Well. After spending the last many days totally immersed in the soul crushing process known as "urban house hunting" I am happy to report that we are emerging victorious. It was nobody's idea of a good time, but it looks like we have signed a lease on an apartment in the Boston area. You'll note the word "apartment" in that sentence, I suppose, so let's discuss a bit.
We drove down to Massachusetts early Saturday morning, and spent Saturday and Sunday looking at place after place. We looked at an old farmhouse on acreage, we looked at city apartments with funky wood paneling and no yard space to speak of. We tried very hard to be open minded, which I think we did a reasonable job of, considering. After seeing a particular place in the heart of the downtown area of a little city outside of Cambridge, we decided to go for it. It is indeed an apartment- on the second and third floors of an older house- but it is sparkly and clean and is walking distance from things like the library, the park, and the town pool. It will be a different life than the one that we live on our acre here in Vermont, but we knew that was coming and have at least some sense of adventure. I think.
So, we put our eggs in the proverbial basket, laid down a deposit, and put in an application. And then, of course, we found ourselves totally entrenched in three days worth of ridiculous back and forth negotiations with the property management company, during which we spent a lot of time playing in the local park near the apartment and envisioning what life would be like if we got the place that was so very much better than anything else we saw. In other words, we tortured ourselves a bit. Just for fun.
But last night we finally got the word that the place is ours. I'm still holding my breath a bit until our signed copy of the lease comes back this way with the landlord's signature on it as well. I'm an optimist at heart, but goodness, a girl can only take so much. To celebrate the sudden reduction in massive family-wide anxiety, Mariam gathered huge bundles of flowers from the backyard and brought them inside for me to put in empty Mason jars.
Any and all available surfaces in this house will soon be laden with boxes, packing tape, and piles of stuff to sort through. But I think for the next few days, we will go with the jars of flowers instead.
A bit of relative peace and quiet is very well deserved for adults and small people alike around these parts, let me tell you.
