I have broken out from behind the Orange Curtain.
I have escaped the land of too many people, too much traffic, way too expensive houses, and far far far too many breast implants.
I have moved to what is quite possibly one of the coolest cities I've ever seen. In America, at least.
My whole life has changed in major ways. I mean MAH WHOLE LIFE! The whole enchilada, as they say. Like, I am talking every single thing has changed. I will bore you with the details now! If you care, and you know you do, clicky the "read more" button thingy!
First I must state for context that I have been insanely busy for, well, most of my life actually, but the last 3 months in particular.
I am proud to say that I have done less the last 3 weeks than I used to do before lunch! You read that right.
It all started with Paris. In November when Mr Rice took me to Paris for my 40th birthday, we fell deeply and madly in love... with each other, I hope; with life; with the city; but most importantly, perhaps, we fell in love with the philosophy that Parisians seem to hold which is "Work to Live" rather than what we are used to which is "Live to Work". They take pleasure in food, wine, coffee, a cigarette, and good conversations with friends. They talk passionately and they take a lot of time off of work! They walk places. Everywhere in fact. I know that is not unique to Paris, but it struck us more there than anywhere else we have been.
As soon as we got back from eight wonderful days, two things happened. We decided then and there that it was time that the talk about moving to Austin, TX became action. We started plotting our move.
The second thing that happened is we found out my daughter was pregnant. More on that later.
We had discussed moving to a number of different places throughout the world, actually but we settled on Austin for a lot of reasons: lifestyle, affordability, proximity to my family (not too far, not too close), and I will say it again - Lifestyle. Austinites live well, most of them. They are friendly, politically engaged, outdoor-loving, and a whole bunch of other things that we are. The philosophy here in my experience is much more aligned with "Work to Live" than anywhere else I've lived in the past 20 years. A lot of cool people we know or have met, are content if they have beer in their fridge. I am not subjected to the same boorish conversations I was often subjected to in the OC about stock portfolios, problems with nannies, the latest kitchen remodel, their mortgage, or their trip to Tuscany. Not that there is anything wrong with any of those things. But, you know, just not my bag, baby.
Greg started sending out resumes and in February lined up several interviews in Austin. He flew out here and interviewed. He flew back out in March for a second and a great place offered him a job. He packed up his car and moved on April 13th. He started his new job on April 20th.
I was sort of stuck in California however because I was finally in my last semester at Cal State Fullerton where I had been working on my bachelors degree for 8 embarrassingly long years. I wasn't quitting now!
So, long story short, I gave notice at work (3 months!) and finished up my last excruciating semester of school. April 1 to June 1 were probably the hardest 8 or so weeks of my life! Greg was away, I was home, working 8+ hours a day in a busy, stressful, demanding job, managing the apartment building where we lived in San Clemente and finishing up that pesky school.
I know I am leaving out a lot of details but you should still get the gist.
I hired movers on May 20th who took all of our furniture to Austin. I graduated with my BA on May 24th - Greg flew out for the ceremony and caught a plane right after back to Austin. I worked a few more days, cleaned out my place, packed some stuff up. On Thursday night, Jordan, the two cats and me loaded the car and took off. We drove straight through and landed here 23 hours later at exactly midnight Friday night.
That was three weeks ago tonight. I have been working for the same company as in California but the work is much easier. The traffic is non-existent, for my commute at least, and our apartment is one million times better than where we lived in San Clemente. It's gorgeous, quiet and private. I L O V E it. I have never been more relaxed ever.
In the last month, I have quit being an executive assistant, I have left my job as property manager of an apartment building in San Clemente, I have finished school. I am looking at a position that could be very challenging and fun and lucrative and I am also toying very seriously with not working at all. As Tom Petty sang, the future is wide open. From this point on I am not settling for anything that I don't want to do. I am not wasting time on anything that isn't part of my dreams. And I am not living a life that I only partially like. It's all or nothing, baby.
I will have to tell you more about the impending grand-child soon. I am about to take off and go get a (cheap) happy hour drink with my man and start my weekend.
