And in the end...

My loan funded on the ninth.  It began to feel still more real.  I contacted the post office with my address change, and started getting quotes on housecleaning.  I had a feeling that I might need it once the tenant vacated.

For a while I'd been planning on joining up with Angie's List for at least a month or two.  If you're an NPR junkie like me, you've heard endless ads (er, "underwritings") from them.  It's basically a more elite, homeowner-oriented version of Yelp... the philosophy seems to be that, if you charge people to enter, you keep out the riff-raff and are left with more "real" reviewers.

I found myself cross-referencing both Yelp and Angie's List for some providers, namely cleaners and movers.  Others were almost totally absent from Yelp and more visible on Angie's List, like plumbers and electricians.  I was a little bummed to see that Angie's List didn't list many handymen, at least not in the very local area that I was hoping to draw from.

I started to work through the logistics of my transition.  I had been planning a trip to Yosemite for nearly half a year, and, through sheer coincidence, my departure date was September 11, the day after closing on the 10th.  I had given notice to my landlord at the end of the previous month, and so had the whole month to play around with.  I decided that I would bring a basic kit of essentials on the tenth, spend the night there, then head out for Yosemite the next morning.  After a week of hiking, I would return back to San Jose, spend the weekend cleaning up and finishing packing, then move up to Millbrae.

I was scheduled to get my keys at the end of the day on the 10th.  Redfin sent another field agent, a nice woman who I hadn't met before.  Again, their model is fascinating... I dig the depersonalization aspect of it, where they would send a stranger in at the end.

The tenant had cleared out all of her stuff, which was pretty impressive, as it was quite packed; she had also spent time cleaning up, and the place looked decent.  I picked up the keys, and she pointed out to me the laundry area nearby.  It was only at this point that I learned that my unit came with an external storage unit - score!  It wasn't anything fancy, but was fairly sizable, and I was happy to realize that I could keep my old school papers and other stuff in there without taking up space in my main area.

I had brought up a sleeping bag, a little food, a flashlight, and a pillow.  I spent some time just walking around the unit, giggling to myself, thinking "Mine... all mine!"  I called my parents and chatted a bit about how I was feeling.  The sun went down, I laid down, and drifted off to sleep.

Since that night, I've spent many more months in my California condo, and I hope to spent many years more.  I've gotten to know it better, started to make it more and more my own.  I've been pleased to see how many of the fantasies I'd had about the move - strolling to the train station, shopping at Dean's Produce, taking random walks up into the hills - have become a part of my life.  I'm living the dream.  It was a long, hard, often stressful process, but I think that by keeping somewhat disengaged from the craziness and deliberately taking my time, I ended up enjoying myself and ending up with something great.