Pros and Cons of Apartment Life

Walking Distance to Mission Bay

Moving twice isn't ideal, but we felt it was what needed to happen, to make sure the selling of our old house and the buying of our new one went smoothly. We anticipated renting for three months (and even signed a 3 month lease), so we were shocked when the builders told us that we'd be closing in October and not December. More stress! Our landlord wouldn't let us out of the lease, but the builders made a concession for us on our home price as compensation. We've been homeowners living in a 3 bedroom, plus loft,  2.5 bath, 1800 square foot house for eight years. I wasn't thrilled about losing the comforts of home that I'd grown accustomed to, but I tried to look at it as a new adventure for us. And it was! But we are really ready to get out of here. So, let's talk about the pro's and con's of apartment living as I've experienced them for the last six weeks.

Apartment Life #confessions

I'll be the first to admit that I'm spoiled. I've lived in two different places over the last thirteen years and both were brand new. Our next house is brand new. Hell, even my childhood home was brand new. We moved in when I was five. I don't recall worrying about the cleanliness of things back then, but it was definitely of some concern during my apartment living years after college. I cleaned immediately after moving in "just to be sure," and usually felt a little uncomfortable during the first few weeks. My obsessive cleanliness disorder has gotten worse and worse over time, making my transition to a 38 year old apartment really hard after living in everything is brand new land for so long.

The Big Book Cover Reveal

I get so happy when you comment that you can't wait to read my book. First of all, I'm still kind of amazed that I wrote a book that people will be able to read. But also, I think it is just so sweet that you've said it without knowing a single thing about the title or the story. I've been pretty tight lipped about it. Up to this point, it's pretty much just been me and my manuscript. My mom read it in it's infancy when it was super rough. Then, beta readers, my publisher and editor, but that's it. I wrote this thing alone and I didn't tell anyone I was doing it. In my first mention of it here on my blog I'd already been working on it for nine months. My online peeps have been hearing about it for years, but to this day, very few people in my life even know I wrote a book. It's so cute, but my husband has mentioned my book to more people than I have. Nobody at work knows. Writing this novel has been my baby, my passion, and also my secret for so long. The time has finally come to share, and I'm terrified. That was always the goal, even when I wasn't sure I could even write a book but I didn't realize how scary it would be.

The Moving Diet & Exercise Program

I don't mean to sound like a whiner, but I have to say that moving was a really really terrible experience. Something about putting every single thing I own in the entire world into 24" boxes was almost enough to send me over the edge. I felt so overwhelmed. My husband has more experience with moving and living in limbo. I have to give him a lot of credit for taking the lead and pulling me along. He knew what packing materials to order, and how to pack all of our glass while I stood stunned and motionless in our bedroom. Time was limited, so I knew I needed to do something, but I looked around and just didn't know where to start or how to do it. He takes everything in stride, and it didn't bother him too much, but the disarray in our house, having to decide what to put in storage for three months and what to keep, and the pressure of having to make everything disappear in three days was a lot for me to handle. We purged a lot of things from our house in preparation for selling...and still I felt so disgusted by all the stuff we had to move. It really makes me want to get get rid of everything! Burn it all!! Well that won't happen, but this experience has definitely renewed my desire to continue working towards becoming a minimalist or at least a quasi minimalist.

How We Enjoyed Lake Tahoe without a Rental Car

A few months ago I realized that Southwestern Airlines credits for flights we didn't use last November was set to expire. I didn't want to spend too much more money trying to go somewhere, nor did we really have a lot of time considering we were in the middle of trying to sell our house, but I absolutely could not let that money go to waste.

Me: Okay, where can we go? Hmmm. How 'bout Lake Tahoe? Reno isn't that far.
Him: Why? 
Me: I don't know. I think I've always wanted to go there. Seems like a cool place to visit.
Him: Okay.

He was like, cool whatever, let's go and left it up to me to plan the entire trip. I had to tinker with days and times a lot to get reasonably priced direct flights so it wouldn't take us four hours to get there. Before everything was finalized I'd made and cancelled two different hotel reservations, and still hadn't decided on what our outings would be, but I got it together the week we went. Even then, I had to re-book our shuttle, and our cruise for different times. Ugh. But it all worked out in the end, and we did it without a rental car.

Moving Sucks, Moving Twice Sucks Harder

Real estate is weird. I feel like everything happens backwards. You sell your house when you don't yet have a place to live. You buy a new home, before you've sold your old one. You pay a hefty commitment deposit and agree to buy before you've had a home inspected or even built. You choose flooring and other design elements when the necessary funding for it won't be finalized for weeks or months. Every single  detail for moving or buying a home has been set in place, yet nothing is truly final until those keys are in your hand. None of this makes any sense, whatsoever in my head. Nothing is done in the order you'd think it should be done, and yet this is how it works.

How can anyone function like this? The answer is very stressfully.