All of a sudden, the apartment search drastically changed. Now we were looking for a two bedroom rather than one bedroom, that allows dogs, and has washer/dryer hookups, with a different price range, too. We first tried to look at a nearby apartment complex that is fairly new, and looks really nice. Mom and Dad had looked there for my sister and her husband when they were moving back here, so they knew what they were like. At the same time, we looked into another apartment complex, that was a little farther away, but was also nice and met all our requirements. The second one, we soon found out, didn't have any openings until July 1st. So, we put that one on the back burner and started looking more closely at the first one. Through a telephone conversation with the complex, we found out that they do not allow first time renters (which we are), so that meant that place was out, too.
We were starting to get a little discouraged (or, I was, at least), but we knew that we really had just begun our search. (I was probably the most discouraged simply because I had been looking through apartment stuff for several months already.) Soon, we found a house that was 1.5 stories plus a basement. We went to take a look at it, and there were a lot of positives, but also a lot of negatives. Pretty quickly, we ruled that one out.
Then, we revisited a complex that I had looked at before, but had ruled it out due to cost. But, with Kaleb and I both contributing money, we were pretty sure we could afford it. So we went to look at an apartment a couple of weeks ago. We realllly liked it, but we just had to make sure it was going to fit in our budget. We picked up an application packet anyway, and after running some numbers, we discovered we could do it!
So, we turned in our applications (after a lot of phone conversations in which we tried to figure things out) last Thursday (the 5th). On Tuesday, I called because we had not heard anything about our applications yet, on whether we had been accepted or denied. She told me she would check on it and call me back. She called me back a few hours later and said that everything looks great and our lease was all drawn up and ready to go. She started talking about the apartment and I had to stop her and ask her if it was an upstairs or downstairs apartment. I really thought they would give us a choice, since they told us they had both available. However, she hadn't asked that question and had already drawn up our lease. So anyway, she informed me it was an upstairs. I asked if they had any downstairs ones available and she said they might be able to move things around and get us a downstairs one instead. I told her we would much prefer the downstairs apartment. So, once again, we hung up, with her telling me she would call back.
We heard nothing from her the rest of Tuesday or at all Wednesday. So I called again on Thursday asking if they found us a downstairs apartment. She informed me they had been working on it, so she was going to check to see how far they got and she would call me back. Ugh. Let me tell you, at that point, I was not a very happy camper. They seemed to not understand the concept of calling someone back. So I waited several more hours until she finally called back. They found a downstairs apartment for us and had re-drawn up the lease. Yay! She and I started talking numbers on how much our monthly rent was going to be, etc etc. After hanging up with her, I finally felt like this whole process was actually going to happen! I was beginning to get excited. :) I called my mom, and through talking to her, realized that the monthly rent that she had quoted me seemed way too high for what we had figured out. So I called back again (much to my dismay), but this time talked to a different woman. We got everything figured out, but since the monthly rent changed, our deposit was going to change, too. So she told me she would have the other lady figure it out and call us. Sigh.....let me tell you, I have been learning a lesson on patience this week...
Okay, so, she hadn't called me back by 2pm today. Oh, I forgot to mention, we set up an appointment to sign our lease on Saturday (tomorrow), at which time we needed our deposit, which had to be in a cashier's check, so we had to know the amount today so we could go to the bank to get the check before tomorrow. Whew. So, I had to call again and figure out what our deposit was going to be. Well, finally, we got it figured out, and after I got off work, my dad and I went to the bank to get the check. So, tomorrow morning, at 10am, Kaleb and I will be heading to the apartment office to sign our lease and turn in our deposit! YAY!
Our move-in date is June 4th, which is only 3 weeks from tomorrow!!!!!! :) We are both SUPER excited and thankful that God provided for us, even though there seemed to be a lot of obstacles. Thank you to all of you who were praying that we would find a place. Oh....in case you didn't realize....both Lily (Kaleb's dog) and Snowbelle (my dog) will be coming with us. :) That leaves Mom and Dad alone in our big empty house :). Even though the four of us are rarely home at the same time due to busy schedules, I know we have all thoroughly enjoyed being together this past year. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we know change can be a good thing, but that doesn't always make it easy. Pray that God will bless us through this change and strengthen, rather than weaken, our faith in Him and our love for each other.
