This is the question I am asked on an almost daily basis. And its a great question! I know that it may seem random to have moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. When Shawn and I first started dating I straight up told him that this was one of those places that you just forget about being on the map. And thats not a bad thing! It's just that Little Rock isn't a very talked about place. But it should be! It's a fantastic place to live!
As of yesterday, we have officially been Arkansas residents for three months and I really love it here! Every time I tell someone I'm from Los Angeles they look at me like I'm completely crazy. Of course I understand why but I love living here and today I'm going to share why.
As of yesterday, we have officially been Arkansas residents for three months and I really love it here! Every time I tell someone I'm from Los Angeles they look at me like I'm completely crazy. Of course I understand why but I love living here and today I'm going to share why.
So why did we move to Little Rock, Arkansas? Well, a lot of reasons. The first and foremost is that Shawn was offered an incredible job opportunity as an Admissions Counselor at his alma mater, Hendrix College. The second was that, after only living in Vancouver, Washington for a month, we missed having friends around. Wait, what? We lived in Vancouver, Washington for one month? Yes. You can read all about that crazy adventure here. And the last reason? Well I guess it was simply just, why not? Sure it was inconvenient because we had just moved and it definitely wasn't very cost effective but deep down we both knew that this was going to be the best move for us.
I feel like, since we started dating, Shawn and I have always talked about moving to Little Rock and I was always fine with that. From all the stories I had heard I knew that it was a great place to live (despite the tornados). I never moved away from Santa Clarita because I went to the community college there but I just always had this feeling that we were bound to end up in Little Rock at some point in our lives.
Literally the first night we got into Little Rock I knew that this was a good choice. We stayed the first night with our friends, Chris and Sarah. They were the first familiar faces we had seen in about a month aside from Shawn's aunt and uncle. We "moved into" our new apartment in West Little Rock the next morning. I put quotes around "moved in" because we didn't have any of our stuff. All we had was a tv, airbed, our important paperwork and about two weeks worth of clothes.
If you remember from my last post I mentioned something about everything with the movers going smoothly and then I said "or so we thought, but more on that later" well I'm going to share that little conundrum now. If you are ever going to hire a company to move your things across the country during summer - read the fine print. Our things were supposed to be delivered July 31st. Reasonable, right? That was only two weeks so sure. I understood that it was the middle of summer and we hired them with barely a weeks notice. But on July 24th things started going south. (Pun sort of intended) I got in contact with our agent at North American. She tried to get in contact with the driver. Our things were extended and wouldn't be delivered until August 4th. Pushed TEN days? Great. It had only been a few days of living on only an air mattress and I was so tired of it. Now we had to wait ten more days. At this point I made the adult decision to upgrade our air mattress to something that wasn't deflating every night. So at least the plus side is that, if we ever have a bunch of guests over, we have a really nice and super comfy air mattress for them to sleep on! On August 4th I contacted our North American agent again. She didn't answer (or ever call me back for that matter) so I got in contact with the assistant manger at the company in Portland. She said that she would get in contact with the driver and get back to me. Of course she never heard from the driver on the 4th. I contacted the lady again on the 5th. She finally got a hold of the driver and said he would be delivering on the 6th. Great! We will finally have our bed back!...wait, not so fast. I got a call from the driver. He postponed it from the 6th to the 8th. Two more nights on the air bed. FINALLY on one of the hottest days in Little Rock this summer the movers arrived. I did feel bad for them because we are on the third floor but oh well. So we did finally get our things, it just took way longer than expected. I would suggest not going with North American, or if you do read the fine print. The company said that because it was during the summer months there was a strong chance that our things delivery date would be postponed. This was never made clear to me when I signed the contract. I'm definitely still bitter about it but oh well. At least we have our stuff! And surprisingly the only thing that was broken was a tv that was already cracked a little bit.
If you remember from my last post I mentioned something about everything with the movers going smoothly and then I said "or so we thought, but more on that later" well I'm going to share that little conundrum now. If you are ever going to hire a company to move your things across the country during summer - read the fine print. Our things were supposed to be delivered July 31st. Reasonable, right? That was only two weeks so sure. I understood that it was the middle of summer and we hired them with barely a weeks notice. But on July 24th things started going south. (Pun sort of intended) I got in contact with our agent at North American. She tried to get in contact with the driver. Our things were extended and wouldn't be delivered until August 4th. Pushed TEN days? Great. It had only been a few days of living on only an air mattress and I was so tired of it. Now we had to wait ten more days. At this point I made the adult decision to upgrade our air mattress to something that wasn't deflating every night. So at least the plus side is that, if we ever have a bunch of guests over, we have a really nice and super comfy air mattress for them to sleep on! On August 4th I contacted our North American agent again. She didn't answer (or ever call me back for that matter) so I got in contact with the assistant manger at the company in Portland. She said that she would get in contact with the driver and get back to me. Of course she never heard from the driver on the 4th. I contacted the lady again on the 5th. She finally got a hold of the driver and said he would be delivering on the 6th. Great! We will finally have our bed back!...wait, not so fast. I got a call from the driver. He postponed it from the 6th to the 8th. Two more nights on the air bed. FINALLY on one of the hottest days in Little Rock this summer the movers arrived. I did feel bad for them because we are on the third floor but oh well. So we did finally get our things, it just took way longer than expected. I would suggest not going with North American, or if you do read the fine print. The company said that because it was during the summer months there was a strong chance that our things delivery date would be postponed. This was never made clear to me when I signed the contract. I'm definitely still bitter about it but oh well. At least we have our stuff! And surprisingly the only thing that was broken was a tv that was already cracked a little bit.
Being that it's Arkansas you might think that means theres nothing to do. But we have been busy almost every weekend doing something! During the first two weeks we were here we went to The Great Arkansas Beer Festival, we have gone to Hendrix football games, minor league baseball games, concerts downtown, and just last Friday we went to Boo at the Zoo (it's an adult night at the zoo), and on Saturday we went to the Harvest festival in Hillcrest. This Friday there is another beer festival! Local breweries are a big thing here so there's beer festivals/event all the time. Also every Tuesday we go to trivia! We have placed first a few times now but we usually at least get second or third, and on the rare occasion fourth.
It was great to already have a few people here that we knew but now we are making more and more friends! We have recently started getting closer with Shawn's coworkers at Hendrix. They are definitely a lot of fun to hang out with!
Something that freaked me out in a good way when I first saw it was falls colors! I never experienced any true fall colors in California. If we have anything it barely lasted a few days. But here it just keeps getting more and more beautiful and I get to see it on my drive to work everyday.
Something that freaked me out in a good way when I first saw it was falls colors! I never experienced any true fall colors in California. If we have anything it barely lasted a few days. But here it just keeps getting more and more beautiful and I get to see it on my drive to work everyday.
The first three weeks or so started with a lot of sleepless nights because I was sort of panicking about the tornado situation. Where we are we should be fine but just the idea of tornado season starts to make me panic so I just try to not think about it. Our first Wednesday here I was all by myself because Shawn was at work...and the tornado siren went off. I immediately panicked. I didn't know what to do! My first thought was "we just moved here and there are already tornados?!?!?! What am I supposed to do?!" I texted Shawn and he told me to text our friend, Chris. He calmed me down and informed me that the sirens go off every Wednesday at noon. Phew! So every Wednesday I hear them and I panic for about half a second but then I remember its jut a test and everything will be fine.
I am working here now, too! It took me a few weeks to find something when we first got here. My plan was to apply for a job at the Arkansas Little Rock School for the Deaf but we moved here too close to the school year so all of their hiring was done for the remainder of the year. Also Arkansas is not like California. There are no freelance Sign Language companies, or if there are I haven't been able to find them. So I will keep an eye on the schools availability and hope that I can get in during the spring semester or by the next school year. But, in the mean time, I am working at Crazy 8 (it's part of Gymboree) and I love it! I get to see and play with adorable kids everyday! I have actually never worked in retail before and it definitely took some time to get used to being on my feet eight hours a day. But I really love it so much. They actually just promoted me to Assistant Manager already! That makes me love it even more! I just love being able to form a relationship with the customers and, for some of them, see them on a regular basis. Yesterday actually I was helping a repeat customer with putting together some outfits and she kept telling me that she loves when I'm working. She ended up calling her sister and telling her that I was there and then her sister showed up five minutes later to shop. It's such a great job! I would love to stay at this job, even though the hours are never consistent and I know the holiday season will be crazy. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens. If something else comes up then I might pursue that but for right now I'm really happy working at Crazy 8.
Shawn and I are truly loving life in Arkansas so far. The weather is beautiful (but getting colder) and it's so nice to have friends all around us. My mother-in-law is actually coming to visit us during the first weekend in November and then my sister and cousin are coming to visit the following weekend. I'm so excited to see them all! And I know that it means that we are going to be doing a lot more fun stuff - like mining for diamonds!
I am working here now, too! It took me a few weeks to find something when we first got here. My plan was to apply for a job at the Arkansas Little Rock School for the Deaf but we moved here too close to the school year so all of their hiring was done for the remainder of the year. Also Arkansas is not like California. There are no freelance Sign Language companies, or if there are I haven't been able to find them. So I will keep an eye on the schools availability and hope that I can get in during the spring semester or by the next school year. But, in the mean time, I am working at Crazy 8 (it's part of Gymboree) and I love it! I get to see and play with adorable kids everyday! I have actually never worked in retail before and it definitely took some time to get used to being on my feet eight hours a day. But I really love it so much. They actually just promoted me to Assistant Manager already! That makes me love it even more! I just love being able to form a relationship with the customers and, for some of them, see them on a regular basis. Yesterday actually I was helping a repeat customer with putting together some outfits and she kept telling me that she loves when I'm working. She ended up calling her sister and telling her that I was there and then her sister showed up five minutes later to shop. It's such a great job! I would love to stay at this job, even though the hours are never consistent and I know the holiday season will be crazy. So we'll just have to wait and see what happens. If something else comes up then I might pursue that but for right now I'm really happy working at Crazy 8.
Shawn and I are truly loving life in Arkansas so far. The weather is beautiful (but getting colder) and it's so nice to have friends all around us. My mother-in-law is actually coming to visit us during the first weekend in November and then my sister and cousin are coming to visit the following weekend. I'm so excited to see them all! And I know that it means that we are going to be doing a lot more fun stuff - like mining for diamonds!
If you are new to my blog, or maybe you just forgot since it's been awhile, the last Wednesday of the month is always movie themed. I won't give away any spoilers as to what the exact post is about, because there's no fun in that, but next week you can expect some sort of movie themed post.
I hope to see you back here this time next week! And, as always, leave a comment below! Even if it's just to say hi!
I hope to see you back here this time next week! And, as always, leave a comment below! Even if it's just to say hi!
Caitlin