Well, I realized we haven't really given a tour of the apartment yet, and I figured we better before we pack it all up and move. MOVE!? I haven't mentioned that either. For now, enjoy these pictures of our shoe box apartment.
The downstairs =
Jammie play time!
Up the stairs =
Upstairs =
Master Bedroom
behind that curtain in our closet is all of our storage space
Our one teeny tiny bathroom
And the girls' room =
We are moving in a week and a half just a few miles south of where we currently are. A family in our ward is moving out of state and we're moving into that rental house. Yes, a HOUSE. I'm thrilled! It's similar in size to our Dallas house, so we're pumped about that. 3 bed, 1.5 bath, 2 living spaces, garage, dishwasher, washer dryer..... it's everything we were looking for. We decided when we moved here that we'd always be on the lookout for rental house, and when this opened up, we had to jump at the opportunity. One thing that sealed the deal for us, was the how the contract is for one year and then goes month to month and the rent won't increase year to year. There's no guarantee that we'd be able to afford the apartment that we're currently living in when our year lease expired - many of our neighbors didn't renew their lease because their rent increased $300-$400 a month.... so, we knew we'd need to probably look anyways. The house is slightly more expensive than what we're paying now, BUT without having to pay for laundry, and being in more control of our water bills (instead of pooled and divided with the neighbors) it'll be financially equal or better, and the space and privacy and yard of a home will be just amazing.
That being said - here are some things that we've learned about living in our current apartment:
- 900 square feet is not as tiny as I thought it would be
- I dislike noisy neighbors....a lot.
- Not having a dishwasher is WAY worse than I thought it would be. I'm bad at doing dishes... not like the dishes are still dirty after I wash them, but like I hate doing dishes by hand and staying on top of them. Having to wash every dish by hand means that I dread making lunch/dinner even more and that I have gotten creative with 1 pot dishes. We've also switched to paper plates and bowls.... way too much work than I was anticipating
-I have become a ridiculously good parallel park-er. By ridiculously good, I mean I can actually do it now with a pretty high success rate.
- That being said, I hate having to fight for a good parking spot (we do have an assigned parking spot in a garage, but the spots are so tight, it's nearly impossible to get the babies out of their carseats
- Having to pay for each load of laundry makes it that much worse. No, I don't want to pay to do chores. Plus, having to go to another building to do laundry is a hassle to say the least. Many times I've thrown Miriam in the basket of dirty clothes and hauled her to the laundry room with Evette running
ahead singing "Let it Go"
- I have loved having the girls share a room. They are the best of friends and it's sweet to see them share and bond. Overall it's been great.
- We live close to a lot of things and frequently walk to a lot of things - book store, library, grocery store, mall, etc. It's been great exercise and Evette has turned into quite a trooper. We usually just take the single stroller nowadays.
-We've learned to live on much much less. Before we moved we sold a ton of stuff, pared down, purged....and it's been nice. Now we don't have a lot of extra baggage anymore. It has helped us live more simply and much more picky about what we have in our home
So there you go! If you want our new address, let me know!
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