Sorry for the long absence. There's a reason I haven't been keeping up with my blog, and it's a good one--I swear.

See, for months Daniel and I have been trying to figure out why we moved into our current apartment in the first place. We've narrowed it down to one reason: we were desperate for a place to live! We had just gotten back from our second summer in Jackson and didn't have a home. So we took the first thing we could find in our price range. And it ended up being a huge disaster.

We hate that apartment, and since I've finished school and been home all day (everyday) I've come to loathe it with every fiber of my being. Frankly, it's disgusting.

So, we talked our manager into letting us sublease our apartment (even though there's a clause forbidding that in our lease agreement) so that we don't have to move out when the lease is up in August--when we have a brand new baby.



Finally, with permission to sublease, all we had to do was find a lessor. Easy, right? NOPE! Turns out other people are much smarter than us and saw our little dump for what it is. But we finally found someone who is as desperate as we were back in August and they signed a lease. (They're LDS, so I made sure to mention that the ward we're in is AMAZING. Which it is. That's about one of the only things I've like about living there.)



So now we have a few weeks to find a new home! Time is much more on our side this time, though, so we're being careful. Because I have the luxury of time, I've developed a few criteria that have to be met.

First, it must be clean. I mean no excessive unidentifiable spots on the carpet. (A few are understandable, but every foot or so? Not happening.) No thick layers of grime caked on the blinds (so thick and gross that not even undiluted bleach and steel wool will take it off.) And nothing left in the bathroom drawers (like used razors) and kitchen cupboards (like cookie crumbs.)

Second, it must have washer and dryer hookups. And I will be getting a washing machine that works. I don't want to offend anyone, but I have no intention of continuing to go to my in-laws once a week to do laundry...especially with a newborn baby. I'll be doing it at home, thank you. On my own time.

Third--and I know this shows how spoiled I really am, but I'm going to say it anyway--I want a reliable cooling unit. Daniel was raised with no air conditioning, so he can function with large numbers of fans around the house. But I have no little tolerance for clutter. And fans all over the floor, teetering on stacked boxes, and on my countertops... well, that's clutter! Plus, I want to be able to regulate my baby's temperature easily, cus (let's face it) babies aren't exactly easy.



So, with my guidelines set (in stone) I have been spending my precious little time on the library's internet (allowing no time to update!) combing through craigslist, ksl, and various other websites and classifieds searching for something that meets our needs. And I found it. It's perfect.



It's a small duplex in Salt Lake City proper, about ten minutes from Daniel's work, and it simply screams "home." Technically, it's a one-bedroom duplex, but only because the "den" doesn't have a closet and the window is too small to classify it as a second bedroom. But it just happens to be the perfect size to fit a crib and changing table! (Both of which my Mom got us for graduation when she was here a few weeks ago.) And it has small nooks and crannies all over the house--a little food storage here, a little there...

It even has a basement! Granted, it's unfinished, but it's more than plenty of room to store all of our stuff that has been kept in the closet of our second bedroom until now. It even has a coal shoot sloping down from one window from when the house was built. Quaint, no?

It's clean--the landlord has definitely kept up with it--and they hadn't even had someone in to professionally clean the carpets when we saw it yesterday. It has awesome tile countertops--so they haven't been cut and scratched with constant wear and tear--and tall oak cupboards that go all the way to the ceiling!

As for my three crucial criteria: Clean? Check! Washer and dryer hookups? Check! (Although it will be interesting to see how Daniel and our buddies will get a washer and dryer down the oh-so-charming spiral staircase that goes to the basement). Reliable cooling unit? Check! Even though the building was built in the twenties, the landlord installed a new air conditioning unit in the last ten years and it works great!



(If you're done reading about the duplex, I understand. But just because I'm so happy with finding it, I'm going to continue to list the good points.)

It's in a real residential neighborhood--not a row of apartment buildings--and the homes on the street are beautiful brick houses with front porches sporting hammocks and rocking chairs, and they all well-kept yards and lawns. And the best part? The street has a name! Browning Avenue. I'll have a normal address--not just coordinates! (For those who don't know, most of Utah is set up in a grid system so homes have addresses like "8550 South 300 East" or "650 North 700 East.")

I'll also have a real mailbox! I won't have to use a key to get into my minuscule mail cavity like I have been for years. And it's white. And it's right at the edge of my--get this--yard. Yep. Fifteen whole square feet of clean, crisp grass in front, with more off to the side. Mr. Landlord says it makes a great vegetable garden. Bliss!



And probably the most awesome part about it? Rent is $55 less than what we're paying now for our little dump in Sandy! And the utilities are the same, so we don't have to worry about an increase there. It's just as close to Walmart and Costco as our current place, so I won't be spending any more on gas either! That means we'll have $55 extra a month to spend on diapers. A-maze-ing.



Here's the catch. We don't know if we got it or not.

We filled out an application before we even left the unit. And I know for a fact we were the first people to get our application in. The previous tenant moved out on Wednesday, and the landlord couldn't show it to anyone until 6pm yesterday. We were there at 5:50 pm and met him at the door. So we're hoping...


With that, I'm going to go pretend I'm not mentally positioning furniture while I wait to hear from the landlord.