Goodbye, Apartment! We Will Miss You!
We're moving again... this time, into an actual house. My cousin, who owns his home, got a job in North Dakota and is moving there. He and his family wanted to rent their house out to someone they knew, preferably a responsible, upstanding family such as mine, haha. He wanted a family that he could trust to take good care of the house, and to be able to fix small things when they come up, such as leaky faucets, burnt-out ceiling fan motors, broken door knobs, etc. He and his family will be out-of-state for several years, and so he won't be able to come back very often to fix a running toilet himself. He's going to set up a special bank account to provide us with money to fix things, and also we can use it to pay the rent.
It is a cute little two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow close to the middle of town, where all the homes are older and most are nicely kept up. It's very close to, but not quite ON, a main street, so it's not so trafficky, and won't be hard to pull in/back out of the driveway. It is within walking distance to the nice park with the museum, one of the cooler coffeehouses (the one with a kind of beatnik-y vibe), and biking distance to pretty much anywhere I want to go (except work-- that's way across town, like ten miles! I'm not biking to work, arriving all sweaty and sunburnt and dehydrated).
Plus, there is a long driveway, so I can FINALLY tow my Karmann Ghia out of my parents' driveway, and maybe get some work done on it, then get it registered and drive it! I'm so stoked about that!!
So, I still have to give my apartment manager our 30-day notice. I'm dreading it -- she's going to be so sad to see us go! Truth be told, we are sad to go, too. We like it here, in our little apartment in the ghetto. It's a pretty nice complex, our neighbors and our apartment manager, Linda, are such nice people, and the apartment itself is spacious and I absolutely loved that it is so close to Safeway and Big Lots. Truly, it takes me LONGER to get in the car, back out of my parking space, and drive it next door, than to just walk down the street to the front of the store. It takes less than sixty seconds to walk to Safeway. And I'd say... ninety seconds to two minutes to walk to Big Lots. You cannot GET more convenient than that!
Still... this is a real HOUSE with a proper front yard and shady porch, and a good-sized back yard full of plants and trees, with a big garage (that has been converted into a two-studio man-cave by my cousin, which Jerry is pretty excited about), plus a garden shed which could house all the garage-type stuff so that Jerry's man-cave won't be too cluttered with tools and such. And not to mention the house itself, which is bigger than the space we're in now, and has got all the old built-in cabinetry and a fireplace, and I believe it has hardwood flooring (under the carpet, which my cousin said we could pull up if we wanted). He said we could do what we wanted to the house, as far as painting walls, or changing out fixtures, or flooring.
The only drawback of the house (that I can tell, so far) is that my late Aunt had remodeled the bathroom... now it's got a pedestal sink, and a shower enclosure, but no bathtub. I don't care for that because a pedestal sink does not offer much in the way of counter space and storage, does it? And Alex is so bummed that there's no tub - he only takes baths, and hates showers. But, that is a small price to pay for all the other accoutrements the house will offer us. I consoled Alex by saying that we could get another swimming pool, like the one we had at my parents' house! He could bathe in that on hot summer days. ("Can we put bubbles in it?" Well... sure we can. Why not.)
I'm sure there are little things wrong with the house. Like, they told me that they wanted me to come over there so they can give me the keys and so I can "practice unlocking the door". Umm... I already know how to open a door, so I am wondering exactly what I need to know about this front door knob. Maybe I should practice climbing in the kitchen window, too... just in case.
It is a cute little two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow close to the middle of town, where all the homes are older and most are nicely kept up. It's very close to, but not quite ON, a main street, so it's not so trafficky, and won't be hard to pull in/back out of the driveway. It is within walking distance to the nice park with the museum, one of the cooler coffeehouses (the one with a kind of beatnik-y vibe), and biking distance to pretty much anywhere I want to go (except work-- that's way across town, like ten miles! I'm not biking to work, arriving all sweaty and sunburnt and dehydrated).
Plus, there is a long driveway, so I can FINALLY tow my Karmann Ghia out of my parents' driveway, and maybe get some work done on it, then get it registered and drive it! I'm so stoked about that!!
So, I still have to give my apartment manager our 30-day notice. I'm dreading it -- she's going to be so sad to see us go! Truth be told, we are sad to go, too. We like it here, in our little apartment in the ghetto. It's a pretty nice complex, our neighbors and our apartment manager, Linda, are such nice people, and the apartment itself is spacious and I absolutely loved that it is so close to Safeway and Big Lots. Truly, it takes me LONGER to get in the car, back out of my parking space, and drive it next door, than to just walk down the street to the front of the store. It takes less than sixty seconds to walk to Safeway. And I'd say... ninety seconds to two minutes to walk to Big Lots. You cannot GET more convenient than that!
Still... this is a real HOUSE with a proper front yard and shady porch, and a good-sized back yard full of plants and trees, with a big garage (that has been converted into a two-studio man-cave by my cousin, which Jerry is pretty excited about), plus a garden shed which could house all the garage-type stuff so that Jerry's man-cave won't be too cluttered with tools and such. And not to mention the house itself, which is bigger than the space we're in now, and has got all the old built-in cabinetry and a fireplace, and I believe it has hardwood flooring (under the carpet, which my cousin said we could pull up if we wanted). He said we could do what we wanted to the house, as far as painting walls, or changing out fixtures, or flooring.
The only drawback of the house (that I can tell, so far) is that my late Aunt had remodeled the bathroom... now it's got a pedestal sink, and a shower enclosure, but no bathtub. I don't care for that because a pedestal sink does not offer much in the way of counter space and storage, does it? And Alex is so bummed that there's no tub - he only takes baths, and hates showers. But, that is a small price to pay for all the other accoutrements the house will offer us. I consoled Alex by saying that we could get another swimming pool, like the one we had at my parents' house! He could bathe in that on hot summer days. ("Can we put bubbles in it?" Well... sure we can. Why not.)
I'm sure there are little things wrong with the house. Like, they told me that they wanted me to come over there so they can give me the keys and so I can "practice unlocking the door". Umm... I already know how to open a door, so I am wondering exactly what I need to know about this front door knob. Maybe I should practice climbing in the kitchen window, too... just in case.