My lease was up at the end of February. Paul asked me periodically throughout January if I was going to sign another lease or look for some where else to live. Honestly, I was resigned to signing another 12-month lease because I knew there was nothing else in this school district that we could afford and moving the kids to another school is not an option.
However, Paul knows how much I hate living in these stinking apartments and he wouldn't let it go. He looked on Craigslist, he looked at other online sites, he looked on the board at his work, he looked every where. And every once in a while he'd mention something he found. Each one was either too expensive or across town or had only 2 bedrooms or something else that wouldn't work.
Until. Until one day he called me at work and said, "Quick, call this guy now, this house is going to go fast!" I took the information and my hopes were raised a little when I heard what the rent was (exactly, to the dollar, what my rent would be on another 12-month lease). And even more when heard the ZIP code (the same as ours). And even more when Paul said that the major cross streets are the same cross streets for my apartment. I estimated it to be less than a mile away.
I called the guy immediately and he said I was welcome to come look at it the following weekend but that he needed to warn me that someone else had already called so they had dibs. (Yup, it's gonna go fast.) So we went on a Saturday morning to check it out. The owner told me that the other interested people had seen it that morning, too and since we'd both seen it, whoever was ready to sign a lease first could have it.
It's great for us. There are 3 bedrooms (that disappointed the boys a bit, but at least their room will be quite large) and 1 bathroom (I'm a titch nervous about that) but aside from that, it's perfect. The living room is large enough to accomodate all of our current furniture and then some. The kitchen is huge compared with what I'm used to. There's a pantry that is easily 6 times larger than the closet I call a pantry now. Can we say Costco membership? There's an attached garage -- no more hiking up to the third floor in snow and ice with sleeping children and/or groceries! There are small front and back yards -- yards tend to be pretty small in this area as it is and this neighborhood has even smaller than usual yards. But, our back yard faces out to a dedicated open space with a biking trail, a creek and lots of blue sky. We can even see a bit of the mountains from the back porch.
I called the owners that afternoon and told them that I wanted to look at their lease. Within 3 days, it was all signed and accepted. We're moving in on May 7. I am so excited about not having screaming neighbors on the other side of my dining room wall any more. Actually, excited doesn't begin to describe how happy I am about the whole situation. Woo!
