New Year, New Home

I have now been a San Diego resident for almost two years! Wow, the time has flown by! When I first moved here I was living in corporate housing for a couple months up in the burbs near my office. The place I was in was pretty nice and it crossed my mind to sign a lease there, but after several years in the burbs of San Jose and Phoenix, I was ready to return to city life.

A friend of mine from college that had lived in the San Diego for a while helped me scout out several new neighborhoods to try to find an apartment. In the end, I chose Hillcrest which he originally described as “being a lot like San Francisco”. When we first drove around I agreed! The streets and businesses and restaurants and vibe of the place did remind me of San Francisco, and it was right by Balboa Park where I could run and walk my dogs. One thing he forgot to mention up front though was that Hillcrest wasn’t just like San Francisco as a city, it was actually more like the Castro District of San Francisco. Haha - I think most of you know what I mean.

I loved the neighborhood and fell in love with the second apartment that I looked at. It was right by the park, had a pool, was cute and modern, and had stainless steel appliances and granite countertops! The only downside? My apartment was only 500 square feet! Yikes that was tight! I ended up getting a storage unit downtown and put everything that wouldn’t fit in my apartment into storage. (Sometime over the summer I had a little scare at my storage unit where they called me to tell me a pipe burst in the building and that the lower level had flooded. Oh no! My stuff! It turned out that the water had missed my unit (THANK GOODNESS!!), but the whole incident really made me think about the value of my “stuff” and what it meant. To read more about that check out my blog “Its Just Stuff Right?”)

My Super-Mod Kitchen & Dining Counter

Close-Up Living Room
(Too close to the TV to Wii!!)

Living Room - Other View

I was able to get used to having a small space and the dogs and I got used to living in “urban efficiency”. We loved being near the park and I ran and walked the dogs in the park almost every day. Towards the end of last year though as my lease came due I thought about trying to find a bigger place in the same neighborhood. I started looking in a few of the neighborhoods surrounding the park but was having trouble doing an effective job looking with my work and travel schedule.

Enter Jodie .......
the best pet sitter in the WHOLE WORLD!!

My wonderful petsitter Jodie from Go Fido Go (who makes having two dogs and traveling for work a possibility and not a nightmare) offered to help me look for a new place. Not only did she look for listings with me online, she drove by a few places during the day to see if they looked as good as they did in person as they did in the ad. Can you believe it? She has to be the nicest person in the whole world! Thank you Jodie!

After a couple weeks of searching and finding a couple places that seemed like they were “it” but that didn’t end up working out ..... I found THE place! I came to look at a place that I found in a craigslist ad which was just an average, boring, square apartment. When I got to the location there happened to be three vacancies on this same property with the first one not making my screening criteria on craigslist because it was a bit out of the price range that I had set during my search. The property manager took me to this “expensive” place first (for the hell of it) and then two others after that. Um, when I walked into the first place I think my jaw dropped to the floor. The place was HUGE! And it felt like being inside of a house!

Huge Open Living Room

Huge Bedroom w/Fireplace & Patio

It took me a few minutes to realize this apartment was so grand because it was actually part of a house converted into an apartment. We then looked at the two other apartments I'd originally identified, but neither compared to the first place I saw! I was torn for a bit about going for the nicer place because I was planning on moving into a place that was a little bit less per month ........ but then I thought about the fact that this huge apartment meant that I could take my stuff out of storage ...... so overall even though this huge apartment was outside of the price range I had originally set, when you backed out the price of storage it was just about what I was looking for. I'll take it!

Anyways, long story short, I took the big huge apartment that I fell in love with at first site! And I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad, this new place is still cheaper than my old 500 square foot apartment! They say it’s a renter’s market right now and I think its so true!

My Mansion!
(Well, my 1/4 of it!)

Loads of Boxes from Storage

It was hard to manage the move around the holidays and my work schedule, but finally two weeks ago I did it! The dogs and I moved into our new place. The second the dogs walked in they sniffed every inch of the place and then started running back and forth and all over the apartment playing! Aww .. melt my heart! I hadn’t seen them play in so long! Mostly because they didn’t’ have room to.

Living Room & Dining Room

Big Bedroom & Fireplace
(Perfect for storage of an exercise ball!)

Private Patio to Shared Yard

We’re all settled in now and I love my new apartment more and more each day. (I think my dogs do as well.)

Thanks so much Jodie for helping me find this awesome place! The dogs say thank you too!