We Moved!

Paul had been looking for a new job since June.  Things at the offices he was working at just weren't ideal and it felt like the right time to make a change.  After looking and doing working interviews, he got several offers from offices in the Orange County area.  None of them were full-time, and none of them seemed like quite the right fit.  

Fast forward a month or so and Paul gets a call from his friend (and distant cousin, and USC classmate) Nate.  Nate had been working part-time at two different offices in San Diego and they both wanted him to go full-time.  Nate wanted to know if Paul would be interested in the offer that he didn't take, and if so, then he'd recommend Paul for the job.  Nate chose one office, and got Paul in touch with the other office.  Okay, so now a little about this office:

The owner of the office Nate was working at owns/ has owned several offices (around 20ish in the last 20 years).  The owner lives in LA and doesn't actually practice dentistry anymore.  His son works at the office that Nate was working at.  The dad is in the process of purchasing a new office (from a retiring dentist) close to the one his son works at.  The new office is the one that Paul would be working at and Paul would be the only dentist working there.  They expected to close on the new office in October, but they wanted to have a trial period of a few months with Paul working twice a week at the office the son works at, so that both parties could see if the arrangement would be a good fit.

Paul was still working at the two offices in Orange County, so he was trying to figure out how to make this all work.  The office in San Diego seemed very promising.  It paid well, would eventually be full time (and no Saturdays!), and seemed like a very normal, productive, honest office.  But it wasn't a sure thing.  He'd have to either cut back days or quit one of the offices he was working at in order to do the trial period in San Diego.  There are more juicy details, but he had a bit of a fall-out with one of the offices around this same time.  They were asking him to do procedures that were unethical, so he parted ways with that office.  Sad to end his time there in such a way, but it now cleared up enough days to do the trial period in San Diego.  

The more that Paul worked at the San Diego office, the more he liked it.  But the commute was killing both of us.  It was 180 miles round trip, and this isn't 180 in Idaho, people.  This is 180 miles in southern California traffic.  Not fun.  He passed the time listening to pod casts, while I lamented being left all day with a toddler and being hugely pregnant.  I knew that our ward would take care of me if I went into labor while Paul was away, but the idea still made me nervous.  And what other options did we have?  He was still working four days a week in Orange County.  And then... 

The office in Orange County let him go.  The other dentist he worked with had been talking with a consultant who had been trying for months to convince her that she should let Paul go- there just weren't enough patients to support two dentists.  And Paul couldn't argue with that.  It was true- there were several days each week when he would only see a handful of patients.  In fact, their lack of business was one of the reasons why he had started looking for a new job in the first place.  

So now there was nothing holding us to Orange County, but the job in San Diego still wasn't a sure thing.  And I was getting close to popping.  And we were both getting nervous about our financial situation.  Although sometimes I think we should be getting paid to have and take care of a baby, it just doesn't work like that.  And although we'd put money aside for situations like this, only working two days a week for two months would really be a stretch, especially with a baby on the way and if we ended up moving (also not a cheap endeavor).

We prayed and asked for prayers on our behalf and eventually decided to take a leap of faith and move to San Diego.  Paul told the San Diego office what had happened with his other jobs and they offered to let him work an additional day, which would be a "training/observation" day.  They also had a verbal agreement that, yes, he would be the one working at their new office.

Now all we had to do was find an apartment.  We furiously scoured Zillow and Craigslist for suitable options and then spent several days going back and forth between Orange County and San Diego looking at what we'd found online.  We had several requirements: must have washer/dryer, patio or balcony, walk-in closet or other space that we could use as baby's room, dishwasher, short commute, and hard floors in dining area.  We quickly learned that what might have appeared amazing online could be anything but in real life.  The apartments that we were, in fact, interested in, went like hotcakes.  We decided that we were going to have to make some compromises on our "must have" list, or else increase the amount we were willing to spend.  It was pretty frustrating, and all this time Paul was still commuting and I was still hugely pregnant.  

After spending four full days apartment hunting in San Diego, Paul turned the reins over to me and told me to just pick an apartment.  There were two places in an area that we hadn't looked at yet that seemed promising.  I'd been trying to get in contact with the property management company for several days, but without any luck.  Finally, I got a hold of them and the next day I was prepared to go by myself (Paul had to work) to look at them in person.  That morning, the company called and said that one of them had already been rented.  Argh!  Foiled again!  I still wanted to see the other place, so I went, checkbook at the ready in case the apartment was at least semi-decent.  It was, and now we just needed to pass their credit check.  By the way, this was Wednesday, August 21st.  The property manager called me that night and said that we'd passed and the apartment was ours if we wanted it.  Paul hadn't seen the place, but at that point he didn't really care and we decided that we'd take it.  

The next day, Thursday, we started packing.  My Friday was spent packing like a mad woman.  Paul worked on Friday, picked up the keys to our new apartment, and dropped off some of the boxes that we'd packed on Thursday.  He left for work Friday morning around 6:00am and didn't get home until almost 10:00pm.  Saturday morning we moved.  The Elder's Quorum (bless them!) came and helped and so did Paul's parents (double bless them!).  When they found out we were moving, they jumped in the car and came to our rescue.  

John was able to stay the weekend before flying back for work and Trudy's plan was to stay the week and help us unpack... More on that tender mercy later...

So, now we're here in San Diego.  We just keep moving closer and closer to Mexico in search of a taqueria that can rival Los Gallos.  In fact, we're about as close to Mexico as you can get without having to show your passport.  I say we live in San Diego, but really, it's more like Mexico, North.