Homeless

You may have wondered why we haven't posted a lot in the last three months.  The main reason is our housing situation has been really up in the air.  In many ways, we've been homeless.

On January 5th, we moved from Arlington, Virginia, to Roosevelt Island, New York.  Daniel finished his internship in Washington, D.C., on December 23rd and was starting his final semester at NYU on January 11th.  We'd found an apartment to sublet on Roosevelt Island and we had made all the arrangements for the apartment online and over the phone.  We were getting a great deal--$2,000/month for a 2-bedroom apartment in a luxury building.  The move went smoothly and we were really excited to be back in New York, especially on beautiful Roosevelt Island with its views of midtown Manhattan.

On January 7th, after we had finally finished cleaning the filthy apartment, we were informed that our landlady was legally prohibited from subletting the apartment to us since it was a rent-stabilized apartment that only she was authorized to live in.  After looking into several other apartments, and weighing our various options, we decided to move back to Utah and that Daniel would commute to school in New York each week.

On January 13th, we moved all of our things out of the apartment and into the apartment of our friend, Maritza, who lives in New Jersey.  Our belongings were at Maritza's until February 4th, when Daniel and I packed everything into our car and drove across the country, home to Utah.  During January, we lived some days at Maritza's, a week in Rhode Island, and a week at our parents in Utah where we celebrated Olivia's birthday. We left Olivia in Utah so that we could fly back to New York to pick up our car and our belongings.

Not having a place of our own made it tricky when my brother, Donovan, came to visit us in New York, a trip he had planned before our housing fell through.  But it was fun to use his trip as a chance to bid one final farewell to the New York stage of our life.

On Thursday, February 4th, we began our drive at 10:30 p.m.  We drove for 24 straight hours to beat a Midwestern snow storm and spent the night in Omaha, Nebraska.  We finished our drive to Utah on Saturday, February 6th, pulling in at 8:30 p.m.  All in all it was a 2200-mile, 48-hour trip.  On Monday, February 8th, we moved our things into an apartment that we had previously worked on painting, cleaning, and furnishing.

Since then, things have gotten a little more settled, although we are still constantly moving around.  Daniel has worked out his school schedule at NYU so that all his classes are on Wednesday nights and Thursdays.  Every week he takes a red-eye flight to JFK on Tuesday night and takes a flight back to Utah first thing Friday morning.  While he is in New York, he stays with friends or in hotels.  While he is gone, Olivia and I stay at my parents' home because our apartment is in a kind of sketchy neighborhood.

Because we have a five-day weekend every week, we have done a fair amount of traveling during February and March.  In fact, in the past month, Daniel hasn't slept in the same bed for more than two nights in a row.  We spent a few nights at Daniel's parents' after seeing his sister, Amanda, in her high school musical.  Daniel spent a weekend with my dad, brother-in-law, and uncle ice fishing at Strawberry Reservoir.  We spent a weekend in Moab, Utah, with Daniel's family where many of us ran the Canyonlands Half Marathon & 5-miler.  

We spent a weekend in Orange County, California, looking at potential neighborhoods to live in when we move there in September.  And of course we made a quick stop at the beach.

We spent this past weekend in Soldier Hollow, Utah, with my family for Easter.

One thing we have come to realize over the past three months is that our home isn't where we keep our furniture, food, and clothes.  Our home is wherever we are together.

And I guess if you look at it that way, we haven't been homeless at all.