Goal setting

Anyone else remember in middle school when we had to learn how to set goals and make plans. That was such a stupid class, no one every takes it seriously. But it turns out that skill is one of the most important ones you can learn!

Last year, Sandra and I took a trip to Las Vegas near New Years. We were discussing plans for the up coming year and resolutions as is the tradition. We realized that we were unhappy with Phoenix AZ and made a drunken resolution to be in NYC by January 2012. Now it is November and we have signed a lease on an apartment in Brooklyn. We are 2 months ahead of schedule and its all because of that stupid goal setting skill set we so happily ignored in middle school.

So if there is something you are unhappy with in your life, sit down and come up with a plan to change it. Give yourself a reasonable deadline (a year worked great for us) and think about the steps involved to accomplish it. Then work on those steps, and consider your goal a reality. We didn't look up methods of shipping our stuff because it was fun, but because we were definitely moving and didn't have an option. The same is true of our research of the ny housing/rental market, Sandra's transfer search etc.

Many people asked us if we had a back up plan, and to that our answer was that there was no room for backing up. If you want something, go for it before it becomes a regret. They say the things people regret are the risks they never took, and I've worked with enough old and dying people to know that its absolutely true.

Wow. Just wow.

(This is Sandra)

So Thursday came around as Thursdays usually do. We were supposed to meet with Jason, our first realtor at 8am sharp. But we had a different plan in mind. We called and rescheduled for the next day just in case our amazing apartment somehow fell through and crushed all of our hopes and dreams. I got ready for my second interview. Unfortunately that day we had to check out of our Greenpoint YMCA.  We had to be out by 11am but couldn't check into the next one until 3m. So  Sean had the amazingly exciting job of watching our luggage while I was in my interview. He sat outside of the hotel the entire time I was in there. Oh and did I mention it was raining the whole time? Lucky Sean!

So I went in and played the usual game  of wait for the management to be ready for me. Finally one of the managers brought me up to the GM's office. The interview itself was very similar to the first. All the same questions really. But it went well. The manager brought me back down to the lobby bar and let me know that they loved me (of course ;)) and that I got the job!! I decided now was the time to ask, "how much will I be getting paid to pretend to like these people?" In phoenix I feel that I make pretty decent money considering my job duties. I figured New York would pay more but I wasn't expecting what I was about to hear. At my new hotel I will be making more than double what I'm making in Phoenix! Did not see that coming! So between my pay and whatever Sean ends up making I think we'll be just fine!

After the interview we went out to Flushing Brooklyn and  checked into our hostel. This one was nicer, with an elevator a tv! But Flushing is like 40 minutes from Manhattan and over an hour from the realtors office. So we quickly got everything together and went to sign the lease!

Refreshed hope and stolen appointments

We woke up early wednesday morning determined to avoid the chaos of tuesday. We spent time looking through ads and calling anyone we could find a number for. Of the numbers we called about half were out of business and half of the remaining were not opening until 10!

We decided to visit some offices in person and found that many offices were also out of business. Starting to feel overwhelmed, we noticed a familiar name on our gps and went into rapid realty in what turned out to be Bed-Stuy (which as Sean informed us is pronounced Stye). We told our story to a realtor and borrowed him for over 3 hours to see some properties in the area. We found one we liked and haggled a bit to get a pending deal and an appointment to meet with the super.

By this time we had heard back from Marriott about Sandra's second interview and a request that she west a suit to this one. So we went to the mall and started looking at clothes. By this time we were getting tired and I received a voice mail and a second call from another realtor we had contacted. He said we could see the property we had asked about and told us to come back by his office. After looking up the address we realized that he had us confused with another couple, but thought out would be fun to steal someones appointment and perhaps beneficial to have a back up. I joked that now that we were $500 into the property from earlier we would undoubtedly find our dream property.

We did.

Bushwick

We landed at le guardia with news of a pending interview with Marriott and the promise of meeting an  old friend. Sean DM was willing to let us cram into his  living room and we were happy to have a place to stay. We had an excellent time catching up and he was kind enough to show us around Bushwick. After a few bars and some delicious rice balls we headed back to his apartment to also before our first big day!

The low point

Day two in the city could be described with one word, overwhelming. We got a call from marriott when we landed in chicago and had set up an interview for sandra. Unfortunately st the tone of the interview we needed to check in at the hostel. Also in the interest of not wasting a day, we made an appointment with a realtor and a trip to another complex in that area.

After a long train ride we found out our realtor's iphone was broken and he was going to call us back later. We saw the lefrack city complex and were blown away by the views, prices, and neighborhood. Unfortunately they were not  impressed by our pending employment status. We had a great lunch at a place google maps couldn't find and went our seperate ways.

Unfortunately I went to the wrong ymca hostel and had to t take a second cab ride. Btw,  knowing your way around ny is not a prerequisite of being a cab driver, we have given turn by turn directions to each cab driver we have used, its very annoying! once I finally got checked in I learned that Sandra's battery was almost dead and she was still in Manhattan! Luckily she made it back to the hostel before it died and the rest of the night was nice and relaxing. We had a great dinner at a  bratwurst bar and went to bed early.

The scout trip

Months of planning have led to this moment where we arrive at sky harbor exhausted after a 12 hour shift at the hospital with the nagging feeling that we forgot something. Hopefully it wont be midflight before I realize that what we left behind is our son Kevin, but what can you do :/

Some amazing goodbyes!

We are with in a week until the apartment hunting trip and within a month of our big move itself! These last few weeks have been filled with stressful packing, extra over time, and some wonderful last trips.

My tucson friends were kind enough to take time out of their days to come see me over the course of a few weekends and it was apreciated in ways words cannot describe! Our adventures on 4th ave, a lovely dinner at Blue Willow,  a rocking beer festival, lunch at el Charro and of course some classical guitar at the raging sage. All of these adventures and events were special and sampled some of the best tucson has to offer. It took me years to love tucson and I hope the lesson I learned is to be more open to new things so I have more time to enjoy them.

Best of luck to all of us as we go our seperate ways, may we meet again soon.