Well folks, the next chapter of this adventure begins in about an hour. My sister arrived from D.C. yesterday afternoon and we picked up our rental car - a Chevy Trailblazer with a navigation system. Quite a sweet ride! 'Loaded up the back yesterday afternoon (thank God for unseasonally mild weather). It is PACKED!!! No room for nuthin' and I ended up having to leave some of my favorite pictures behind with Mr. D for the time being.
Mr. D found a room to rent with a very nice couple just 10 minutes from our house. We are putting the house up for rent to save money. Hopefully the market will get better and we can try to sell next summer.
I'll try to blog from the road but I don't know what internet access will be like.
Here's the route in case we disappear off the radar:
Day 1: Durham to New Albany, IN (just NW of Louisville, KY)
Day 2: New Albany to Lincoln, NE
Day 3: Lincoln to Evanston, WY (just east of the WY-UT border)
Day 4: Evanston to Reno, NV ... stay with our wonderful cousin Jenny
Day 5: Reno to San Francisco/Berkeley ... apartment hunting with my sister to find her a place for grad school adventures
Day 6: Bay Area to HOME (Newport Beach, CA)
Day 7: Home to Santa Catalina Island ... 26 miles across the sea for a much needed vacay in our family's little paradise - the seaside town of Avalon
Lots of pics to come!
Time to road trip...
Monday, July 23, 2007
Sunday, July 15, 2007
The 3,000-Mile Budget
Pop quiz, hotshot....
You're quitting your job in one week's time, which means you will not get a full paycheck on July 31st (which must be mailed to you since you'll already be gone). Your bills remain the same through mid-August while you make the transition to move. You are hoping and praying that unused vacation days will help cover those expenses and crossing your fingers that your checks for your other part-time job will get to the correct address in California.
You won't start work again until mid-August, which means your first paycheck will not be full either ... your next "real" pay will be September 5th, the final day to pay your mortgage.
You also have some atypical expenses in the next week. You owe the property management company helping you rent your home, plus your husband must pay a security deposit, and July/August rent.
What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?????
You're quitting your job in one week's time, which means you will not get a full paycheck on July 31st (which must be mailed to you since you'll already be gone). Your bills remain the same through mid-August while you make the transition to move. You are hoping and praying that unused vacation days will help cover those expenses and crossing your fingers that your checks for your other part-time job will get to the correct address in California.
You won't start work again until mid-August, which means your first paycheck will not be full either ... your next "real" pay will be September 5th, the final day to pay your mortgage.
You also have some atypical expenses in the next week. You owe the property management company helping you rent your home, plus your husband must pay a security deposit, and July/August rent.
What do you do? WHAT DO YOU DO?????
Saturday, July 07, 2007
"To-Do"'s
I've come to the conclusion that my life would not be my own if it weren't for sudden changes of plans. Mr. D will now be moving out at the same time I do into a rented room, so that we can rent out the house for a year (and wait for the market to improve to sell it next year - knock on wood). So that leaves quite a laundry list of things that must be done before July 23rd (or July 28th), depending ... see below.
I'm sort of scared to actually put this into writing for fear of overwhelming myself, but I figured this blog was a good place to record the small victories that are accomplished in preparing to uproot one's life and move 3,000 miles away. If I report daily what I actually did get done, I'll feel better that I'm on track.
By the way, since I moved to Durham 3 years ago, I pledged no less than three times that each move would be my last. Then the rent went up, or we decided to become homeowners or life threw a curveball and I decided to go back to CA. So much for that!
1) Go over bills with Mr. D
2) Decide what to keep and who is keeping it, and what to sell
3) Sell furniture on Craigslist/Facebook
4) Decide whether to road-trip it (leaving July 23rd) or fly (leaving July 28th). If I drive, I need to find at least one travel companion (4 possibilities right now), rent a car and pack my things decently enough to fit in a standard SUV. If I fly, I need to pack and ship almost all of my belongings and fit more necessities into two suitcases, one carry-on and a personal item.
5) Pay ALL bills through mid-August before departing
6) Purge closet: donate, trash or pack?
7) Clean out car trunk (aka throw out anything that's been in there since before we moved to the house last April)
8) Finalize contract with property manager and pay $200 escrow fee
9) Have master suite repainted
10) Help Mr. D move
11) Get more boxes!
12) If road tripping, map out route, find hotels along the way.
I'm sure I'm forgetting about 20 things but the list will grow as needed (and hopefully shrink even faster).
AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
I'm sort of scared to actually put this into writing for fear of overwhelming myself, but I figured this blog was a good place to record the small victories that are accomplished in preparing to uproot one's life and move 3,000 miles away. If I report daily what I actually did get done, I'll feel better that I'm on track.
By the way, since I moved to Durham 3 years ago, I pledged no less than three times that each move would be my last. Then the rent went up, or we decided to become homeowners or life threw a curveball and I decided to go back to CA. So much for that!
1) Go over bills with Mr. D
2) Decide what to keep and who is keeping it, and what to sell
3) Sell furniture on Craigslist/Facebook
4) Decide whether to road-trip it (leaving July 23rd) or fly (leaving July 28th). If I drive, I need to find at least one travel companion (4 possibilities right now), rent a car and pack my things decently enough to fit in a standard SUV. If I fly, I need to pack and ship almost all of my belongings and fit more necessities into two suitcases, one carry-on and a personal item.
5) Pay ALL bills through mid-August before departing
6) Purge closet: donate, trash or pack?
7) Clean out car trunk (aka throw out anything that's been in there since before we moved to the house last April)
8) Finalize contract with property manager and pay $200 escrow fee
9) Have master suite repainted
10) Help Mr. D move
11) Get more boxes!
12) If road tripping, map out route, find hotels along the way.
I'm sure I'm forgetting about 20 things but the list will grow as needed (and hopefully shrink even faster).
AAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!
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