The Text that Changed Everything

Okay so the title is a little dramatic but it kind of sums out how I feel.

On Monday, July 8, 2013 when I came home from work Eric said "I have some excititng news, hold on one second and I'll show you." He got his phone and showed me a text that said "Hey Eric this is Aubrey. We are moving out of our basement apartment. You have first dibs if you want it." This was not the text that changed everything. We had offers like this before and they were never something that we seriously considered. Our conversation went something like this:

Eric: What do you think? Are you interested?
Me: It wouldn't hurt to find out more. We have to move out in December any way.
Eric: Okay I'll see if she can give us some details.

Eric then texted Aubrey back telling her we were interested and asking for details.

Okay so now you need some background information. We live at student housing and we knew we were getting a great deal ($672 for rent, utilities, cable, and internet for a one bedroom apartment). We knew that anywhere else we went would be at least $700 just to rent something similar and that utilities, cable, and internet would not be included. We knew that we wouldn't find anything better went it came time to move out. We knew that when it came time to move out we would be spend at least $200 more a month ... or at least we thought we knew.

Aubrey's next text blew us away. She told us "It's a two bedroom basement apartment, with and office. Plenty of storage. Rent is $500 a month and includes cable and internet. Oh and the landlord is super nice too." This was the text that changed everything. We were now seriously considering it and we hadn't even seen it. $500! That is less than we pay now for more space. Eric even texted back "Wow seems to good to be true. Can we come look at it?"

Aubrey gave us the landlords number and we set up a time to go and see the apartment on Wednesday. When we got there I was a little nervous. I was about to walk into someone's house that I didn't even know, and if everything worked out I would be living in that person's house. The landlord, Sara, was super nice and show us around. Its small but still so much bigger than what we are use to. There is an actual kitchen, and an actuall living room. It has its own entrance/office area. The bathroom is smaller, but that is okay. It has two storage spaces (I don't really know how to describe them. They are bigger than a closer but smaller than a room.) After we looked around we went upstairs to talk to Sara about some of the details. I was still waitng for the catch. I was expecting to hear the she wanted us to do yard work, or house cleaning, or something like that because the price was so low. All she wants us to do is keep the drain by our entrance clean and to help shovel in the winter.

 It wasn't to good to be true. We told Sara that we would let her know within a week if we wanted it (even though I pretty sure that we both knew before we left that we did).

When we left we started thinking of all the benefits of moving there. We would save $172 on rent each month, $20 on laundry each month, and $10 on cable each month (even though cable was included the HD channels were $10 extra). We could possibly save on car insurance. Eric would be closer to his work. We would be closer to Eric's family. Even though we would be farther away from my family it would still take the same amount of time to get there because we would be closer to the freeway.

Then we started thinking about the cons. I would be farther from my work, but only 5 minutes farther. Eric would be farther from school. We would be moving away from our ward and friends that we loved so much but we knew that it was coming and we would have to leave soon.

By the time we got home we knew we wanted to move there, but we also knew that we should pray about it.

On July 15 we told Sara that we wanted to move in, and on August 31, we will be moving in to our new apartment.

Our Little Apartment

In July of 2011 Eric and I found out that an apartment was available for us at the University of Utah student housing. We were very excited. It was cheep and close the U. In August we made our first payment, got our keys and walked inside. I almost cried. The walls were cinder block, the carpet was pink, it was small, it smelled, there was no counter space in the kitchen, and I didn't even know an oven could be that small. It didn't feel or look like a home. I wasn't expecting to move into something super nice or extravagant, but I definitely wasn't expecting this either.

Eric and I walked out and immediately started talking about how after we were married we would start looking for a new place. Until then we would make the best of it. Eric scattered Dryer sheets around the apartment, and we brought in air fresheners to make it smell better. Luckily the smell was easy to get rid off. As we started moving in furniture it started to feel bigger. As we started to hang up pictures we noticed the cinder block less. Slowly it started to look and feel more like a home.

Well school started and life became busy (or never slowed down I'm not sure which) and we never started to look for a new place. Around year later (I think) I brought up how we wanted to find a new place. The weird thing was neither one of us wanted to move anymore. Our little apartment felt like home, but I think it was more than that. Our neighbors were amazing, and so was our ward. We started to realize that when the time did come for move it would be a lot harder than we originally thought, and I was right. We have now been in our apartment for almost two years and are so sad to say that we are moving.

It's not the we have grown fond of the pink carpet, the lack of storage, the lack of counter space, the small oven, or the cinder block. We are very excited to leave that behind us. We have grown found of our neighbors, and will sincerely miss them. We live in a place with lots of kids. When we come home from work there is always someone outside playing. The grills are constantly being used in the summer. If we are carrying groceries there is always someone asking us if we need help. It has been so nice to be surrounded by people in the exact same situation as us. In the past its always been hard to watch others move out, but you knew that were moving on with there lives and we were always slightly jealous. Now its our turn I guess and I find myself wishing that we could just take everyone else with us. I wish that we could have the best of both worlds, but I know we are just moving on to a new adventure and we will meet many new amazing people and make new friends.