I am starting a new journey.

And so I decided to stop my old-fashioned journal writing and put my thoughts down in a blog instead.

Then I put a link to said blog on my Facebook page.

Now all the people I’m friends with on Facebook have rushed to read this and can’t wait to be captivated by my exciting and fun-filled life.

Or something of that sort.

After living my whole life in Southern California, and most of it in the High Desert, I am leaving it behind for a new life in the Seattle area of the Pacific Northwest. I’ve been offered the chance to transfer my position with my company to their Everett office (although as of now I still don’t have a confirmed start date, which is a little nerve-wracking), and my live-in boyfriend Paul is already in Washington and working at his new position. I’m still in SoCal for now, in charge of packing up the house and making arrangements here, while Paul house-hunts in our new area.

Last night, Paul and I were approved for a townhouse in Marysville, a town about thirty miles north of Seattle. I found the place online quite awhile back, but we’d seen conflicting information about price and were really more interested in finding a single family home than a townhome or condo.

Which would have been all well and good, if our property management company hadn’t turned out to be a bunch of man-haters.

Paul had called to set up appointments to see several homes we were interested in. When asked about pets, Paul replied honestly that we have cats. The next question was, “Are they boys or girls?” Upon hearing we had both genders, we were denied as tenants because the company won’t rent to people who have male cats.

Having an entire major property management company deny us seriously limited our options. I was also concerned about paying lots and lots of rent and wanted to find a cheaper place. So yesterday morning I got up early, looked online for places I thought we’d like to live in, and started leaving messages for landlords to set up appointments for Paul to go see houses (and no, I did not ask him if he would mind me doing this. Slight oversight. Whoops).

So halfway through the morning I got a call from Alaina from Carroll Creek Townhomes, telling me she did have a unit available now and if we rented it before the end of the month we’d get a month free rent and a $500 gift card to Costco. Since I dearly love all things free and/or in bulk, I jumped on it and called Paul to have him go look at the unit after work. He deemed it acceptable.

The moment I escaped from work I called him. “So when do we find out if we’re approved?” I wanted to know.

“We are approved, I get the keys Friday,” he replied. “We were approved before I went to the bank for the money order.”

“Alaina asked me when I’d come by on Friday,” he continued. “I told her I get off work at 4:30, so I’ll be there at 4:35.”

Go me with my mad home-finding skills.

I stayed up half the night having a panic attack because we’re actually moving and I still have quite a bit of packing to do. I packed until I could no longer stand the sight of packing tape and boxes and then retreated to the living room to watch Lifetime movies until sleepiness set in.

This morning I am up, off work (and having to work Saturday, blah), and ready to finish up my packing and perhaps to scoot over to the spa for a much-needed pedicure. I have the laundry room and the kitchen left to pack. The laundry room is a half-hour-tops job to do that consists of boxing up household cleaners. The kitchen, however, will be more work.

I made coffee and thought to myself that I must write all this in my journal. Then I thought, what the hell, why not blog it instead? I can type so much faster than I can handwrite, and it will be neat later on to have a blog detailing the triumphs (and horrors I’m sure!) of my California-to-Washington move.

And so with that I say, let the mayhem commence.