Snippets

I finally have a desktop again!!
I have a desk mostly all to myself, only a few boxes are crammed around me and most of them are to be taken outside to the carport where my father-in-law's extra stuff that managed to scrounge a hiding spot in the apartment is going.

It was just too much to try and scrunch into a Facebook or instagram post how everything is going but I feel like my quick updates have gotten a little whiney and I wanted to take a minute to blog and express how grateful I am for everything that's going on right now. It may have been a rocky move and being right at the cusp of my third trimester while doing it may have been...less than ideal (28 weeks as of today!!) but we are honestly so relieved to be where we are and making these proactive choices with our life.
People are super confused when we tell them we moved out of our glorious, beautiful house and into a tiny apartment just as we're finally actually starting a family. It's easy enough to say, "well I lost my job so it just became too much for how little we needed the extra space," and that would satisfy their need to understand our motives. But it honestly goes deeper than that. The house was great. The house would have held us for years and years and been just dandy. We could still afford that house on Mark's job alone (#BLESSINGS), although missing out on fun date nights and a loosey-goosey budget. We wouldn't have been bankrupt if we stayed.
But we also wouldn't have had much of a plan for the future. Any sort of plan that we could both be happy with, that is. Retirement would be an unfathomable, distant prospect and planning any fun trips with or without little ones spanning the years would be nearly nonexistent. And we began to question whether that was a life we wanted, just for the sake of some extra rooms and stairs (and a ridiculous HOA monthly payment).
It was telling when the minute we actually spent the night at the temporary apartment (explanation on that in a minute) we both looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief and admitted how much better we felt already. Getting into a big home is what married people do. And now is the time to do it, with the market the way it is. And we're so glad we had the opportunity to, effectively, "try it out". We've experienced it and now we know, we do not need a large home. Our lives can benefit greatly from other forms of living.
Our plan is to invest in a du/tri/fourplex of apartments and live in one, landlording for the other tenants to basically "cover" our rent expenses aka the mortgage. The reason we had to squish into the apartment we're in now is the ever accommodating concept of time. The house we were living in closed before we could find the right place or one that would be profitable enough to be worth it. So again, we are so incredibly grateful that we had this place to fall back on. It's impossible to know when the right place will pop up, so we could be in here for a couple months, or until next year.
Mainly, it feels amazing to be able to breathe and have a large percentage of Mark's paycheck divvied up into savings and feel like our future is just that much more secure.

And as far as pregnancy goes, I'm still doing splendidly. I posted a photo of my swollen feet from church the other day and cringed at myself when people responded so kindly and were sorry that I was "miserable". Because I'm not miserable at all. I'm tired and I'm sore and I wish I had time to learn this new body before it changes again but through it all I have a happy little ray of sunshine kicking me in the spleen and an incredible husband and two dopey mutts to love on and it's more than I deserve. These pregnancy changes are far from unexpected and I will never stop being grateful that I have had far less to deal with than most women. Truthfully, it was probably my own fault my feet were so swollen that day. Hours on days on end of moving and poor hydration methods and fast food are the real culprit, I'm sure.

In conclusion, do not be misled by my misguided humor in instagram captions. Life is good. I am good. New trails are being blazed and we'll see where we end up.