Next week I begin my new adventure with Satmetrix, the Net Promoter Score company. It’s a dream come true for me and it means I still get to work with credit unions through the Member Loyalty Group. Yay!

My office is in San Mateo so I’ve rented a studio apartment in the same town. Bay Area real estate is insane. San Francisco is the second most expensive rental market in the US (Honolulu is number one).

My sister Daedre (pronounced daydream – drop the “m”) is the Queen of “vertical” living. IKEA is only 12 miles away. Her plane lands at 7:45 this morning. She flies out at noon tomorrow, I fly to London at 7:30 tomorrow night (for my first week of work).

Our challenge: to create a gorgeous, comfortable, functional living space in 36 hours. We are starting from scratch. I arrived yesterday with my Mazda Millennia packed full of clothes, shoes, my favorite picture of Mark, bathroom stuff and one flying pig.

My sister has a process she uses for every move. She creates a scale floor plan using graph paper and makes little furniture pieces (also to scale) so you can play around with the room without breaking your back. The apartment is basically one big room, with a separate very small kitchen and bathroom. The main room is almost perfectly square and has a huge picture window on one wall with an amazing view.

Daedre asked me what my requirements were. I need a real bed and I don’t want to eat dinner on the couch. So we are going to try and get a bedroom, dining room and living room in 412 square feet. I am writing this from the Marriott Courtyard. And looking at this room, I think we can do it.

Stay tuned.