Life Decisions - where do I want to live next?

Moving is a right royal pain in the y'know what.

My lease here ends August 31st. I never intended to stay here far beyond when I graduated. I utterly love Northampton, I can not even begin to describe how much. However, there are too many things I don't like:

1) Freezing ice cold blizzard Northeast winters. 2) 45 minutes from a crappy Int'l airport, and further to get to a decent airport.

So, that's only two points, but they're two big points for me.

I've decided to move rather than renew this lease - that was a foregone conclusion. I was either going to move around here but someplace a bit further from town - cheaper and bigger, or move move.

But the winter kills me. I hate the blizzards. Right now I'm looking at

1) New York (Queens, Westchester) 2) San Francisco (Santa Cruz, Santa Clara, etc) 3) Seattle (Queen Anne, Capitol Hill, Ballard) 4) Oregon (Hillsboro, Beaverton, surrounding Portland areas)

Obviously NY is going to have cold winters and snow - not as much as Massachusetts, but enough that it's a bit lower on the list. Both San Francisco and New York have this extraordinarily high cost of living.

Seattle is still expensive but much more affordable than either San Fran or NY.

Portland (the suburbs) is extremely affordable. There are some amazing deals out there and the place is growing quickly. There is a decent int'l airport. It's only 3 hours from Seattle (driving) and 10 hours (driving) to San Fran, but the cost of flights is low enough to be handle-able, as is the flight time. Getting back to NY to see my folks would be expensive and tedious ($500, and at least one stopover) - but can be handled.

Right now I am strongly leaning towards Seattle or Portland. NY I love, I really do, but it still has winter and a grotesque cost of living. My father - who has been looking for a new house forever (and quite a bit above my price range of course) is going to query his broker about places in my price range, so that I can focus on the other three destinations. Dad has been looking around Westchester and the broker specializes in that area - so he was more than happy to help on that end of things, thankfully.

San Francisco - I have friends there, it is a liberal, beautiful, warm sunny place. Lots of opportunities available in all areas, but the cost of living is pretty prohibitive.

Seattle I also have friends in (one of which I haven't seen since I was 16? 17?), and it has lots of areas and rave reviews from what I can see, from people in my age demographic. Again, lots of opportunities there.

But Portland. Portland I have friends in (and they have been amazingly supportive throughout this whole thing), the areas I'm looking in are new developments - I located a condo that I fell in love with that was built in 2004. It's a growing area that I think has an absolute ton of potential.

Unfortunately, I've not been to Seattle or Portland - and with Mali on twice a day meds, traveling is hard. I am going to call my vet tomorrow and ask her if she knows somewhere around here that does short-term boarding (2-3 days) for special needs cats. If I can get just one weekend then I can hit Seattle and Portland and try to get it all straightened out.

But I'll say right now - if i were going to move tomorrow - I'd go to Portland, and without any hesitation at all.

Anyhow - that's where I'm at right now. I've chatted with lots of you, interrogated some of you on where you live and asked for recommendations. A few days ago I crashed hard on this whole decision - the time factor and the expense was just killing me. Trying to negotiate where in San Fran to move to to be close enough to transit into the city as needed and to be able to see the friends I have there - as well as being able to afford the whole shebang, drained me of a desire to move.

That's unusual for me - I love moving, the excitement of getting a new place, getting in, decorating. I love it. Looking at Portland and Seattle as my top locations has reinvigorated my search. It's scary to think of moving to a location "sight unseen" especially as I may be purchasing if I can pull this off. But lord knows I've taken huge risks before.

At any rate, tomorrow I'm going to go shopping and pick up some boxes as well, and start packing. There's a ton of stuff here that i haven't looked at in two years - it's cleanup time baby. I'll at least get my winter clothes packed away and the stuff I never touch will either get tossed, freecycle'd, or packed. My goal at this point is to be fully packed (suitcase living baby) by mid-July. Decide on a city and locate a place to live by the end of July. Find movers and deal with getting my crap x-country in early August and move out of here by mid-August.

So much to do, and so very little time left.

Comments (13)

Maevyn - I was trying to get as far from snow as possible. Since Colorado is a huge skiing area, I figured that was not the best option.

Chris - I know, I know.  I do know.  Thank you.  I may have to, but I really want to secure a place so I have somewhere to send the movers… ;) Unless I ditch my stuff and get a clean start.  I love doing that, actually, but I have to do a financial breakdown before I figure out if it’s worth it.

Yea, the rain.  But the rain is ok with me.  Honestly most of the time I go out I have to put on a ton of SPF 45 just to avoid getting burnt.  I love rain, too, so some drizzle and overcast, even if it’s every day, wouldn’t bug me that much.  That said, Chris assures me that it does get sunny sometimes.

I am worried about ice-storms that I’ve been reading about lately.  Just gotta bug Chris here more about later. =)

Right now I’m planning an exploratory trip to both Portland and Seattle to iron it out - but I’m so close to just saying “I want Portland” that I’m not sure it’s necessary.  The more I read about the area that I’m looking at the more I love it.  It reminds me so much of Canberra and the only problem with Canberra was that it was 3 grand and 25 hours of flying away from all my family and most of my friends. ;)

With time so short, my only concern is that I really need magic to happen to get all this settled by move-in date.  I may need to do a month-by-month for a month or something.  Gonna be hard with the cats but may be unavoidable.

Chris - do you know any amazing vets in the area?  I have the number for some internal medicine specialists that I may call this week, but if you know any vets that people love, hook me up, please?  The vet situation is one that I have to have settled before I get there - Mali will need a check-up in the first few days I’m there to make sure the stress hasn’t caused a recurrence of infection.  This move could quite literally kill her, but I have no real choice.

That’d rock, thank you Chris.  I still have to deal with a specialist for her, but she’ll definitely need a general checkup and blood-work right away.

How I’m going to deal with her for what looks like a 10 hourish flight with stop-overs I’m still not sure of.  One step at a time, right?

*grins at Maevyn* Too much snow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =)

Hrm, Emergency Vets. I used to watch that but I usually ended up in tears, so I gave up that nasty habit. ;)

I’m sick to death of snow. I could swear that when I lived in Canberra I missed snow - but I think that I forgot as an adult I’d have to *deal* with snow - getting it off my car, driving through it, dealing with people that go twice the speed limit and then slide off the road....

Yea.  Give me rain any day.

And thank goodness I’m not the only one. ;)