New opportunities

It's pretty certain. Daniel will be working in Mesa. What's not certain is when he'll be going. We've heard it could be any time between the end of June and the end of July. Since Daniel is my only real tie to California, I'll be going with him. And crossing my fingers that the job market in Arizona is better than it is here in California.

And I have reason to believe that it is. As soon as we decided it was realistic that we would be moving to Arizona, I started applying for jobs. A week later, I got a call from an environmental engineering contracting company in Tempe. The job description was almost exactly what I was doing at Aerospace Company X.

After a short conversation with the company's HR manager, I had an in-person interview scheduled for two days later and a flight booked. My first real interview in nearly six months and it was from a company in Arizona, not California. To say I was a nervous wreck was an understatement. I was flying around preparing for the interview, ignoring the radiating back pain in the middle of my back. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it to the interview. After three days of increasingly worse back pain, I decided the day of my interview that I needed to go to urgent care instead of Arizona. I was diagnosed with a bladder infection and given all kinds of medication.

Luckily the HR manager I had been dealing with was very understanding (he had suffered from back pain for years). They were looking to hire right away, and the day of my scheduled interview was the last day for interviews; but he said he would keep my resume on hand and keep me in mind for future positions. (Was he just placating me or did he really mean what he said? I guess time will tell.) He also asked me to notify him of my local contact information when I arrived in Arizona.

My first real shot at a job ... and my health gets in the way. I guess it was a blessing in disguise. It would have been difficult if not next to impossible for me to get out to Arizona first. Right now we see things unraveling as Daniel going for work without me, and me staying behind for a few weeks to pack things up and coordinate the move.

I am sick of living in limbo. So is Daniel. But we don't have much choice. That's just the way things are. I'm excited to move to Arizona because cost of living will be so much cheaper. Right now I pay $1200 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in downtown Long Beach. That same amount of money could get me a 3 or 4 bedroom house in Arizona. And even if I can only find a job that would pay me $31K per year, my money will go a lot farther in Arizona then it does out here. And I feel much more optimistic about finding a job in Arizona versus California.