I grew up in NJ but had been living in NYC for the past 5 years. While the city is an awesome place to be, it just didn't fit my style very well. I hated working to live. Long 10 hour days just so we could afford a place 45 minutes away from my office. My commute consisted of a 2 bus, 2 trains, and a whole lot of walking. I was fed up with not having the time or the money to enjoy the city because I was just trying to survive living in it. So, right after our wedding this past June, my husband, Rob, and I told our bosses we QUIT, said goodbye to our 10+ hour work days, broke up with our landlord, packed our bags and moooooved out.
But only one problem remained, where do we go now? Before moving out, Rob and I had agreed on moving to south Florida. We both loved it there, had some family near, and we hated the cold weather. We heard great things about an area called Coral Springs and it seemed like the perfect fit.
My parents were nice enough to offer a temporary place to stay while we looked for apartments down in FL, so back to NJ we moved. Our stuff went into a storage unit and we moved into my brother's old bedroom, which barely fit a full sized bed without it touching both walls. Sigh....
Living with my parents was difficult. You thought 3 was company, try 5. Well, 4 and a half since my brother was off at college for half of that time. While they were all great about giving us our space, with what little of it there was, we had been used to living on our own for the past 5 years. But we made the best of it and enjoyed our time with the family, knowing soon we'd be 1000+ miles away from them all.
About a month after moving in with my folks, Rob and I started realizing we had to make a move soon. We had to get down to FL, find jobs, find a place and settle in. It was too risky to try to do it all from NJ. I had a business meeting in Miami the last week in September, so we figured this would be the perfect opportunity to go down and get settled in. Why pay to go down and come back, just to go back down again?
I had found an apartment online and had submitted all the necessary information and just had to get down there and sign the papers and move in. We figured it was better to get down there, move in, and then find jobs. We had some money saved up just in case and had seen plenty of job postings online in that area. Rob actually had 3 interviews set up anyway, so all we had to do was get there. So we over packed the van, the Honda Odyssey given to us as a wedding present from my grandparents, and said goodbye to everyone we knew and loved in NJ and NYC, and headed down to FL on our adventure. Of course we spread the drive over a couple of days, stopping along the way in Atlanta, Georgia and Sarasota, FL to visit with some family. There was no way we would even attempt the 24 hour drive in one whole day.
We were lucky enough to see some beautiful sights along the way...
Look out over the countryside from the mountains...
The whole experience made me realize how beautiful this country truly is.
Then, after much anticipation, we finally arrived in Florida!
We made our way to Coral Springs, expecting to sign our lease and be handed our keys and move right in. Up until now we hadn't considered needing a hotel or a place to spend the night since we had a lease pending. Our movers were literally waiting for us to tell them to bring our stuff down.
But, around the same time we arrived in Coral Springs, I got the call. Our soon-to-be landlord had some issues with the previous tenant and it looks like we wouldn't be getting the apartment after all. Could it seriously be that we just drove 1300 miles for nothing!?
Rob still had 3 interviews to do, so we decided to go ahead with those anyway. I drove him to each, and sat in the car and waited. They each took at least an hour and were the longest hours of my life. While waiting I got on my iPhone searching for apartments, finding a few. Once the interviews were over we decided to visit some of the apartments I had found online. All of which were terribly overpriced and not impressive, meaning we totally wasted our time seeing them.
Great. Now what? With a packed car, full of things like my husband's video game system, our flat screen TV, clothes, bedding, our 13 year old blind dog sleeping on top of it all... now where were we going to go??
Great. Now what? With a packed car, full of things like my husband's video game system, our flat screen TV, clothes, bedding, our 13 year old blind dog sleeping on top of it all... now where were we going to go??
It was around this time that I joked we were going to be living in a van... down by the river. Little did I know how gross those words would taste when I ate them later.
At this point, we pulled into a Publix shopping center, pulled out our laptops trying to get a WiFi signal. No use. iPhone it is. Thank GOD for smart phones.
I found us a hotel, the only pet friendly one in Miami close to my conference. I figured, worse case scenario, we just go home after this conference. Rob will stay at the hotel with the dog, I'll do my conference, and we'll just go back to NJ and figured it out from there.
It had been raining since we arrived in south Florida, so when we pulled up to the hotel it seriously reminded me of something out of a horror movie with the lightening and thunder and the ominous feeling in the air. The neighborhood was... well it was Miami and the entire property was gated. Enough said. Now Rob is panicking thinking about leaving our car full of valuables in the parking lot. It would be like Christmas for thieves. For the next 4 nights he wouldn't sleep an hour without getting up and looking out the window to check the car. So much for rest.
My conference went great, except half way through it we realized something. There were these tiny black bugs in the bed. They didn't look like bed bugs... more like FLEAS. Once the dog started itching like crazy it was confirmed. Great, the dog caught fleas.
So now the dog is miserable, Rob and I start itching and find welts all over us. The whole room is infested and on top of that this means all of our clothes need to be washed (everything in the suitcases, the dogs bedding, etc) but we don't have a washer or dryer. Oh yea, and she's been in the car too, so the car is covered in fleas. Classic example of FML.
So we have to find a vet. We wait until we check out to take her to the vet because we figure it makes no sense to treat her and then bring her back to the flea infested room. By now my conference is over, we've decided to drive back to Sarasota, on the other side of the state, where my grandmother lives and spend a day or two here before heading back to NJ and giving up. We stop at a vet's office, pick up medication for the dog, then we make our way to Sarasota where we plan to shampoo the dog, the car, wash all the stuff in the car. We can't wait...
So we have to find a vet. We wait until we check out to take her to the vet because we figure it makes no sense to treat her and then bring her back to the flea infested room. By now my conference is over, we've decided to drive back to Sarasota, on the other side of the state, where my grandmother lives and spend a day or two here before heading back to NJ and giving up. We stop at a vet's office, pick up medication for the dog, then we make our way to Sarasota where we plan to shampoo the dog, the car, wash all the stuff in the car. We can't wait...
As soon as we cross the state and get to the west coast the sun is out and shining (it had rained every day except one day while we were in Miami). Everything looks pretty and calm. We joked in the car that maybe we should move to the west coast.
We get to my grandmother's house and by now, with paying for the vet bill/medication, the hotel room, costs to attend my conference, and whatever else we've accumulated (food, gas, etc) we are beginning to run low on money. Feeling HOPELESS and quite literally lost, we realized we at this point had to find a way to make that money up.
We got into the habit of heading over to the beach every night to watch the sun set. My grandma lives a few blocks from the beach so we'd go over and sit and talk about what to do. The more time we spent there, the more we realized how much we loved it over there. We definitely couldn't watch the sun set on the east coast, something we loved to do but hadn't considered when trying to decide where to live.
We just assumed the west coast was for "old" people. Which we were learning was not true at all. So, since we were already there, why not try to apply for some jobs over on the west coast? So we began applying to Sarasota, Fort Myers, Naples, & Tampa hoping to get anything. We could always stay with my grandma for a bit while we found a place, at least we had that option over here.
Rob got a call from a job in Tampa, about an hour and a half from my grandmother's house. We set out early Thursday morning for the interview. Came back feeling good about it. I started looking at apartments in the area. I found a couple that looked great. The prices over there were MUCH cheaper than the east coast and we could actually get more for our money over on this coast. Rob got a call back interview for the next day, so Friday morning we woke up and make our way back up to Tampa to find out he got the job!
We were very excited about this as money was low and we were tired of being nomads, hotel and house hopping. We decided to book a week at a hotel in St. Petersburg, just outside of Tampa, and Rob would go to work during the next week for training, and I would go around looking for apartments. I found one we fell in love with, so we stopped in, applied and were told they'd let us know by the end of the week. If it all worked out we could move in on the same day we were set to check out of our hotel. Talk about working out perfectly.
During the week, while waiting to hear back from the apartment complex, we had stopped to get gas at BP. Being that is was BP, that should have been my first indication of trouble. Rob got out to pump the gas while I took a phone call regarding looking at another apartment complex, in case the one we wanted denied us for any reason.
About 20 seconds into gassing up the car, Rob stops, knocks on my window and says "We have a problem". Not my favorite words from him. Apparently it was he diesel pump, but truthfully wasn't marked very clearly, and Rob happened to see the small sticker saying it after he already put some into the tank. My initial reaction was, "so?". But then after googling it on my iPhone (yet again thank you smart phone) I realized we had a very serious problem.
In our defense, we are from NJ, and this is the first time we've had a car and had to pump of own gas (we didn't own a car in NYC). On top of that, the diesel pump is usually marked green, but we were at BP... EVERYTHING is GREEN at BP.
At this point Rob had to be at work in 25 minutes and we were at least 20 minutes away. Quick decisions had to be made. I told Rob to call 411 and find a taxi service to take him to work while I got on the phone and found a tow truck to take me to the closest Honda repair shop. Rob went off to work in the taxi, and I waved goodbye to him and the $50 he spent on the cab ride. I sat in the car with our dog, the car still packed with all of our valuables, just crying at the thought of how much this was going to cost us...
We got the car to Honda and they fixed it for the low price of almost $1,000! Gee, how kind of them. There goes rent for a month. So now, I am panicking. We literally have just enough to sign a lease if our credit check comes out perfectly. But how the heck do I know what my credit check will come out like. I haven't checked my credit in God only knows how long. So right now my life is dependent on a stupid numerical system used by corporate America to determined if I'm "worthy" enough for a home, car, etc... Lovely.
Then, I get the call. The call I'd been waiting for. The call that was either going to make or break us.
We got the place, the credit checked out fine, and we can move in tomorrow! But wait, no dancing yet. I want the keys in my hand first. So now it's Friday, 7:15am, we're checking out of the hotel and heading over to sign the lease. Hopefully, this is home sweet home!
We got the place, the credit checked out fine, and we can move in tomorrow! But wait, no dancing yet. I want the keys in my hand first. So now it's Friday, 7:15am, we're checking out of the hotel and heading over to sign the lease. Hopefully, this is home sweet home!
Once there, at Cameron Lakes, I write the checks, sign the lease, we take the keys and go to our apartment. It's huge and in perfect condition and we're excited. I take Rob to work, and on our way call the movers and tell them "change of plans, bring our stuff to Clearwater, FL".
For a week we sleep on the floor, but are so happy to finally have a HOME again. The movers come the next week, damaging a bunch of our items in transit including both my computers and my computer desk which I use for work (I work at home), but at least we have a bed and everything else we need.
So now, finally, after a month of living with family, running around in a fully packed van, not knowing where we'll end up... here we are. Tampa was the last place we thought we'd end up, and was actually the first place we crossed off our "where to move to" list. But God had other plans.
Home at last in Clearwater.
And here is the sunset, on the beach closest to our apartment.
We can now say this is "our beach".
Charlotte, our dog, traded in napping on top of bedding piled into the car,
to napping on the balcony of our new place.
This whole ordeal taught us something. No matter what happens, we are a family.
We're in it together and we'll get through it together.
At least this hellish ordeal has done something right, it brought us even closer together...
And for that, I'll never regret the way it all happened.
-Kira
