What's The Word?

Relief, excitement, joy, giddiness, anticipation, optimism, gratitude, surprise, curiosity.....I could list another hundred words and I'm not sure I'd stumble upon the one that best fits my mood right now. It's too wild and complex to sum up.We are moving!!!!! We've been on the hunt for a new place for about a month now and I've been driving all over the seacoast area looking at places with both boys in tow, that have mostly ended up being totally shitholes. There was one great place in Portsmouth right near a close friend's home and in a great neighborhood but it was too small and too expensive. So, I kept looking but was feeling discouraged about finding something. Wednesday I called about a place in Kittery that sounded too good to be true and it was, it was already rented. Back to the drawing board.Saturday night the phone rang - turned out to be the landlord of the place in Kittery asking if we were still intersted because the tennants that were lined up to take it had bailed at the last minute. (2 young girls who were roommates for the first time and one didn't really like the place but waited to say anything until after signing the lease) Anyway....it worked out in our favor. We drove down Sunday morning and took a look. From the outside it's not too impressive, and honestly, when I saw the outside I thought it was going to be totally lame. But, the old saying "looks can be deceiving" proved true here. Inside is really nice. It's older and has some flaws but I think of them as character really. The place is huge...i mean really HUGE. It's about the size of Tim's mom's house (for those who have been to it when we lived there) but it's an apartment. We have a basement, a laundry room - a room for laundry - for my friends who have been to our current place you understand how huge this is...our current stackable super tiny washer/dryer is in the hallway across from our bathroom; I digress, a garage a formal dining room plus the kitchen is big enough to be an eat-in, an enclosed porch, a living room and two bedrooms. I'm beyond excited and thankful to be moving to this place.It will cut Tim's commute down from 45 minutes one way to maybe 15 with traffic. It means the boys and I are a million miles closer to soooo many of our friends and some amazing playgrounds in Portsmouth. We'll be .7 miles from the public library. It's just like something out of a dream - if I could have imagined our next home this would be it.Tim signed the lease and dropped off the security deposit tonight. He also called our current landlord to ask about getting out of our lease and she was totally fine about it - almost happy that we're leaving, though she's always liked us and been friendly towards us. I like to think that she just understands the situation and isn't in the business of being a slum-lord. Not to say that this place we're in now is slummy at all, it's not, i just mean the personality that some sketchy landlords can have.SO, we move the first weekend in May. We'll have keys a few days before that so I'll be making some smaller trips with the boys probably. If anyone wants to help it'd be awesome, but I know most of our friends have kiddos too so it's not too feasible. Although, if anyone would be interested in having Benny hang out with them for an afternoon while Nate & I run down with some stuff that'd be a HUGE help. If anyone would like to come over for a house warming party/playgroup though we'll be planning one soon!

One last related note - This might sound silly or hokey to some but I believe in it. Most of you know my spiritual beliefs and know that I had a very strong connection to my dad when he was alive and believe I still do even though he's not physically here anymore. On the way to look at this place on Sunday I sent a "prayer" (I hate that word because it doesn't fit what I do but I'll use it for descriptive purposes here) to my Dad to ask his guidance about this place, to ask him to help in some small way as we tried to find a new home that would make our lives so much easier in so many ways. It's not just the shorter commute for Tim, but the rent is actually going to be less than living in Lebanon, it's closer to so many friends and activities, it's so much more condusive to the lifestyle we're trying to lead (more eco-conscious and more consensual) it's a combination of many factors. I don't know for certain if my Dad was pulling strings for us or if we just have strangely good fortune right now, but I want to think that he was doing something for us somehow because it just seems too random that this woman called us back about the apartment when all she had was our number on her caller ID and that this place is so perfect for our family in location, size and price. Maybe it is just a fluke, maybe the whole Butterfly Theory is working in our favor right now, maybe I owe whomever invented Caller ID a muffin basket, but for what it's worth, I feel comforted thinking that somehow my Dad was guiding us to find this home. So I end this long, happy blog feeling such relief that we have found a new apartment that we so needed and such hope that it will become an amazing home for us.