on relocation

I've been kind of lax on keeping up with the postings (again) but it's because we're getting ready to move (again). The place we've been staying in belongs to a very dear friend of mine who was kind enough to rent it to us until we found somewhere else or they moved back into the state, whichever came first. We've been so blessed to be able to live here because, although smaller than our last home, it has cost us decidedly less to maintain also. This has allowed us to pay off all ALL of our not inconsiderable debt months before we thought we could. That means when the opportunity came along for us to rent a larger, newly renovated house we were able to jump at the chance. 

Because of having to do the short sale on the Utah house, our credit isn't good enough to finance buying a house without a sizable down payment. We haven't been able to save like we wanted in the last 8 months since moving to Arizona because of our debt. Now that it's paid off (YAY!) that will be our next goal. But for now we're pretty happy with the new rental situation. 

We'd been praying that  we'd be able to find somewhere to live when the time came. We wanted a place that was affordable but also big enough that we had room to grow. We also wanted something fairly new so there wouldn't be a lot of money going towards upkeep. So size, price and newness were our motivating factors. Then one night at work, Jason was out on a burglary call where a home was stripped of it's copper piping. The landlord showed up to assess if anything else was missing and the two started talking. Turns out he has multiple properties in the area including one he was remodeling and he'd love to have a police officer as a tenant. Jason told him, funnily enough, we're looking for a new place. And everything came together. 

It's a 4 bedroom, 3 bath, 2300 square foot house with a loft upstairs in a nice quiet neighborhood. There's a playground four houses down from us and a greenbelt behind our back fence. There's even a community swimming pool at the end of the lane. As I said, the house has been newly redone so it has all new tile, carpets, fixtures, appliances and paint. We really couldn't have asked for a more ideal arrangement. 

We signed the lease agreement last Thursday and we move in this Saturday the 30th. Yep, 3 days from now. That has been the only stressful part of finding the new place; the landlord wanted it occupied by April 1st. So we've spent the last week boxing up our lives. Again. Luckily this move will be nowhere near as arduous as the last since the new place is about 10 minutes away. No packing for a long distance haul, worrying that everything won't fit in the truck. We can make as many trips as it takes. 

So this is it. Our next big thing. Stressful and tiring and amazingly serendipitous all at once, at least until Saturday. Only three more days and we'll be moved in and can unpack all the boxes, decorate and finally settle in. And that is a very good thing.