Dad's in the Hospital / New Apartment / Contract End in Sight
It's been a lousy month for my father. He's been suffering with a stomach ache so bad that when he finally went to the doctor, they told him to go to the ER. Once there, it was discovered he had a hole in his colon. After several days in the hospital, he finally was released but almost immediately went downhill again. As of this afternoon, he's back in the hospital and this time they've discovered a blockage of some kind. Looks like surgery is in his future! From what it sounds like, he's in some considerable pain. Hopefully he gets this all straightened out and will be on the mend soon. Quite the challenge.
The lease Nicole and I have with our current apartment ends in late March. If we stay, our rent is going up $70/month for just about 500 square feet of mold, bugs, and noise from the road ten feet from our door. The crime rate is also super-high here and while we've thankfully never been victimized, it's always in the back of your head. The complex is 40-some years old, the appliances are as old, there’s a noisy daycare 30 feet away, and we have to walk to another building to do our laundry in shared stalls. So yea, it’s safe to say that we’re not renewing our lease. It's time to upgrade and we need more space.
We've spent the last few weeks putting together a master list of all the apartment complexes in the areas we want to live. We then called each one and asked about vacancy. Then we narrowed it down even further to the five best candidate complexes which we visited last week. After a day of that nonsense, we decided on a complex in Tigard, Oregon, but in the time it took us to drive back there, they'd already signed the unit we wanted to someone else. It was a gut-punch. We felt completely heartbroken and defeated. We were running out of time, too, because the deadline to give our current complex notice that we're moving out was looming.
The next morning, we went out to pay a second visit to our second choice, a complex in Wilsonville, Oregon. It wasn't immediately love-at-first-sight for me but Nicole was pleased and excited. The apartment we showed the most interest in is on the third floor, has a covered private deck, vaulted ceilings, a fan in the bedroom, two bathrooms, and of course a washer and dryer in the unit. The whole complex is very close to the freeway and parking would be a challenge as nearly every space is reserved. We walked around the complex for a while and talked about all the benefits and how life changing a new apartment will be. Before long, we decided to sign up and were soon after submitting our applications. We must have been desirable because we got the call that we were approved only 2 hours later. It felt nice to turn in our thirty-day notice with our current complex. The end is near! It's really happening! March is going to be a crazy month.
The other weird thing that's happening in March is that my two-year contract with my current employer is expiring and they still haven't hired me in. Two years is the legal limit that this company has to either hire me or let me go, and it sucks to say that with less than four weeks go do, it doesn't look good. I'm not the only one either; there's about a dozen people waiting to be "converted". It sounds like it's a policy decision from the corporate offices in California, which is pretty disappointing. But you know, I’ve come to peace with that. They’re just another corporation that does what corporations do. On the plus side, if my contract does run out, I’m looking forward to an actual vacation with unemployment benefits. I mean, sure, I’ll be full-time job hunting, but I haven’t had an actual vacation in two years. Not even a single week off. It’s about time. And worst case scenario, I can come back after two months when they're allowed to sign me up for another two years. Who knows; maybe they’ll wait until the last moment and hire me in right then. Or maybe I’ll be one week into my “sabbatical” and they’ll call with an offer. Whatever. Not worried. Whatever will be will be.
The lease Nicole and I have with our current apartment ends in late March. If we stay, our rent is going up $70/month for just about 500 square feet of mold, bugs, and noise from the road ten feet from our door. The crime rate is also super-high here and while we've thankfully never been victimized, it's always in the back of your head. The complex is 40-some years old, the appliances are as old, there’s a noisy daycare 30 feet away, and we have to walk to another building to do our laundry in shared stalls. So yea, it’s safe to say that we’re not renewing our lease. It's time to upgrade and we need more space.
We've spent the last few weeks putting together a master list of all the apartment complexes in the areas we want to live. We then called each one and asked about vacancy. Then we narrowed it down even further to the five best candidate complexes which we visited last week. After a day of that nonsense, we decided on a complex in Tigard, Oregon, but in the time it took us to drive back there, they'd already signed the unit we wanted to someone else. It was a gut-punch. We felt completely heartbroken and defeated. We were running out of time, too, because the deadline to give our current complex notice that we're moving out was looming.
The next morning, we went out to pay a second visit to our second choice, a complex in Wilsonville, Oregon. It wasn't immediately love-at-first-sight for me but Nicole was pleased and excited. The apartment we showed the most interest in is on the third floor, has a covered private deck, vaulted ceilings, a fan in the bedroom, two bathrooms, and of course a washer and dryer in the unit. The whole complex is very close to the freeway and parking would be a challenge as nearly every space is reserved. We walked around the complex for a while and talked about all the benefits and how life changing a new apartment will be. Before long, we decided to sign up and were soon after submitting our applications. We must have been desirable because we got the call that we were approved only 2 hours later. It felt nice to turn in our thirty-day notice with our current complex. The end is near! It's really happening! March is going to be a crazy month.
The other weird thing that's happening in March is that my two-year contract with my current employer is expiring and they still haven't hired me in. Two years is the legal limit that this company has to either hire me or let me go, and it sucks to say that with less than four weeks go do, it doesn't look good. I'm not the only one either; there's about a dozen people waiting to be "converted". It sounds like it's a policy decision from the corporate offices in California, which is pretty disappointing. But you know, I’ve come to peace with that. They’re just another corporation that does what corporations do. On the plus side, if my contract does run out, I’m looking forward to an actual vacation with unemployment benefits. I mean, sure, I’ll be full-time job hunting, but I haven’t had an actual vacation in two years. Not even a single week off. It’s about time. And worst case scenario, I can come back after two months when they're allowed to sign me up for another two years. Who knows; maybe they’ll wait until the last moment and hire me in right then. Or maybe I’ll be one week into my “sabbatical” and they’ll call with an offer. Whatever. Not worried. Whatever will be will be.