It is late 2013. I rather unexpectedly get a job offer from a company in California. Their first offer is for me to be a contractor. They ask me to move out to Cali on my own dime, without benefits. I went back and asked for full employment, benefits and a relocation package. To my absolute utter shock they agreed. I guess I had better ask my wife.
To my surprise Cyndi was straight on board. I sat down to talk about it and she asked me if I wanted to do it. "Yes". She said "OK, let's do it". She almost immediately went into moving mode. She worked around the clock to sell stuff, to pack, to prepare. It was amazing. If she had said no, I would not have argued with her. She took the biggest risk by agreeing to this. It was a risk that led to tremendous gains for our family. My salary basically doubled as a result of the move. We went from being deep in debt to safety in a couple of years. The kids flourished. We grew as a family, but California was very hard on her. In this chapter, I want to try to describe how hard this was and how much our lives benefitted from her work.
If you are interested in can look at some blog posts from 2014, when I used to pay attention to this page. The are linked here... https://ericstary.blogspot.com/2014/
We were not in Cali for more than two months, when Cyndi's stepmom, suddenly passed away. It was a terrible shock to the family and one that added an additional burden that she had to bear.
The first four months we were in corporate housing. This little 3 bedroom condo that was in walking distance to this little beach. We have tons of photos from the little beaches and parks around that condo, and while it was pretty it was cramped. In the four months we were there we completely destroyed that place. The twins tore the door of the fridge, the dogs tore the screen out of the doors, we had a terrible round of some terrible stomach bug tear through the family. I have never eaten Pizza Hut pizza since that terrible day, and I am 100% positive they had to pull every inch of carpet from that place when we moved out, that or they just burned it down.
We settled in a town that was 50 miles from my office. I worked for turd smokers that insisted I come into the office every day. In Northern California traffic that meant 14 hour days. I left each morning at 5AM and got home at 7PM. Cyndi did all of the work on her own. She did it with no safety network. She did it with no family. She did it with no friends. But she made friends. She built a safety network. She made our life livable for those two years, and she did it alone. I don't think I ever adequately thanked her for that sacrifice, but everything that we have and I mean EVERYTHING is a direct result of that effort. She saved us from a life of debt. She drove that struggle bus right off the damn cliff.
Now Cali wasn't all bad. There were some good times. It was great being able to drive to the beach and something we did dozens of times. Although those drives were not without their own struggles. Linked here below is a post I wrote in 2015 about driving to the beach. I was published by a Men's magazine, the only thing I have ever written that actually got read.
Linked here: https://ericstary.blogspot.com/2015/04/a-day-at-beach.html
We were really good about having date nights in California. We hired babysitters off Care.com and we went out. Two such stories are worth telling here. First, again, this some how all comes back to Applebee's. Our little town only had two sit down casual restaurants that you could get into without a wait, Applebee's and Red Robin. Both of which were right next to a movie theater and that was date night. We went to Applebee's so much that Cyndi's phone though she worked there. Every time we got in the car it would tell her she is 15 minutes from Applebee's. The second little tale was the night we told the babysitter to lock the twins in their room. As you could imagine, two and three year old twins are tornados of destruction. And after we would put them to bed, they would just get up and be crazy little people. So to deal with this we turned the knob around backwards and just locked them in the room. I swear, I wish I had taken a picture of this girls face when we told her the twins were locked in their room. I am willing to bet she strongly considered calling the police. I am also certain she never watched the kids for us again.
I may comeback and update this Chapter some more or break it into two. So many good stories from California.
Next Chapter: Back to KY.
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