Oh well

I opened them. And they were great!

gifts

Is it wrong to open your x-mas gifts before the actual day? My mom sent me a box of gifts and now they are all unpacked and layed out on the table in wrapping paper and bowes. All I want to do is open them.

I don't know if my will power is strong enough.

Ice cream

What I miss the most about Boston is all the amazing Ice Cream places. They really out do themselves there.

I miss Emack and Bolio's.


I also miss White Mountain Creamery


and JP Licks.


And Herrell's


And Friendley's.


I am on the lookout for non chain IceCream Stores in the St. Louis Area.
I found Crown Candy Kitchen in St. Louis City

and that's a 50 style diner unchanged and still serving soda shop food, including malts and sunday's.

What I want is a non chain (or if it's chain it has to be fresh made) Ice Cream place, where the Vanilla tastes fresh and like Vanilla beany, and you know that there is a family behind the doors making the ice cream fresh.

I don't want Maggie Moo's, or Cold Stone Creamery, Or Ben and Jerry's. I want a store that there's only one of and a place that's still open in the winter for crazy people like me who really love to eat cold things when it's cold outside!

Jumping Bean

I had my second Dr's Visit and it was just supposed to be listening to the heartbeat for the first time (which is really exciting alone) but it turned out that I was far enough along to have an external sonogram. I had never had one before, but because I watch so much TV I knew what to expect. It's really surreal when it's happening to you, but it's exactly what one would assume. They slop clear gunk on your belly (the gunk is warm which was surprising to me) and they take the wand thing and press down on your uterus until they find the baby.
It was amazing to see because it was bigger this time and jumping. No joke bouncing and kicking and pushing off the sides of my uterus. The weirdest part is that I can't feel it at all.

I tried to count two arm and two legs and I am pretty sure that's what I saw, but the machine is not the best. The real big sonogram machine they use to find out the sex is at the hospital.
I went to this appointment without my husband this time, and I feel bad that he was not able to see the jumping bean, we were only supposed to hear the heart, and I got a picture so I feel like he got to feel a part of it.

A Lime

So far the baby that is growing in me has been so small that it did not really make sense it me. I can't feel it and I was not showing at all. When I layed down at night, I could not tell anything was different inside me.
I am now week 11 and almost through my first trimester. It just hit me last night that I have a baby growing inside me. I feel a bit of a bump, my pants are a bit tighter, and when I lay on my back at night I feel pressure on my bladder like nothing else.
This is because it is now the size of a LIME!!!

And also partly because I am beginning to feel a whole lot better. I am still soo tired that I am going to bed at 9:30pm but I am not as nauseous and am starting to really get hungry. This is what the baby looks like at week 11.


It's not my baby but on the website http://www.i-am-pregnant.com they show week by week development in real life pictures.

As I progress and the embryo that is now officially a fetus grows bigger and bigger I am hoping that the reality of what's happening makes sense to me.
I just feel so out of my body and have scrambled egg head and am soo tired that I can't do things the way I used to.

Anyway I have a new job and that's making everything easier as well.

Greek Food

I am on a mission to Find all the good Greek restaurants in St. Louis. So far I have been eating at Olympia and I went to another one off Arsanel. I need to find more. All I need to find all of them. All I do is crave Greek Food. I need taziki sause.

Boston for Thanksgiving

Since I am married, my husband and I share holidays. This year we did Thanksgiving in Boston and we will do Christmas here.

I am very afraid of flying and usually I take and anxiety drug or have a couple of glasses of wine to calm me down. This time since I am pregnant I could do no such thing. It was hard. Especially since we had a connecting flight. That's 2 take off's and two landings. The one thing that I was able to figure out to help calm me down is that if I use ear plugs it is a lot easier.
So we made it. (Which is not surprise considering flying is much safer than driving, but knowing that still does not help)

We had a great time. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my mother's house, which I was unable to eat much of due to nausea. We saw family friends who were all in town from all over. We saw our great friends John and Noreen and got to see their Christmas tree all decorated, we were able to pull John away from studying for Law school and drag them to my mom's house for a party and then when I did not get enough to eat and needed ice cream we went and got some. And lastly we saw my best friend Alicia and her 2-year-old daughter. Seeing Alicia was amazing for me, because I truly miss her and because she already went through pregnancy and has all the advice in the world for me. We also were able to raid all her baby stuff and use it for our child. We got pounds of clothing, and baby necessities. Seeing her 2 year old really made me feel great, she is adorable, smart and growing way way too quickly.

I think that this trip to Boston made me notice the differences between St. Louis and Boston. I was also sad because my mom and best friend and our really good friends all live there. Since I am emotional and needing family a lot I found myself trying to find a way to stay. I know intellectually that it makes no sense to move here. We are trying to have a life here in St. Louis and the cost of living is a lot more expensive. But emotionally I wanted to move back home. And unfairly whenever I am now upset about something I threaten my husband and tell him that I will just go and have this baby in Boston.

As for St. Louis I am trying to make it home, trying to make and keep friends and hopping that this time next year I will be Thankful that we stayed and made it work.

First OB Appt

So, being a nervous person in general I started dreading my first OB/GYN visit. This is the appointment where they look at the baby for the first time and you can see if everything is ok, and if there are multiples.

I started stressing out because I didn't think that I was ready to hear if there was a problem. I read way way too many websites and blogs about pregnancy and they really do a good job of being negative and realistic. Mostly I tend to skim over the good parts and read the negative parts in detail.

We arrive at the Dr's office and there is no wait, we go right in and I go right in and get weighed. . . and the number will just continue to rise.
We go to the room and the Dr comes in and brings us right to her office so we can say hi before the ultra sound.
This was my first meeting with the woman who is delivering my baby, so I was looking at her in a way that I never have looked at a woman before. All that I was thinking was what will she be like when I am fat, and freaking out at the hospital? Will she be the type of person to ignore my feelings or play into them? Will she try and calm me, or send someone else into deal with it? Will she be rough? Will she let me have drugs early, and will she give me painkillers after if I need? Can I depend on her to deliver my baby safely?
I have decided that she is the right mixture of professional, and realistic. She is a woman who's given birth three times before, so she knows what she's talking about. And I really trusted her, so much that I wanted to give her a hug. The only negative is that I know she is the type of woman who will give me a hard time about weight gain, considering she said 2 times that second piece of cake is not for the baby.

Below is the picture of the small fetus that is about 7 weeks old, it is one baby and they say that he or she will be out around July 1st.



I am trying to remind myself to stay positive and that really there is nothing that I can do to change fate. The more I read about pregnancy the more I begin to feel that my job is to be a great host. The sex and the genes are already chosen and the only things that I can do to harm the growing fetus is to take drugs, drink and do major body beating harm. So my goal is to relax and treat myself right and try not to stress over something that is not there. I did read that women tend to think the worst sometimes because that's our way of hardening ourselves so that if something bad does happen, we can still function. Who knows, I could just be masochistc and need drama. Other than my drama queen notions, I will try to be happy relax and enjoy!

Pregnant

I am having a baby. I am about 7 weeks along and him or her will be born toward the latter part of June.
It's very exciting and new for me, and when I am not feeling sick I am really tired.

I’m really looking forward to having a child in St. Louis because there are just so many things you can do with your children for free. St. Louis is also a very child friendly place, and a place where most people have kids. Unlike NY where I knew almost nobody with children my age or even a bit older.

More to come like my first sonograham picture this next week!

Me

It's my birthday! And I'm going to eat Mexican food!

Halloween Tricks St. Louis Style

So this was our first year in our first house that we got to do the whole hand out candy to the neighborhood kids.
Coming from Boston originally I was used to cabbage night (the night before Halloween where people go around and TP your home and smash our pumpkins) and tons of kids from 5-18 trick or treating and grabbing as much candy as they can and leaving before they look you in the eye. So I prepared myself, bought a lot of candy and got ready to scoop it out.

In St. Louis the whole Halloween thing is way different and much more composed. First off there is no cabbage night here. Kids also stop trick or treating in middle school here so you only get the cuties chaperoned by their parents. The best most surprising part was that every child that came to the door told a joke took one piece of candy and said thank you as they left.
No joke, I was shocked.
We later went to a friends house and I had to ask everyone there who was raised here if they grew up telling jokes for candy, and they all looked at me as if that was the only way.

I guess St. Louis is a polite trick or treating place!

As a side note, Pig our dog dressed up in a pig costume and was a pig this halloween.

Creating

The more I work in this catering kitchen the more I like it. I don't see it as my long-term career plan but there is something wonderful about getting lost in your head while making 400 gooey butter cookies.

I have started working for this great theatre company in St. Louis, and they happen to do a lot of educational work. They have grown a bunch in the last 3 years and now have their own space to work out of permently. You theatre people out there know how hard that is to come by.

So as I was creating, making and baking all these cookies yesterday I came up with this wonderful idea for a class that I could teach at this company. I have to pitch it to them today and if they like it I will tell you all about it!

Bike Race

I was the first girl in a semi-bike race this past weekend. It was called Tour De Moose. A bartender at a bar in South City called Lemon's has done this for 3 years in honor of his birthday.


I think that they called it a race, but really it was supposed to be about the beer. It was a pub-crawl from bar to bar to bar (about 6 in total). All around the City area, from South City to The Hill to Downtown, Soulard and Back! There were about 60 people in the race this year we were told and about 1/3 of them woman. Everyone was there to have a good time and drink and race. There were rules and maps so nobody would get hurt. And the best rule of all was that everyone had to wear a helmet.


I am competitive when it comes to women and biking. Something weird comes over me, I get energy from places I never knew I had, and I have the urge to out do any woman on a bike.
This started in Brooklyn, NY on the Williamsburg Bridge when I decided to go over faster and faster each time and pass as many people as I could. I found out that I could pass people, and I would get a surge as I did.

Since moving here to St. Louis, I have not been on my bike as much, but when I do get on my energy comes back and I am a speed racer.
I think a lot of it has to do with riding with my husband who is a great rider himself. He is taller, faster and better on a bike than me. Also I never beat people at anything, and since I found something that I can do pretty well I am taking pride in it.

So, I think that we have found a new St. Louis yearly tradition, The Tour De Moose!

One Year Later

My wedding dress fits!


Thank god. . .

I think I have it

After some long thought and a bought of sickness and leaving the job that I have had here the longest, I am pretty sure that I know what I want to do.

A little thing called money held me back from admitting this one for a while but I want to go back to school to get my teaching certificate in theatre education. I will also get my masters but I will do that once I have a job so that the school that I teach in can pay me to do so.

The prospect of going back to school to teach theatre used to feel like the last resort option, the giving up option the well I couldn’t make it as a director so I'll just teach option. As I have gotten older I think I realize that it's an option I looked past when I shouldn't have.

What I enjoy doing is working and being in the theatre. I love the process, the discovery the drive and energy that it gives me. I think that without theatre in my life at such a young age, I would be a totally different person. I owe so many job interviews that I nailed to theatre training. I am able to think on my feet and be creative and throw everything away and change my plan at a moments notice because of all my training in the theater. I can improv, create, think in a sequenceal order and plan an entire experience because of theatre. I could go on, but basically what I am saying is that since everything that I can do, and the parts of life that I excel in all go back to theater, why would I not share that with students that could possibly benefit from that knowledge.
I think that it's extremely important to have arts education in school, and I think that being able the think creatively gives students another option and way of doing something.

So, back to school I go. The only school that it in the St. Louis area that gives you your teachers certificate in theatre education is Fontbonne University, which I hear is a good school for local teachers. It also happens to be 1 mile from my home! I will have to take a lot of classes that I would have taken in my undergrad if I had known that I wanted to teach such as psychology and basic teaching, but I think that know 5 years out of school I will benefit from that knowledge.

I am a bit scared because yes it will cost money, and take 2 years, but it will also make my brain have to work in the school way again, which I am not to sure I'm really totally ready for.
Also, something that will be in the picture this time around will be the possibility of having a child while taking class. That will also be something new and uncertain.

I guess at the end of it all, in 10 years I can look back on this and say wow that was hard, thank goodness I did it and look at my super cool job that I have now!

What do I want to be when I grow up?

After getting married and buying a house it is becoming abundantly clear that I now need to have a career.
Going to school for theatre and theatre directing since High School was a great idea at the time. I enjoyed it, learned a lot and grew as a person. I loved getting my BFA and after graduating college I loved moving to NY and worked in the theater, or in casting. Along the way I also did A TON of jobs that had nothing to do with my aspirations, they were just bill paying jobs, or jobs to give me health insurance.

They ranged from working at an ice cream shop, catering, dog walking, cocktail waitressing, cleaning houses, working at a dating service, being front of house staff at a theatre, working construction and painting apartments, house sitting, working as a receptionist, and being in HR for a large and small company. I could go on but you get the point.
I have had all these jobs and now that I am not in NY and don't need a ton of money to get by, it's time to find out what it is that I really want to do.

Living in St. Louis the cost if living is a whole lot cheaper and our mortgage is 60 dollars less than what our rent was in NY. The best part about that is that right now we are making about what we made in NY so we really are not hurting. So now I have to time to re examine what it is that would make me happy.

Part of the struggle is that, I want to have kids and doing something that would require going back to school for a while may not work with that idea. I also for sure need health insurance, and to be making enough money to pay all my bills.

St. Louis has most jobs a person could want, and professional salaries as well. I just don't know what direction to go in. Since directing theatre I have not found something that really gets me excited to go to work. I want to find something I am passionate about again, so I can dedicate myself to it. When I want to I am a really caring hard worker.

I love animals, theatre, restaurants, caring for children, being a leader, decorating, planning parties, organizing, being a hostess and not being chained to a desk.

I just don't know how to incorporate some or all of that into a career.

Extra Money

I have decided that until I am in a financial place to turn down making extra money I will accept most opportunities to make extra money that come my way.

Since moving to St. Louis I have done a few jobs that make some extra un-planned money. You could call it the drinking money, or the odd bill that comes up that you need to pay off money.

I have done things from dog walking, and watching, to working on turning over an apartment that a friend manages so a new tenant can move in, to catering which I am doing currently.

I got hooked up with catering because friends of ours live across the street from this woman who rocks and who owns a great catering business here, and has for like 15 years called La Chef.

I have not worked actually on my feet for more than 8 hours since I managed a small restaurant in NY. I miss it and I hate it. Standing and running trays of food is hard and wonderful. My body feels alive, and I feel my back ach. I get to eat a shift meal of great catered food and hang out with other cool people including my husband; all who are just trying to make some extra money too. And the best part is that now that I am married I am not even worried about meeting cute boys that I am serving. I just do my job, make it through and walk out the door with a check.

I think that this could be the answer to how to make our savings grow.

Bike Trails

These last few weeks I have been bringing the bike back to my life. For those of you who knew me in NY you know that I used to ride my bike all the time, commute to work on it in all seasons

ride it to get grocery’s, do bike races and basically have it been my form of transportation.

Along with liking riding it in NY, came an element of total fear. Fear for me, fear for my husband and distrust of anyone who was in a car.

After I moved out of NY, I sort of gave up riding all the time. Part of it had to do with the necessity of a car and that places were actually far far away from each other, But also I think I gave it up because I needed an emotional break from all the worrying that went along with riding in a large city.

In North Carolina we rode a bit, and mostly on long rides through farmland, where your only risk was hitting a cow or something. As the winter came and we moved to St. Louis I just stopped riding all together. Along with no longer riding my bike, I then no longer had leg muscles and or calf definition. It's sad but true.

So, after a hot hot hot summer here and the very occasional ride on my bike I have decided to ride again with the help and coxing from my husband, who swears that he will still love me even if I don't ride my bike ever again.

I have decided to give it a try but I am going to ride my way. No more dodging cars, and racing through traffic. No more carrying tons' of grocery’s over the handlebars. I am going to ride for exercise and on trails and in neighborhoods that are not heavy with traffic.

Trail Net is the St. Louis bike advocacy group here, kind of like Transportation Alternatives in NY. On the Trail Net website you can access a lot of fun bike ride's and ideas of places to go. And the good thing is that all of these trails are with in 45 minutes of our house.

So far we have gone to the Katy Trail, which is a lime stone paved old railroad tracks that stretches for over 100 miles.

It's fun because the few times we have done it, we found out that there are breweries and wineries along the way that you can stop at and try new things.

We went to Babler state park which had more hills than my but was ready for, and I could not even cheat cause I was on a fixed gear bike.

It was nice there because you could only hear the forest and the birds.

And this past weekend we found the river front trail that is 22 miles of paved trail stretching along the Mississippi River.

I really liked that trail because it was newer and you could look at Illinois while you were on the St. Louis side. That trail is not one to go on at night because there are no lights and there are a lot of junkyards and people who live in their car along side it.

Along with all those fun options, we ride around Forest Park,

which is about a 6-mile loop, with some fun hills to make your legs pump.

So, my plan to bring the bike back is in full swing and I will keep you updated as to the progress of getting my leg muscles back!

2 Animal Family

Now that we have settled in, had our requisite house warming party we have decided to get a cat.


We have pig, our dog that is almost 4, who is a spoiled lazy excuse for a dog. I thought that since he did so well this past summer when my brother in law's dog Milo stayed with us, that if we got a cat pig may do well with that to.


So, we went to the APA on Hanley and looked for a cat. I like going there despite the smell of poo, because the cats are kept in a room with the puppies. And I guess because cat's are smaller it looks like they have more room in their cages.
The APA is a great place and they really take animal adoption seriously, they check where you live and ask you the right questions even before you can touch an animal. They also have a lot of pit bulls and make the rules for adopting them even harder.

We looked around, and I had no real prerequisites for what I wanted in a cat other than wanting the cat to have been around dogs before. You never really know what you are getting when you adopt, but any background info helps.
We ended up picking a girl cat, who is about a year old who had been in a home with a dog before so the paper said.

We really picked her because the minute we went and got her out of the cage, she rubbed noses with us and just wanted to be held. She was not scared, she just purred and wanted attention. On top of all that she was full-grown and really small with short hair.

We adopted her, got her fixed and named her NOSEY.


When we brought her home; she loved us, and ran to pig and loved him

(he is tolerant of her purring and rubbing up against him)

This is an example of a decision that was quick and not really planne that turned out good!

Before and After

So, we moved in I went crazy and managed to paint all the rooms and unpack in about 2 weeks.
Now you can get to see the before and after pic's. Our changes are in the photo below the previous owners.

We really are buying a home

So our offer was accepted with a few changes. The sellers wanted full asking price but would pay our closing costs and sell all their appliances for a dollar.



We accepted!


We breezed through the inspection with just a small hiccup when the inspector almost electrocuted himself when he poked his screw driver in the box. But that was a happy coincidence because there happens to be a great electrician next door that is friends with the owner who came right over and replaced what needed to be for free.

We decided to get a sewer snake done and found a couple of branches growing in the pipe. We got worried but realized at prompting from our broker to look into Maplewood's sewer lateral program. (First just let me say . . . what?). Who knew that that was a term that I would get to know, and then even better we found out that the program is great and you already pay into it through your taxes.

So pain was averted and we went on and scheduled the closing. Everyone warned us that if the sellers did not pre-sign we may not get the keys until the end of the day. Turns out that the sellers pre-signed and we had our closing scheduled for 10am, so chances were that we could have the keys by noon.

Meanwhile we were packing our apartment, coming up with a budget that we thought was reasonable to stick to for the move and all the fixing up costs.

That started a bit of fighting just because my husband wanted to make sure that we would stick to the budget and not throw it out the window the minute that I saw something fab that I had to have.

I am trying to stick to the budget. . .


So we had the closing and I signed a lot of paper most of which I did not read, and I shook my loan officer's hand and fully expected to get a bottle of champagne like people get on tv. We did not. I am still waiting for that.




We got our keys and in about 45 minutes became proud home owners in Maplewood, Missouri!

We are maybe going to buy a home?

So as said below, a friend of ours who is a homeowner herself suggested that we look at this home that just came on the market in Maplewood.

In my mind there are 2 parts to Maplewood one side of the tracks and the other. There is no economical difference as you may think it's just that there is a train that carried freight through the town about every hour. Our apartment is on one side a bit far away from the tracks and this home that was suggested to us is one the other.

Previously I had decided against looking on the "other side" of the tracks just really because it helped narrow our search. But now since a friend of ours suggested it we went down and took a look. As we drove up we saw a quite neighborhood filled with large old homes, and as we got to the corner lot where the home we were looking at we noticed that it was probably the smallest one in the neighborhood. The agent and the home owner were sitting on the porch swing and I look over at my husband and he has the largest grin on his face.


We walk up the stoop do the introductions and get the tour. As the buyers agent is showing us around I am thinking oh how cute this is, and my husband is ohhing and awwwing. (He never does this) I start thinking I had better find something I don't like about this home or this may be it!:) Which is not a bad thing I just felt like it was all happening so fast.

The buyers agent goes outside and we take a look around alone and take one look at each other and say this is it!

It's a 2 bedroom 1 bath brick cottage. With a long living room and dining room.

This is the pic from the add.

It's got a front and back porch and a fenced in side yard. It's a few blocks from the train so you can't really hear it and there are luxury condo's being built across the street. The basement is also a full footprint and it walk out.

We say our thank you's trying not to seem overly excited and rush to the car to make our broker some and see this house so we can put an offer in.

2 hours later we are back with our broker and as we round the corner again, he says lets go back to the office right away and write up and offer.

We actually go in and he looks at it, examines the basement and deems it solid and we rush back to his office and put an offer in.

I sign papers hoping that I am not screwing something up by not reading them, and My husband is just beaming.

We submit the offer and find out we are the first offer, and that our broker knows the buyers agent from softball league and we cross our fingers that they will accept our terms.

We put a lower offer in with no contingency’s and asking for them to pay closing costs and include all the appliances even the washer dryer.

We wait again. . .

Looking for a home

So after about 6 months of renting above 2 loud dogs and a woman who cooks meat every night we decided to look for a home of our own.
It started as a joke, looking at listings and going to open houses in the neighborhood. We started out not knowing our price range but knowing that we did not want our mortgage payment to be more than our rent in NY. We found a few great places in our neighborhood in Maplewood, we went to see this one in particular that we thought was great.

It was on a corner lot, in our price range with all new appliances that came with the home, 2 stories and a basement that I would not be afraid of. We freaked out and called everyone we knew. Called a friend of ours who was a broker and hoped to start the process.

Our friend the broker got out of the car and took one look at the house and said walk away "this place is a dump". Turns out that the reason that the price was so low was that it had been on the market for a year and was sloping and cracking down the hill it was built on.

This realization began the start of having to know way more about the bones on a house than you'll ever want to know. Thankfully our broker/ friend is quite knowledgeable about this subject and from that point on only showed us homes that were built solidly well.

We looked at almost every home in Maplewood and Richmond Heights and even Dogtown. The experience was character building and made communication a necessity. My husband and I had it down to a science what we liked and did not like. We were able to walk into a home and within 5 minutes know weather or not we liked it.

At first there were cute things I would get hung up on, like a purple toilet and things I did not like such as the color a room was painted. But as the process woar on i started to realize that what mattered was the ground plan of a home and if it was solid.

Who knew that you could change all that cosmetic stuff? :)

After a few months of looking we got a call from a friend who saw a listing of a home that had just gone on the market. It was under our price range and in a neighborhood that I had not really thought of living in but still in Maplewood.

Now begins the waiting. . . .

Living and leaving

We rented the apartment in Maplewood it is a good place. A place that is bigger than I have lived in since my home growing up outside Boston.

Of course since I love something untill I find a problem, I was waiting for what that problem would be. Since this place is cheaper than most things in NY the rent for once was not going to be the problem. I had also over looked the fact that the balcony was falling off, and that we were on the 2nd floor.

The 1st problem came about 1 month into our stay. The power went out just on our block due to some outage down the street. I went into the Kitchen with the Mag lite (I swiped it from a function at the Ritz in Clayton I invited myself to) and saw my worst fear.

Crawling on the sliding door was the largest roach I had ever seen. This was somthing to rivel the largest ones I had ever seen in NY. Please keep in mind that the power was out. Because of this I went a bit crazy and thought I saw something on every wall and indeed saw antoher one on a wall on the other side of the kitchen. I insisted we leave immediatly and go sleep anywhere but there. My husband called his parents and we went there for the evening.

This started what is becoming a large issue. For some reason maybe it's the season but everywhere I look in the evening outside there are roaches . Allyways, sidewalks, curbs etc. WHY?

I thought that leaving NY that problem would be left on the east coast.

I have become obsessed and kind of a night time shut-in. The apartment that we chose to live in happens to be on the 2nd floor and below us is a woman and her son.
The woman who lives below us cooks meat every night and has what became problem number 2. She has two fat, loud, untrained and unwalked dachshunds.

No joke, barking and running and barking dogs. When we moved in they were kept under control so that we did not hear them. We soon found out that they barked all the time, at any sound or lack of sound. They also never get walked and poop all over the yard, even on the driveway. They poop on the driveway and stand there while you pull your car in almost daring you to hit them. (Please keep in mind I am an animal lover, just not a lover of dachshunds)

Roaches and poop have turned out nice large apartment into a place that we may not want to stay out our year in.

Where to live

My husbands brother has lived here his whole life other than college and trips places. He is a teacher and owns his own home. He has friends all over and was very instrumental about where we were supposed to live. We were also living in one of his extra bedrooms.

At first we were going to pay to much and live in the Central West End in these high rise apartments. The apartments were small and it kinda smelled like a sewer in the building all the time. But coming from NY we were just so excited to find a cute place that we kinda liked.

We were instructed that we were stupid to live there and we needed to take our time and look at places like Maplewood. Now that meant nothing to me. I could barley tell I40 (which I thought was called 64) from 170 to 270. I could have been told to live on the moon.

We went driving around and we were shown all the cute little neighborhoods a bit farther out from the city. Places like Clayton (which we can not afford), Richmond Heights (which we are almost priced out of) and then Maplewood.

I can say now, that I saw the little town strip and the Schlafley Brewery and Monarch Restaurant and I was sold. We freaked out and ran to look at this apartment. Now unlike NY everyone had for rent signs outside. And there are numbers to call, they could be owners, or landlords or rental companies, but people answer the phone and will show you what you want to see.

We looked at this one place and I walked up to stairs and loved it!


I went in to full speed foaming at the mouth mode to get it. That is something else you don't have to do here either. It's not like people are lined up around the block to get these apartments. Telling me that at the time would not have helped. I ran around getting Faxes and such and we got the apartment.

Side note and something that will I am sure happen over and over but the receptionist and the rental co, went to high school with my husbands mom's family and so we got an edge that way. Everyone here is connected through high school.

We got the keys in the next few days and moved in.

That couch had to go up through the back porch!


Maplewood is nice. It family orientated, safe and really as everything else 20 minutes from everything we could want.
As a transition from North Carolina it's already better and cheaper and we can walk to things without worrying about driving everywhere.

Moving

The sound bite I tell everyone is "that when leaving NYC my husband and I decided to find a place that was less expensive, a place that we could own and home and a place that we could raise a family."

We also wanted a place where we knew people, and had family. A place that has good restaurants and fun places to go out. Good outdoors activities, 4 seasons and a place where we could not do everything there is to do over just one weekend.
I think we went to long way but once we decided to come to St. Louis everything that we had wanted has fallen into place so far.

I grew up in Boston and after college moved to NYC, and my husband grew up in St. Louis and after high school moved to NYC. In 2006 after our wedding and deciding after 4 years for me and 9 years from my husband we would leave NYC.

We moved to North Carolina.

My friends now joke with me that I should be on the anti tourism board for the State but it was just not the right place for us. We decided to go there because I had some family there and there was a chance to buy a house at cost from that family. I now think that we did not really do our research and when choosing Carrboro as our landing ground I don't think that it was big enough to say the least.

I had all these high expectations of the southern hospitality and the cheap living and the cute farmers markets and the friends we would make. None of which happened. We moved to a dangerous part of town, and our neighbors rather than greeting us would watch what we bought at the store to eat and send their kids over to spy. There were deer everywhere so much so that I was not able to drive at night. And everything was just so far apart that we did not even make it into downtown Raleigh.
I could go on but I am stopping now before I get myself into trouble. Basically while we got fat from all the food and drinking to dull the pain, we realized what we actually wanted in a place to live.

So we sat down and picked between my hometown and my husbands home town. His won.

Our decision to move to St. Louis was compounded by the fact that all my husbands family lives here, he's got friends from high school here and it's a place that's still cheap to live while being a city.

We packed up the uhall truck and made the trek here and on February 15th 2007 we landed in St. Louis.


The blog will talk about what living here is like for a person who did not grow up here. Hopefully as I learn my way around and discover things our choice to live here and start a life will continue to be the correct one.