A Deep Breath

Sorry for the long time without posting...we are coming up for air now. It's been a crazy week.

We moved last weekend. After 2 weeks of packing, the move was pulled off in one long day with two hired movers. I had a little last-minute mild freak-out because we didn't get moved before the first snow, but the snow we got (the day before the move) was minimal and we didn't get the frozen slick roads on moving day that I feared.

Moving day was more stressful and longer than anticipated, but we got it all done in one day. Yes, some things were broken by one of the movers (an inexperienced, strong guy without much sense of where things he holds extend into space). But it went fairly well, all things considered. It surprised me how much stuff we had managed to pack into our little apartment; easily enough to fill this 1800 square foot house we have moved into.

But! We love the house, so so much. We are renting, because we aren't in a position to buy and because I don't know if we will be able to stay in Spokane when I graduate in less than 6 months. If I get a job here, we'll extend our lease, and we may even have the opportunity to buy this house down the road.

We moved on Saturday, and on Sunday my hubby cleaned the old apartment while I unpacked at the house. He enjoys cleaning and I enjoy packing and unpacking, so it was a pretty good trade-off. The apartment looked GREAT when he was done with it. We should get our deposit back (we might have some knocked off because that mover crashed into a corner and knocked off a big chunk of plaster with a box, but we told the landlords and they may not charge us). I do like the organizing part of moving, but there is definitely a reason that we had not planned on moving again until after I finished school. It's so hard to do homework and study when most of my home is still in boxes. My mind has a hard time focusing when I feel like so much is in disarray.

The other big excitement is that my hubby started a new job on Monday. Yes, we moved AND he started a new job all within 3 days. He's been looking for work for several months now, so this is pretty exciting. Unemployment is hard, especially with both of us unemployed. But I think the time was important for rest and recovery, so while I think he wishes he had found a job a long time ago, I am proud of all the hard work he has done in the interim. It's been stressful, but overall it's been a good thing.

I have no idea how my weight is doing; my scale is still in a box. I usually weigh myself every morning so it's weird to go several days without doing so. There's been no exercise either, since every spare moment has been spent either packing or unpacking. I hope to get back into a healthier routine once we are more settled.

I must say, it is so wonderful to be in our own place and out of our apartment building. The tension with the sociopathic neighbor was so thick, it made being there miserable. He enjoyed doing things like parking just so I couldn't get into my parking space, or playing loud music at 7:30am, stuff like that. I'm way too old to be dealing with crap like that anymore. We spent many months trying to diplomatically handle the situation, first ourselves (mainly hubby) and then through the landlord. Finally, when it was time to resign the lease, and the landlords were starting to look at the option of evicting the neighbor (they preferred to keep us over him), we realized that would be a very long process, and it was the perfect time for us to just get out, before it started to snow so much that no one could move for a few months. So that's what we did. It was a disappointing end to a good relationship with a great landlord, but definitely the right thing for us to do.

So, my mind is full of things related to nesting and unpacking, but I'm pleased to say we are here and we are happy. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Good luck moving up, cause I'm moving out...

It's been busy around here. My hubby and I live in an apartment that is the main floor of an old house. We've been having trouble with neighbors. Specifically, our upstairs neighbors have been acting unneighborly. We've been working with them and with our landlord for a few months now, but finally it became apparant that nothing was going to change. I can't study in our home because of the noise, and I am uncomfortable around the hostility and passive-aggressive behavior.

We were about to resign our lease (we've been here 2 years) when we realized that, hey, we can move.

I didn't want to move before I finished school, but suddenly it seemed the best solution. Our landlord toyed with the idea of evicting the upstairs neighbors so that we would stay, but eviction takes time. They wouldn't move voluntarily. And the winter is fast approaching; in about a month, it will probably be unsafe (or actually impossible) to move due to snow. We want to live somewhere where we don't share walls with neighbors anymore (maybe it's more me than hubby). So we decided to move into a house.

The decision came quickly, and the move as well: we are moving in about 12 days. It's not easy to get ready to move while in the thick of the semester, working and going to school. But it's the right thing to do. So it's been very busy here. But, the house we are moving to is just a few blocks away, and it's beautiful. Really, a steal for the amount of rent they are charging us. I can't wait to be out of here and into our new home. We have had great landlords here, and we're sad to be suddenly leaving, but it just doesn't make sense to deal with an untenable situation if we don't have to.

Between moving, working, wrapping up my research project, and studying, I haven't been running in a couple of weeks. And this week I've lost 2 pounds. Go figure. I'm thinking of going for a run today, but we'll see. I'm not stressing about it right now, which is nice, for once.