Packin'

We are in the midst of boxes and piles of stuff. Luckily there is a lot of stuff we didn't unpack knowing that we would only be living here for a few months. We still have a lot to do today, but it will all come together. We pick up the truck tomorrow at 10:00am, and we are planning to spend the day packing up the truck, and driving down on Monday morning. There are only a few things that are going to be tough getting down the stairs, but for the most part we are moving pros by now. Our new place is on the ground floor, and our parking space is right outside our place so unloading we be a lot easier. Wish us luck tomorrow, and cross your fingers for cool weather.

The new place

So we heard back about our new place. We are going to be living in a 2 bed 2 bath apartment on the outskirts of Portland. Our address is still in Portland, but it is very much suburban living (we are literally across the street from Beaverton). We are on the very southwestern edge of Northwest Portland (if that makes sense) If you look at a map of the area you can see that we are about 7 miles from downtown. We live just off the freeway that connects the 'burbs to the city, and near a whole bunch of shopping. Actually directly across from the driveway of our complex is a Mexican restaurant, a Dairy Queen, and a sportsbar. The apartment is the same size as our current and we are going to be paying about $60 less in rent. We move in this Sunday or Monday but there is lots of packing to do before then.

Living in Santa Cruz left us with such a skewed idea of how the rental world works. We looked at several places in three days before finding something we liked, could afford, and was in an area we wanted to live, but land lords and property managers were for the most part much easier to deal with than in SC. They still try to screw you though-- they all offer some sort of move in incentive or discount, but then have other charges that essentially negate the bonus. The place we ended up at charges an outrageous screening fee and a 125 buck" administrative move in fee" (isn't that what rent is for?) but then they give you $300 off your first month rent. They basically ask if you want to spread it all out over the 6 months of the lease and just knock $30 off the rent... works for me. Wish us luck packing, and we'll update when we can, but we'll be off line for a while after we move...

off the grid

We have been out and about the last week, and pretty much away from the computer. We went down to Carlsbad to visit my family. It was good to go back, it had been awhile since I had been to my hometown and there have been a lot of changes. Giant subdivision where there used to be rocky hills, and roads connecting places that felt much farther apart when I was younger. We spent the whole trip just catching up with family, but I did manage to get one good burrito in. After we got back we repacked and headed down to Portland to find an apartment. We Saw a few places on Thursday, camped again at Milo McCiver state park, and then saw a ton more places on Friday. We headed home late Friday since the campground was full and we didn't want to spring for a hotel. We regrouped and returned today and found what looks like a good apartment in a good area for us. I'll talk about how sweet the apartment is after we have our application approved (I don't want to jinx it). If everything goes according to plan we should be moving in a week from today. There are a ton of apartment complexes in Portland and the 'burbs and it took us a while to find an affordable one we liked that was available when we needed it, but like I said... there will be a full apartment update on Tuesday. I called PSU to check on a job I applied for a long time ago, and it sounds like I turned in my app after the first round of interviews had started, but they are going back to the pool so hopefully I will be getting a call about an interview.

At any rate... the next week is all about packing.