Sigh of relief

I've been a little stressed this year.  As most of you know, my living situation went rather suddenly from "needing to change in a few months" to "needing to change NOW!"  I've been more than a little freaked out, not knowing what I was going to do.  I had originally planned to stay put and find a new roommate to move in, but since I don't know anyone who needs to rent a room, that would have left me with finding someone on CraigsList.  I've been assured that it is possible to find wonderful roommates that way, but my previous experience with living with strangers, along with the horror stories I've heard from others was making me really nervous about doing that.  Then an opportunity was presented to me to find a big house with a family I know who needed to move from their present location as well.  This seemed like a wonderful idea.  It still doesn't seem like a bad idea, except that the number of people would have a much larger house than is readily available in the local rental market.  Without rejecting that possibility though, I finally did what I should have done in the first place and calculated my finances.  Had I done that, I would have realized that while it would be tight, I could actually afford to get my own apartment.  I considered this, and weighed the options and the more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted my own space again, without having to work around roommates.  I also realized that I really didn't want to leave midtown.  I really didn't want to leave the easy light rail and bike trail access and the trees, and the crazy one way streets with annoying barricades and forced turns that will leave you driving in circles if you're not careful.

Since I'm already approved to rent from Whisler, the easiest way to find my new place was to go through them.  I picked out two places and looked at them on Monday.  They were absolute dumps.  One wasn't so bad, but it was tiny.  The other, well, the doorframe had been rebuilt recently, suggesting it had been broken down recently.  While I could have easily fit my stuff in it, it just didn't leave me feeling secure.  Tuesday, I looked at a place two blocks from where I am now.  It was cute, but small, and old fashioned.  The kitchen was cramped.  I wasn't sure I could even fit my bed in the bedroom, much less anything else.  I decided it would do, but there was one more place I wanted to look at to see if it was better.  Had an appointment to look at it today and I put down a deposit on it.

So, yay!  I have a home!

It's another "up a long narrow stairway" apartment.  Big kitchen, dishwasher, central heat/air.  The stove is electric again, but I can continue to live with that.  The rooms are big.  The bathroom is not through the bedroom.  I think I can be comfortable there for a while.

I take possession of it on the 28th.  Moving day is officially Saturday the 29th.  I don't know if I can afford to rent a truck so I'll be spending Friday moving things that fit in my car, and I've got a truck with driver that's been offered and hopefully is available that weekend.  I'll be offering the standard pizza bribe to anybody who can come and help out.  Additional bribage may be available for anyone with a vehicle that fits lots of things.

Whew.  I'm so glad that's settled.

Now, all I need is more boxes.  MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE!!!!!