san clemente life

so much has been happening over the past few months that i don't even know where to begin...

we've been living together in temecula for a little over a year.  i was working in wine country (but hated my job) and mike was doing great things with his probation work.  then, mike kind of hit a ceiling in the probation department.  he wasn't really being challenged at his job everyday and it became kind of routine.  he decided that it was time for a change and wanted to become a police officer.  after a long, grueling application and interview process (they even came to the house to talk to me and they made mike take a lie detector test...scary!), mike was hired on by costa mesa police department in orange county.  they are one the best departments in california for two reasons (1) they pay isn't half bad, and (2) they provide some of the best training from the orange county sheriff's academy.  from february to august, mike was back in school again, but not like any other school we've been to.  he spent long days getting yelled at by the tactical staff, sitting in lectures, running, and just trying to survive.   but he made it out of the academy alive (with honors in communications skills and firearms proficiency i might add)!

so here we were living in temecula, with mike working in costa mesa.  (side note:  the drive from temecula to costa mesa without traffic is about an hour and fifteen minutes...don't even talk to me about the wasting gas and money there)  we decided that it was time for a move out to orange county to be closer to his new job and then i could spend some time looking for a job i actually liked.  so, i quit my job at the winery and spent my days searching as many corners of the internet as i could for appealing jobs.  but job hunting is time consuming and ultimately frustrating.  i didn't have any particular industry in mind even though i studied hospitality management.  but hospitality requires a lot of hours for not very much pay...one of those work your way up the food chain type industries.  i was spending a lot of time on malakye.com (a job posting site for the action sports industries--surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, motocross, etc.)  i even found a few job posting there that sounded interesting with companies like billabong and rip curl.  the only problem is that the companies are so big, that if you don't meet their specific criteria, you'll never get a call back.  i tried with some follow up calls, but to no avail.  

then, out of the sky, i decided to take another look at the surfrider foundation.  i had looked on their site before, but there were no job openings except for internships.  but i loved the organization anyway and we even made a donation to them instead of having favors at our wedding.  by some miracle, there happened to be a job posting for an office administrator position.  right up my alley!  you have to be friendly (check), personable (check), organized (check), reliable (check), computer saavy (check...mostly).   i quickly put together my cover letter and sent off my resume.  i didn't hear anything right away, and checked the website again and the job posting was gone.  i thought that they must have hired someone already.  i called the surfrider foundation and left a message.  wouldn't you know, i got a call back asking if i wanted to come in for an interview.  hell yeah i want to come in for an interveiw!  i did my research and nailed the uber casual interview.  a couple days later, i was hired!  yeah to me!

now, we're both in temecula with jobs out in orange county and still no place to live further west.  we ended up finding a great place in san clemente (well, rancho san clemente...east of the i-5 and up the hill a couple miles)!  we are about 10 mins. from the beach now!  i am loving every minute of our life out here in our extremely cozy apartment.  mike misses our house in temecula, but it is hard moving from a house to a one-bedroom apartment.  

it's time to find some renters...dun dun dun.  with the economy and the housing market as it is, we aren't willing to sell our house in temecula.  we are going to hang onto it for a while and try to rent it out.  this is a whole new process for us, so we'll see how it goes...any and all suggestions are appreciated.  

anyway, i better be getting back to the dog and cat to make sure they get dinner.  thanks for reading the latest update and i'll post some pictures of our new place soon!