On Moving to Miami

So, we've decided that the town of Ithaca, New York, was not for us. When considering where to move next, my criteria was that I wanted to "move aspirationally." What I meant by that was, I want to move to some place where we like being, is someplace we've been and have had fun before, and is maybe some place where life would be really different for us. Someplace where we both have thought, "gosh, we really wish we lived here" during previous visits. And with Kate leaving her day job, and my job allowing me to work from anywhere, we thought that we really ought to take advantage of the freedom that this allows us.



So, after a lot of thought, we decided on Miami as the place to move to. We have been visiting Miami for years. We love the weather, we love the palm trees, we love walking around and exploring the parks, the beaches, and the culture. And we are tired of winter. We have friends and great memories from both Minneapolis and Chicago, but it's time to try taking a break from the snow.

We're in the midst of that move to Miami right now. We've secured an apartment in a great area, one near water with a ton of walkable amenities nearby. We're working on filling the new place with furniture, and we're winding down our old place back in New York state.

Furniture shopping in Florida has been a challenge. We were initially delighted to see that Miami has an IKEA. We tried to buy nearly a whole apartment's worth of furniture from them (can't beat their prices), but we had so much trouble trying to get their delivery partner XPO to actually deliver what we purchased, that we were forced to give up and start over. We're still smarting a bit from that. It was quite a snag and we are saddened that IKEA didn't come through for us. I think it'll take some time before we feel like giving IKEA another try.

But, our apartment is great, and we're loving the neighborhood, and the weather -- while a bit soupy during rainy season -- is still pretty great. And we can't wait to see how the weather is come this winter.

The sheer number of restaurants in our neighborhood is amazing. It's a bit of a touristy area, which for us means there are some good specials during the week, when things are a bit slower for them and they're eager to get locals to come through the door. And there are a ton of hotels, which means it'll be easy for friends to come and visit us (our place being too small to house friends directly).

I'm really looking forward to this next year.