Living In New York - One Year Review

This is the private neighborhood beach which is only a reachable par-5 away from our house:

Recall last May we were essentially evicted by our deadbeat, scumbag landlord from the house we were renting on Boston's beautiful South Shore.

And we, for a variety of reasons, decided to move to Long Island - into the house my wife grew up in AND co-habitate with her mother, my MIL.

Well the house is big (3,000 sq ft?) with a finished basement and a huge yard - BUT it's not that big!

My MIL moved out in January (while we were in Florida) to a retirement community. She needed her own space - and I'll leave it at that.

The reasons we moved here were mostly financial, i.e. the house. But also my wife got a raise to be transferred into this high rent district. On top of that I can potentially work (in the conventional sense) in NY whereas the economic opportunities were relatively very slim in Boston.

The other main reason for moving, one that I would never have seen coming a few years ago, is that New York is a much better place to homeschool. There's simply so much more going on; more people; more museums; and more opportunity to NOT STAND OUT. New Yorkers are busy as heck, moving in a million directions at once and don't give a hoot about this highly offensive thing we do in educating our own.

Lesser, but not to be minimized, reasons for moving include food and the NYC 4am *last call*!

So far, overall, everything has worked out great and almost just as I had imagined. We're a little busier than I prefer but otherwise at least three-quarters of the family are very happy here. My wife? Well her commute (all the way downtown, next to WTC) sucks and she also walked into a thoroughly incompetent department at work. Things are looking better though. She might start working out of mid-town; she cleaned out her staff - hiring her own people; and I'm on her to figure out, in 4-Hour Workweek fashion, how to squeeze more *working from home* days in.

If you had told me, not even 2 years ago, that I would move to Long Island and love it....I would have thought you were nuts. I hated this place: too much traffic; too many go-go minivan moms; horrible golfing options; etc.

But once you take the harried school grind out of the equation....the opportunities and sheer beauty of New York come to fore.