It's Official!

I'm officially starting a blog! It probably won't be as informative as my cousin Lauren's was and it will definitely not be as witty or funny as cousin Kevin's, but I hope it will let me feel a bit connected with my friends and family allover, but mostly on the East Coast.

I've been in Santa Barbara, CA for 1 week now. I started my new job at Deckers and it has been over 10 years since I started a new job! I think my first days at Pakcepts were less of the 'new kid at school' feeling. I wasn't too worried there if someone didn't like me or didn't want to each lunch with me, the boss liked me so that took the anxiety out of it. I wasn't nervous on my first day, but it felt a bit surreal.
I had a 4 day work week. By Friday I was feeling mildly less awkward. I am sharing an office with the product manager/designer and the product coordinator. We have an office with a HUGE window, the entire front of our office is a window. The designer and I sit back to back with our left sides to the window. It was cool to start a job and be given a box of NEW office supplies, get a brand new computer, new desk, new chair. That is a luxury I've never had before. My current boss is spread pretty thin and was in training most of this past week so I was pretty much left to my own devices. I will have a 'new' boss next month, when my 'new' boss starts. That should be interesting. Stay tuned to see how that goes. The company and brand are growing so rapidly that they are adding another level of heirarchy in between my level and my current boss's (VP) level.
There are some conveniences set up at work which is quite cool; dry cleaning pick up and drop off, car wash/detail on site, coffee and pastry cart in the parking lot in the mornings, product truck once a week (though that didn't happen this past week), chair massages - $5/15 minutes, free drip Starbucks coffee, discount on product....
I have my first massage on Monday, I'll report back how it compares to Uncle Leo and my A-town shiatsu masseuse Stacy.
I've been drinking way too much Starbucks coffee. As most of you know I hate Starbucks coffee and have never in the past let an opportunity pass me by to make a few snarky comments about it. Well, I'm cheap and it's free so I've been imbibing, but it still tastes awful. I am looking forward to my own place with my stuff so I can drink proper coffee again.
My stuff has arrived but it's in storage, except my car! I got my car on Thursday. I so missed my car and was so happy to see it and drive it. Snow and salt residue and all it's a great car. Happy to have my automatic windows and doors and satellite radio, boy did I miss all those conveniences while driving the Hyundai Accent around. Remember the days of leaning across to the passenger side to roll down or up the window and adjust the side view mirror!?! Not as fun as you may remember.
Today I saw about 10 apartments. I'm hard to please and SB is a bit pricey. One place was a block from the beach, so cool. But, a bit small in the kitchen area and no place for my grill!!!
Another place was gorgeous, craftsman cottage with a deluxe kitchen, very similar to K&J's kitchen in Silver Spring. But, a bit pricey. I'll do some number crunching tonight and see if I can afford it. It's in downtown which is cool, so I could walk to restaurants, stores, movies.... Too hard to decide. I am coming from A-town where my rent was 1/2 of what I'm looking at here and was bigger and with every amenity. I know I have to resign myself to not having everything for a price I can afford, but a girl can hope right?
This morning before the apartment hunting I went to the SB farmer's market. Fresh, organic produce. Did you know there are like 5 varieties of avocados?? Wow, I bought a few different ones so I can do some taste comparison. Fresh strawberries, purple carrots, lettuces, tomatoes. This was great and made me anxious to find a place with a kitchen so I could start preparing proper meals again.

I think I'll sign off for now and look at Craigslist again to see if there are any other apartments that popped up that I should see......
Hope everyone is well!