September 15th

That’s our move in date! We finally found a 3 bedroom apartment after 4 months of diligent searching and stalking Craigslist, networking with people we know (and some we don’t), and calling broker after broker to see if they had something in our price range.  After seeing something like 9 places, talking to 13 different owners, 4 credit checks, 1 AMAZING place and landlord that loved us and spent an hour and a half chatting with us only to let us know that there are no pets allowed (and you know how i feel about my damn kitty), we found the perfect place. Where, you ask?  In the same complex that we live in now, one building over!

When Callie and I decided to move in together, about a year after we had started dating, we fell in love with a one bedroom in the complex where she grew up.  There are 12 buildings with 4 to each courtyard.  Callie grew up at 43.  We moved into 25 where we lived for almost 2 years.  We didn’t want to leave but when we decided to become foster parents, a 1 bedroom just wasn’t going to cut it.  So we looked, for months, with no luck.  Just as we were about to throw our hands up and give up on the prospect of fostering, our rental office called us and told us that they had a 2 bedroom available one courtyard over. We’d told them to keep us posted if something came up in our price range.  So we recruited our friends with the bribe of pizza and beer, our parents, and our siblings.  We shot over to the next courtyard to building 7.   We moved in about 4 hours, and by the time we were finished (about 7 hours in total) our WHOLE ENTIRE apartment was completely set up.  I still thank my mom for cleaning EVERYTHING and putting it away just as we had it before.

Tuesday, as we were saying, “UGH! We’re over this apartment search! I guess the twins will be sleeping with us for the first couple of months until our lease is up and we’ll just be devastated because we can’t put together the nursery we’ve always wanted”, we get a phone call.  A 3 bedroom 2 BATH (woo hoo!!!!!!!) opened up in the next door in building 3! We told ourselves we didn’t want to pay more than $2500 for rent and utilities, but where we live in NY that’s kind of hard to find.  When you live in the suburbs 20 outside of NYC, you’re looking at about $1500 for a one bedroom.  And the county that we live in has the highest taxes in the NATION! Well, since we have been such great tenants, paying our rent on time, getting great feedback from our neighbors, and it doesn’t hurt that the girls at the rental office love us, they gave us the apartment for $2200, down from $2350.  I KNOW RIGHT?!?! So we’ll be packing as much as we can in the coming week and recruiting our friends again (with the promise of pizza and beer as usual) to move us one floor down, 50 yards over, and 3 floors up.

Best thing about the new apartment (aside from the 2nd bathroom)? All the light! Lots and lots of windows and tons and tons of light.  Our current apartment sits in the middle of an “H” shape.  Because of where our apartment is, it doesn’t matter what side the sun is on, one side of the building is always casting a shadow on our windows.  This new apartment has windows on 2 different sides of the street (it’s on the top left corner of the “H”) with nothing blocking it! The room that we chose for the nursery has 2 windows, gets the most light, right next to our bedroom, and it’s the perfect size for 2 of everything (10ftx14.6ft)!  They are even giving us the key a bit early so we have a little more time to move, since Callie is pregnant and they figured we’d need the head start since she can’t do much.  They have no idea about the moving dream team!

So again, when we are about to give up, the universe keeps telling us to keep going. That everything will work itself out.  So I have the love of my life (when I was over love), twins on the way (after we told ourselves we were over trying to get pregnant), and a beautiful 3 bedroom apartment exactly where we wanted it (while in the middle of a conversation about making it work in our 2 bedroom).  This is a different kind of surrender.  I throw my hands up and let things work out just as they are supposed to…

The hallway in 6pm daylight…Look at all that light!

The layout