the aftermath of the work we did in the office.

It's a process and we're definitely not complaining. The longer we're in the house, the more we're loving it.

How All Of This Happened (Part 3)

Today, we're continuing the story of how we went from bundled-up-freezing-cold-dog-shivering New York . . .

To waking up to incredible views like this one from our cozy hotel room in Sausalito . . .

It's a fairly well known fact that I hate snow. Yeahsure, it's real pretty to look at, but then it needs to be shoveled and scraped, and then there's the coat, the hat, the gloves, the boots. I'm the kind of girl who likes to get up and go - snow (and its evil friend ice) gets in the way of that.

"Can you imagine waking up to this every morning?"
"It snowed again in New York."
"So glad we're not dealing with that!"

All of this time, Jeff was still looking for a job in New York.  We weren't moving. We'd decided months before that we were not moving - that I could not move away from Nicholas. And, besides, who just moves across the country on a whim? None of the responsible adults I know!

Neither of us remembers who brought it up first. Both of us remember how those first conversations ended.

Because, seriously . . .

But....We have great friends in the area. Jeff's sister and her husband had just moved here. NY was having a terrible winter with lots of snow. Avocados in January. No kidding.

And, most importantly, that boy above?  He's a man now. I don't know when or how it happened, but he is.  He works, is in college, and has a wonderful fiance. He has a life and (much to my chagrin) he doesn't need me right there every single day.

Our decisions were mostly small ones that were all leading to the big decision:  Jeff would look for a job in the area, but not stop looking in New York either.  We would take it all one step at a time. See how things evolved and make decisions based on whatever happened next.

Jeff sent out a few resumes and started hearing back almost immediately. First one phone call and then another. One interview and then another. This was looking pretty serious pretty quickly.

We started talking about logistics. Where would we live? How would we move our household items out here?  Could we really do this?

At around the same we started looking at houses online. I fell in serious love with one of them.  We stalked drove by the house. It was in a beautiful older neighborhood with lots of great big tall trees. I was even more convinced this was our house after we toured it (several times) with a real estate agent.  We made an offer and it was accepted right away. Wahoo!

Around the same time, Jeff heard back about the job he was most excited about.  Could he start in two weeks?

It was for real. For really reals real. Yikes.

And that's the story of how a boy, and a girl, and a dog ended up moving from New York to California. Pretty crazy, huh?  And now I'm wondering - what was your biggest spontaneous act? There must be some great stories out there.

How All Of This Happened (Part 2)

A quick recap . . .

We'd planned to take a quick trip to Las Vegas in January, but ended up coming to the Bay area when a close friend needed some help.

No big deal, Brush Dance is located in San Rafael so it would be easy enough for me to work from here. Jeff was still working for Brush Dance part-time and working on finding a job in NY. If he got an interview, he'd fly home and I'd follow when the friend was doing better. Perfect. A fun little adventure to kickstart the year.

One week turned into another. And another. We needed a plan.  Bella was still being boarded in NY, we were missing her like crazy. The friend wasn't seeing great health improvements. We were torn. In the end, we decided that we'd stay out here another month - even if the friend started feeling better, we were staying for a month. With that decision, we needed a Bella plan.

We could have Bella flown out to San Francisco. Flying a dog in the winter? Especially a greyhound with absolutely zero body fat? Ug. Not a good option.  Both of us could have gone back to NY, but that would have left the friend without much support in the area. Blech.

After so much back and forth, we decided that Jeff would fly to NY, take care of a few things at the condo (our Christmas tree was still up!), break Bella out of jail, rent an SUV and drive (yes, drive) across the country with her.  Jeff's wonderful sister (Ali) would meet them in Lincoln, Nebraska (where they spent their wayward teen years) and drive the rest of the way with them.

Perfect.  Well. Kinda perfect.  Actually, not perfect.

While Jeff was away, I got us moved into a pet-friendly hotel that was willing to negotiate an amazing rate for a month. Seriously, if you have to travel with a pet, the San Francisco area is the place to go - lots of options.

Weather was going to be bad the week that Jeff was driving back. He decided to speed up the schedule a bit and leave sooner than planned. No time to take down that Christmas tree!

Honestly, we didn't talk much those first couple of days of driving. From my perspective, there was a lot of, "It's so cold. It's so freakin' cold."

Finally, they made it to Lincoln.  And then there's a story about a snowstorm and a duck that resulted in this picture:

Yes, that's Jeff. Holding a duck. In January. In Lincoln.  That's a story that he's going to have to share, though.

Annnnnyway . . .

Jeff and Bella finally make it back to California. Having never owned a dog before Bella, I had no idea how much . . . how it's possible . . . fine, I didn't know I was going to be in love with a dog! But, man, seeing her for the first time after so long - she was all kinds of happy jumping up and down - and so was I.

Uh. But now we have a dog - in the Bay area. Almost three thousand miles from home. It's almost a sure thing that we'll be driving back to New York. I'm thrilled with that idea, of course - more adventure and travel!

So. That's how Bella made it out here with us.

Stick around for more of the story of how all of this happened!

How All Of This Happened (Part 1)

How in the world did we go from this:

To this:

(I really need to get some other pictures of the outside from a distance)

Over the years, Jeff and I had talked (lots) about where we'd want to live if we could just pick up and move.  The San Francisco area was always number one our list of places. In some ways, then, it's not a big surprise that we ended up here.  

How we ended up here, though - that's the story!

I always said that I could never move away from New York - what  I really meant, though, was that I could never move away from Nicholas. I mean, seriously?  

So. Moving wasn't on our minds.  At the end of 2010, we had three big things going on:

1. Our amazing stay in New York City to celebrate New Year's Eve.

2. A quick trip to Las Vegas to celebrate Jeff's graduation from his Fancy School for Math Geeks. 

3. Getting back home, Jeff focusing on finding a full-time job (he'd already been looking and working with me at Brush Dance part-time), and just . . . living. A boy, a girl, a dog. Ahhh.

Our trip to NYC was incredible - we'd been planning it for literally 363 days. We saw shows, walked in the slush, and had a room with an amazing view of Times Square. A real once in a lifetime experience. Bella was comfy cozy in her usual boarding place.

Vegas was just a week later and because of busy-ness at work (and laziness), we didn't unpack from the NYC trip.  The night before we left for Vegas, we decided to not take any clothes or toiletries with us. None. We'd shop in Vegas and call that part of our adventure.  We each packed one bag and those were mostly filled with computer and work things since we'd have to work some of the time we were away. On the way out the door, we each rolled up an extra shirt and trucked them into our bags.  We dropped Bella off (again) at the boarding place. And we were off!

Off our rockers!

Vegas was great.  We saw some great shows, did some fun people watching, gambled (and lost) a little, ate too much, all of the usual Vegas things. Oh, yeah, and we each picked up a few articles of clothing, but not much - maybe 2-3 shirts and an extra pair of pants each. 

A friend in the San Francisco area had been having some health issues and wasn't doing well.  Jeff was in the process of buying wheels for his bus.  Oh...here's the bus. It's a 1963 VW Transporter - another whole story that maybe he'll share some day. (The short version of the story is that right after Jeff's last day at his Fancy School for Math Geeks in mid-December, we drove down to his aunt and uncle's in Virginia to pick up this beauty. Hi Suzanne! Hi Robert!!)

I digress.

Our friend in San Francisco wasn't doing well and needed some help just getting to and from appointments.  Vegas is (sorta) close to San Francisco.  We would rent a car and drive the 12 hours to San Francisco. Along the way, we would stop at some desert town and pick up the tires.  The plan was to either ship the tires to where the bus was (in a Pennsylvania repair shop) or (get this!) drive them across the country after we were done in San Francisco.

In my defense, I've never driven across the entire country and it's been a huge fantasy of mine forever.  And, "Really, what better time is there to do this since my work schedule is somewhat flexible and you're not working full-time yet." (This is also the logic that got us to Vegas so quickly on the heels of the Virginia and NYC adventures, by the way.)

cRaZy

So. That's how we ended up in San Francisco.  Hang in there with us to find out how we ended up staying here!

Moving Bingo!

Today, we played Moving Bingo!

All of our boxes from New York were (supposed to be) stickered with a unique number.  As the movers brought in furniture and boxes, we marked off the numbers.  At the end, all of the numbers should be marked off.

Besides the Moving Bingo part of the game, there are other sections on our card . . . 
A place to list items received without stickers (we had bunches).
A place to list damaged cartons (we had maybe 6).
A place to list damaged items (omg, I don't wanna talk about it).
A place to list damages to the home (one little ooops).

At the end of Moving Bingo, we cry because . . . 
. . . our house is full of boxes that need unpacking.
. . . some of our stuff is damaged beyond repair.
. . . we live in California and are so happy.


More on the process of moving in shortly. I'm going to go find some packing paper to curl up on and have a nap.    

Hall Closet Redo

This is the linen closet before we attacked:

A closeup of the shelving arrangement after we removed our stuff:

In their effort to maximize storage, the previous owners hung a set of 24-inch shelves on two of the walls - creating an L-shaped shelf. The problem, though, is that the L is lopsided - the shelves ended up about an inch apart and they couldn't be adjusted up or down to make them even steven.

You can see in this picture how awkward things look. Two short (and too short) uneven shelves. They had to go - pronto!

Jeff measured the back wall. It was 37". Perfect!  We ran off to Container Store and picked up shelves that measure 36".  Grabbed the ladder, removed the existing shelves, and here's what we were left with. We decided to leave the track on the left just in case we ever want to re-reconfigure the closet - and because, really, who wants to repair walls? Not us!

Then, we started adding our new shelves.

And here she is - reconfigured, reorganized, restocked . .

Beautiful!

We chose this closet as our first project (other than some necessary home repair things by professionals, but more on that later) for a couple of reasons:

1) I'm an organizational freak. And the other configuration may have worked for the previous owners, but it was messin' with my organizational mojo.
2) It was easy and with all of our everythings going on right now - we needed something easy.

When we were done, high-fived, did our secret handshake thing, and stood back admiring our handy work with a major sense of accomplishment.  It's the little things, people, it's the little things.

Bella and The Case of Too Much Play

Reposting this because Blogger had issues yesterday and this post was lost in those issues. 


Bella (our super sweet greyhound) went to the vet yesterday because she'd been limping off and on over the past week or so.

While they don't know fur sure (hehee), the doctor (who shall henceforth be known as Dr. Dude because he's totally a dude - in a cool way) thinks she's broken one the small bones in one of her toes. Fortunately, it's not a weight-bearing toe.

We're guessing it happened during one of the zillion times she was running around the new backyard.  (At our condo in New York, she was never off-leash except at the dog park.)

The treatment plan consists of meds for the pain and swelling (easy enough, just mix with her food and she never knows it's there) and rest (uh oh).

Poor puppy. She's so confused.  "What? What is this? A leash? In my own backyard? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!!!"

If it's not better next week, she'll go back for x-rays. Until then, we're trying to find ways to entertain her that don't involve squeaky toys.  Got ideas?