Goodbye California!

Yes, you read that right! Patrick and I are saying goodbye to California and

HELLO OREGON!

Many things lead up to this big change, so let me start from the beginning. I will try to keep it as short as possible*.

*Lol I say that every time and look how damn long this ended up being. Oops. 

Why We Moved to Tracy, CA

After our apartment complex in San Mateo, CA wanted to boost our 800 sq. ft. 2 bed/ 1 bath apartment to $2,800/month back in July 2014, we said "hell no!" and moved out to Tracy, CA, about 1-1.5 hours away from San Mateo. We signed a 13 month lease which we quickly forgot about.

Why We Are Moving Out of Tracy

Our apartment here, while beautiful, is full of flaws.

• The other renters here are not very classy
• Our apartment walls are so thin that we can hear people snoring through them
• The management is not given enough power to take care of the things that they see that we experience every day 
• Tracy is HOT. Neither of us predicted that most of the summer would be between 98-103 degrees F. We knew it would be hot, but not this hot. The temperature makes it nearly impossible for us to go outside during the day and even sometimes at night. 
• Our electric bill is through the roof because we have had the A/C on intermittently since February and on constantly since about April/May. 
• We have also found that the city of Tracy and the immediate surrounding areas do not offer enough for us in terms of shopping (we have to drive for 45 minutes to get to an Apple store and other things that we need more often than not). 
• The drive to the airport is slowly killing us since we have only one car (and we only need one car except for cases where Patrick needs to go to the airport).

Why We Are Moving to Oregon

Initially Patrick and I simply planned on moving out of Tracy and staying out in "The Valley." First we looked in Modesto and found an apartment there we liked, but it was still about the same distance from the airport (or actually a little further). Shortly after, Patrick had a business trip in Sacramento that I was able to go on and we really liked the area, so we set a date and went to check out tons of apartments on that day. The apartment we found ended up being in Roseville, CA, about 20 minutes outside of Sacramento. We chose three apartments, weighted them against one another, and then picked our favorite. When it came time to secure an apartment at the complex we chose, we tried to call them. Three times. We left messages. Patrick was on the road at the time, so I decided to look up the number and call them myself. That was when I saw the reviews. 

Normally I don't put much stock into Yelp! reviews, but when literally hundreds of them (the complex was huge) are saying that there is a lot of crime, many break-ins, and people doing drugs behind/between the buildings, you have to put your hands up and give in. This place was not a place I felt safe moving into and we let our calls go unanswered as we tried to find a new place to live.

Only having a couple of months to find a new apartment, Patrick and I were scrambling. We went into our leasing office to figure some numbers to see how much it would cost us to go month-to-month at our current place until we found a new place. That was when we were reminded that we had a 13 month lease and not a 12 month-- meaning that we had an extra month that we didn't realize we had. 

Patrick and I have always planned on making it up to Oregon at some point. I desperately miss the different types of weather that Michigan had and I hate the heat here. In addition, while I love our friends, the general mindset of most of the people I meet is that they all have to believe in something. I feel like I can't truly be myself or even speak about something that I might feel without someone getting super offended by it. Again, not within our awesome group of friends, but that is how I feel about California as a whole.

Fast forward to the first week of July and we went to Oregon on vacation (one that we planned months and months ago). I immediately loved it-- I cannot express enough how much I loved it and how upset I was when we had to leave. 

While we were there, we set aside a day to go look at apartments since it couldn't hurt and we didn't have a place to move yet. Seven places fit our criteria. Three of them worked well for us. One of them won by a landslide. We just had to wait for an apartment to open up at that complex, or else we would be screwed and living in our current apartment at $2,300/month (to go month-to-month until we found something). 

Thank goodness something opened up. At that point we applied for that unit and waited. After a whole debacle about my delinquent credit history (I've had my identity stolen and I've been working on getting it back), we have finally been approved for that apartment and we will be moving up to Oregon on Labor Day weekend.

Patrick and I could not be more thrilled about this move. We will be saving on rent and cost of living in general and we are thankfully able to accomplish our goal of getting up to Oregon earlier than previously thought. We will be about 25 minutes from the airport, Patrick already has friends up there (who basically did the same thing we did and got the hell out of dodge while they could and sought refuge in a less physically, mentally, and monetarily taxing place). A good friend of ours gave us some fantastic advice once and reminds us of what he said any time we talk about moving. He said "Make sure you're not just running away from something. Make sure you're running to it." That is definitely true of Oregon and while we are definitely running away from Tracy, we are running (as quickly as we can!) back to Oregon where we've both been the happiest that we've been in many months.

We will be having a going away party here and we will obviously keep in touch with our friends. The only downsides are that we are moving away from them (not that we see them all that often in the Valley, anyways, since we are so far) and moving away from Disneyland. We are trying not to think about that too much-- but the true upside of that is that we will be spending less by going to the park less often.

I hope you're as excited as we are! If anyone has any questions or would like to check out our apartment complex, please feel free to shoot me a message-- I would love to share our excitement with you! Also, if you need our new address for anything please let me know!