Moving again

It always feels weird... or maybe even tacky when I talk about moving before I've actually done it. I guess I'm always worried that I'm going to look wishy washy if we change our minds or something crazy comes up. But I can't help but to share here because moving is all I can think about. We've decided that we want to move to Arizona and we hope to do it by the end of summer. Josh has started applying for schools there, and he hopes the whole transferring process runs smoothly. It's just tricky when you use the G.I. Bill and stuff, which Josh is already using for his schooling here in SoCal.

But why are we moving? We were so excited to get to SoCal and being with family has been wonderful. I've gotten to experience a lot of things since moving here. It's honestly been so great for Wyatt. Having him around his cousins has truly made him a different kid and I would never regret that. But, it's expensive. I knew it was going to be pricey, but just hearing about how expensive a place is and then actually living it are two different things and I guess we had to learn the hard way. We had every intention of pushing through and skimping and saving, but when I try to find cheaper places to rent here it's really difficult aka I haven't actually found anything live-able and cheap. Just a quick craigslist search of Gilbert, AZ area showed us places to rent for half of what we pay here. We just can't bare to waste anymore money.

So now the process of transplanting our family begins. We're old pros by now, but it's still kinda stressful. I'm looking forward to this move though because we're hoping that Arizona could be our forever home. I'm really wanting to move to a place that I won't have to leave. Then maybe I can finally start collecting things and having roots. I'm desperate for that rooted feeling that I felt in Virginia, and I'm really hoping that Arizona will give that to us. I also want to make sure that we're more permanent since Wyatt is getting older and will be starting school soon. I don't want him moving around a bunch while in school. It's important to me that he grows up in the same town all his life.

Wish us luck!

Land of Nod is almost here!

Land of Nod is coming to Costa Mesa! Read all about how I'm going and you should too...

Our First Place

This is a google earth screen shot of our first place NOW. I assure you it was horrible.

Josh and I got married when we were 18. EIGHTEEN. I would never let my kid get married at 18... I can't even imagine how hard my family was rolling their eyes. Oh man. Anyway, so we got married at 18 and we didn't know anything about life, money, cost of living, taxes, jobs, whatever. We tried to be grown ups the best we could, but really, we were still kids. 

We rented a suuuuuuuper crappy house from a family acquaintance that was seriously so scary and awful. Honestly, I can't even believe this happened now because it's so against the law it's ridiculous. The house had zero insulation. ZERO. The owners stuffed paper in some parts of the wall. We had to get propane heat and a tiny propane heater was installed in one wall. The house had cracks and stuff all through out and the heat would just escape. It was so cold! And I'm pretty sure our propane tank had a leak as well. I think we had like a 1000 dollar heating bill one month. We finally told the propane people just to come and get their tank because we couldn't afford it. The rest of the winter we hid in the bedroom, surrounded by electric space heaters. We froze. 

The appearance of the house was just so embarrassing. The previous renters had CHICKENS IN THEIR LIVING ROOM IN CAGES. So when we moved in I shampooed the carpets over and over because well, chicken shit. In fact, we scrubbed the entire house from top to bottom... we were in there for a week before we realized we had fleas. We had to seal all the windows with plastic sheeting just to hopefully keep the cold out, and it didn't work because again, no insulation. Am I disgusting you yet? 18 year olds are dumb. I'm just embarrassing myself.

What was our rent you ask? 500. Want to know the funniest thing? We didn't get our security deposit of 500 dollars back because I got a few droplets of paint on the carpet. Guys, there was chicken shit on the carpets when I moved in. I didn't fight it because I was young and dumb and didn't know any better. The guy gave us 50 bucks and said, "I think that's fair.... don't you think?"

Sometimes I still think about that house and how horrible and crappy it was. That was one cold winter. I obviously would never put myself in an experience like that again. I guess Josh and I had to learn things the hard way or something.