Minnesota, here I come!!

So I have an apartment in Cottage Grove, MN ready and waiting for me. It's 99% official, but I just really wanted to post this blog, so even though I haven't gotten the official final call of approval, when I talked to the apartment complex earlier today they were only pending the manager's signature to make it official. I might be jumping the gun, but just by a little bit.

I've been doing some apartment searching online and lucky for me I have a really great boyfriend who has been willing to look at some local places for me since he's there and I'm not. I'm going to visit him in Aug and will actually view the apartment then, but I wanted to have the searching done long before then because of availability. Right now people are looking to fill for Sept, which is my target move date. And where I'd be moving is only about 10 miles away from my boo, which was one of the main appeals of the apartment.

I'm so excited to be able to live nearby him. I'm excited to do the little things like making dinner together, going shopping together, taking the dog for a walk with him, making some meals at Super Suppers, going to movies, and getting to check out all the beautiful lakes and parks he tells me about all the time...like this awesome waterfall at Minnehaha Park that's practically in the middle of downtown Minneapolis.

I think it will be so much fun to be able to chill with him, and live near him and do actual couple stuff. There are so many cool places he tells me about in MSP that I can't wait to check them out. Local jazz clubs everywhere, great little restaurants, both the Minneapolis and St. Paul downtowns are apparently very eclectic and I'm excited to hang out there.

I really am very excited to move. I want to move around Labor Day so I can take advantage of the paid holiday rather than PTO. I'm planning on using the same moving company that moved me from DSM to PHX so if I can get them to pick up the trailer Aug 30, then I make the drive up to MSP leaving early Friday Sept 1 I should be able to be there by Sat night (hopefully) and then if the moving comp could drop off the trailer for me to unload it on Sun that would be perfect. I don’t know if that will necessarily be how it goes down, but that would be my ideal. Anyway, at least I don't have to do the drive alone. Kristen offered to take a road trip so I would have company and she would have something fun to do like ride cross country! If we can make it as far as Denver the first night, or even a little farther, we should be able to make it to MSP with no problem by late the second night. That would be the best way, cause I can’t really take PTO. I only have about 4.5 days left after I get back from my trip in Aug. And I want to go home for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. I’m not sure how the PTO thing will work, actually, cause if I have a laptop and can work from anywhere with it, maybe I can not count that as PTO. We’ll see.

So as far as work details go, here's how it's going to go down. I'm going to stay in my same position, work for the same HMC in the same branch AU, but do it remotely from MN instead of just up the road from him. We're already in 2 different offices and work primarily over email, phone, fax and MAC mail. So we'll continue to do that. What will change, though, is he'll have to start doing some more "fixing" on his own. Like if there is a signing that was wrong and it needs to be fixed, or if something needs to be taken to the title company, or if a doc was notarized wrong and it needs to be resigned, etc, he'll have to handle that because he'll be local. Whereas I'll be off in the cold cold land of Minnesota, being a snowbunny!

Now I'm just trying to get my branch manager to set everything up with a local branch manager to let me just work out of their office. When I get a laptop I can pretty much work from anywhere, but I'd rather be in an office. I think I'd start getting cabin fever if I were to try to work from home in my 1 bedroom apartment with my computer, fax and printer hanging out in my living room. And I think I would really miss the interaction with other people if I were to work from home. Not to mention I'd be distracted with the TV (which is completely unlike when I'm distracted by updating my blog at work) and would probably put things off until they were a huge rush to get done cause I've been watching Buffy reruns all day. So the goal is to be working out of a branch that is only a few miles away. That would be ideal; so we’ll see how it goes down.

But the main point is that I am so excited to move. I wanted to wait until I knew I was in the apartment before I put it out there that I was moving. I'm excited to be closer to my friends from DSM again. And I so cannot wait to be near my baby. I miss him and I’ll be glad to not be doing a long distance thing anymore.



Can you tell? I'm excited!!