it's that time again!

and i don't mean furniture rearrangement... except for i sort of do! it's true. we're moving again.

but don't worry, we didn't get kicked out of our current place. we kicked ourselves out. our lease is coming up in another month and it came time to decide - stay another year or move on?

it was our hope when we moved to this apartment a year ago that we would stay here for two years - until the end of my med school (and probably our move out of birmingham). we made a lot of compromises picking our current place - no dishwasher, tiny bathroom, oldoldold everything, putting our washer/dryer in the dingy basement, shady parking situation (which most of you know resulted in my car being totaled last summer), etc. we thought that the awesome location, the millions of windows, the gas range, and the "charm" would be enough to hold us over. unfortunately, we were wrong.

even so, it wasn't necessarily our intention to look to move. i'm in the middle of my stressful 3rd year (as i'm sure can be deduced from my recent posts) and henry's nearing completion of his master's degree... not exactly the most convenient time to undertake a move. but we have had our eyes open for a few weeks looking at what's available. we'd talked it out and agreed that we would only go through with the huge task if it would solve a few major problems: kitchen, bathroom, laundry, and parking without creating any major new ones: location, overall size, price. we also really wanted to be saving money rather than spending more or even paying the same amount. pretty tall bill, eh?

so our new place, discovered almost by accident, is a 2bed/2ba behind the summit. it will save us $175/month baseline on rent. ! this is 1 more bathroom than we have now. laundry INSIDE the apartment. huge kitchen with dishwasher. walk-in closets. marked parking spaces in a lot. etcetcetc. compromise? probably location. we'll have to factor in the drive to work. all that said, henry and i are ecstatic. there is a unit available exactly when we need to move in, and what's more, henry's employer is "preferred", so the app fee and deposit were cut in half. everything fell into place so smoothly and fit our incredibly tall order - it's easy to be confident this is where we're supposed to be.

so... in 3 weeks... we return to the land of buildings which are 1. up to code, 2. relatively level, and 3. free of lead paint and excessive amounts of mold. can't wait to take a bath in a tub that hasn't been PAINTED. !!!!!!!!! (not kidding there.)