Blogocentric Formulations

Moving

After 9.5 years at our current apartment community (3 years in our first unit, then the past 6.5 years in our current unit), we're officially moving! It's been almost two years since we started fostering-to-adopt our kids and after a global pandemic kept us largely at home for half of that time, we came to the realization that we might need a little more space than our cozy little two-bedroom, two-bath, 950 square-foot apartment can provide!

We ended up getting a four-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath townhouse with just over 1,800 square feet of space. It's a big step up, both in terms of the type of place we're renting, and the amount it costs, but I realized that it definitely follows a pattern we've set for ourselves. When we first moved down here for college, my wife and I spent about 10 years living the "student" life (i.e., small, cheap, and not-very-nice apartments). Once we both had solid jobs and were on our career paths, we upgrade to the apartment complex we currently live at, which is an upscale "young professionals" type place: luxury amenities (i.e., quality finishes in the apartment, a community that has features like pools, gym, outdoor activity space, etc.). And now, about 10 years later, we're leaving this behind for an "urban family" environment: a house-sized place, albeit one with a higher population-density than single-family homes in the suburbs.

I'm excited to see how we make use of our new space. I'll have my own bedroom/office that will allow me to continue to work from home without my desk being in the middle of the living room. Our kids will each have their own bedroom. The place has a nice soaking tub in the master bedroom, and a ginormous pantry that sure beats the limited cabinet space we have in our current kitchen.

But this process has also reminded me of how much I hate moving. Which is strange because it's been almost seven years since we last had to do it, but once I started to schedule the movers and work my way through the checklist of things to do, it all came rushing back. Moving is a huge pain, and there's always something else that needs to be done. No matter how well organized or prepared, something will definitely fall between the cracks and require fixing later.

Still, based on our past track record, hopefully this place will hold us over for a number of years until we're ready to take the next step, which is actually buying a single-family home of our own. I just hope that it's not another ten years until we get to that point!