Sunday Scribblings #5 (but #1 for me)

I was looking on line for journal prompts that weren't too cheesy, just meaningful enough, and that my kids might like to read one day. I found this site, and I'm going to give it a go. One of my goals for this year was to journal in my personal journal every week and our family journal once a month. I've been doing pretty good with that goal. But honestly? My life isn't too thrilling, and sometimes I've just got nothing to write in my personal journal that feels meaningful. The topic for the week is to write the story of why you moved to the place where you currently live. I've been thinking about it a lot since we've been getting ready to leave. I'm not being thankful enough for the place we now call home, so this is something good for me to reflect on. While we were engaged, we spent some good time figuring out how we could save a down payment for a house, how much house we could afford, where we'd want to call home forever. It soon became quite apparent that we would not be able to buy a "real house" in our town and keep the family life we want - we're not too far outside of San Francisco. In order to buy a house, I'd have to work full time, and even then it would be a stretch - if possible. It was important to both of us that I stay at home with the kids, so we were resigned to apartment living for awhile. And really? It wasn't all that bad. Every week we still miss living in the neighborhood we did when we were first married. We were a short walk from one of the most fun downtowns we'll ever find. Great shopping, fun people watching, fantastic restaurants - this neighborhood had it all. It makes me so sad we'll never live in a place like that again. I was visiting a friend in her rented condo about 7 months after we were married. She had a postcard on her kitchen counter that had the prices the condos in the complex were selling for. The 2 bedrooms were in our budget! We didn't think we could find anything in our budget! Of course, we never had considered condos. We are pretty against HOAs, and I'm basically unhappy with the idea of anyone telling me what to do, especially when they're telling me what to do with something that I paid a whole lot of money for. Mine. It's mine. And you're telling me what to do with it? Ha. We ran numbers and found out that - wow - we really could do this. It was perfect timing. I was pregnant and we were getting ready to move into a bigger apartment one street down from our current one in just a few weeks. We were even seriously considering managing that apartment building. Whoa am I thankful we didn't do that! We started the process late January and got the keys March 3rd. We were homeowners! We celebrated our first wedding anniversary just 5 days later amid lots of paint fumes and half empty boxes. We thought we were in heaven. This huge apartment is ours? And it's this big? And the closets are really that spacious? Awesome! Nathan told a friend at work that our new place was so big (we moved into 1150 sq feet from a 500 sq foot apartment!), he felt like he needed to play Marco Polo to find me. We never intended to stay here long - two years, three years tops. In fact, we started talking about leaving when we'd been here for about six months. I have this pain-in-the-rear thing about planning ahead. Far ahead. Like five years or more at a time ahead. This condo has been good for us. Financially, it's been amazing to us. As much as I'm itching to get out (we need a yard! we need more storage! we need an office! a bigger kitchen! et-cet-er-a), I really am going to miss this place for the memories we have here. Three wedding anniversaries. Six birthdays - so far. Many fun game nights. Two new babies welcomed home. It wasn't all sunshine and smiles - the depression happened here, which was worst thing I've ever been through (and hopefully ever will go through), led us to adoption and to Josh. It's funny how you start to see the worst trials as the best blessings.