Condo Living

I've come full circle with living arrangements. I grew up in a 2-bed/2-bath condo most of my life, and here I am now with my own family, in a 2-bed/2-bath condo.

Although we miss our house terribly, to the point where we both kind of regret the decision to sell, I am trying to focus on the positives of our new, temporary home. And we look forward to the possibilities that moving into a new home next Spring will bring.

So we are renting a condo from our friends. They recently moved to Florida and haven't had any luck selling their place. And wouldn't you know, just around the time we needed to be out of our house, our friends were planning a trip back here to visit. And so we struck a double-benefitting deal to move in and got the keys to the place, and have the best landlords ever! It's so fun to live life here and think that my friend did the same mommy things here too. This place feels like such a gift from God, as we wait to move into another house this next Spring. (The older couple we are planning to buy from is waiting on their new house to be built, and we have both agreed that it would be best to let them not have to move twice.)

My main cup-is-half-full focus for our condo living is: convenience. 


Oh man, I could go on and on with how convenient this place is.

• Less space to clean, I've already realized how much more time I have to do other things than keep up our home.
• The washer/dryer is right outside our bedroom. Hallelujah! I never knew laundry could be so quick and easy. Why don't they make all homes w/ the laundry room right outside the master bedroom?
• Location, location, location. We are closer to downtown, in walking distance to Trader Joe's and the mall (I'm talking there's a path that goes straight to it). Grocery shopping has earned it's rightful place to one of my favorite things to do. I can just put the girls in the stroller and walk on over! 
• I have a walk-in closet! Don't mind the fact that it is also where Naiya sleeps currently. (I quickly gave up on my attempt to get the girls to sleep in one room.) 
• We have our very own master bath. No longer do we have to share it as the main bathroom. It is spacious, and private, and I love it! 
• I have a little reading nook in our bedroom. I've been telling Ryan that "one day" I would love to have a chair and ottoman in our bedroom to read/journal/just plain relax in. And that day has come my friends. Even if I had to steal the nursery rocking chair and ottoman to do so.

Some perks about our place specifically is that we are on the ground floor, and our sliding door opens to the parking lot, which makes it convenient to go to/from the car with two little munchkins. Our humble abode gets plenty of sunlight (in fact, maybe a little too much, we've had to invest in some heavy curtains to get some good sleep in these bright, summer months). The floor plan is great, really open and the handicap accessible has given us great big doors that when open, make the place seem much bigger.  We have a gas stove, my first experience of this beloved appliance. A gas fireplace. And bigger bedrooms. 

We are also closer to some of our favorite friends, but sadly further from our family and our wonderful neighbors. We've given up our water community, but hope to take advantage of our boat and invites to Ty & Jenna's place on the water. I think the thing I will miss terribly is our deck. I loved having my morning coffee and spending some sacred alone time talking with God, journaling and enjoying all of the summer sounds of the morning. (I have even come to grow nostalgic over the sounds of garbage trucks in the morning.) I looked forward to eating breakfast together on the deck, and coming together again for dinner. I will miss grilling on our gas bbq, I'm not quite sure what to do with this small charcoal grill we have on our patio. I know Ryan and I will both miss entertaining large crowds. But maybe we'll still be able to swing it here, we'll see. 

I want to leave this place with fond memories. I want to be sad when we leave this place. Because then I know we made the best of our time here, even with knowing we wouldn't be here long. I look forward to forming friendships with our neighbors and being comfortable enough to knock on their doors for an egg or a cup of sugar. 

We are so thankful for our condo!