Not As Hard As I Thought It Would Be

There's a children's song I know and the chorus starts out, "The angels are rejoicing, they're having a party..." That about sums it up. I am 98% sure that I've found a place to live ~ besides my parents' house ~ when Roommate's hubby comes home. I'll be working out all the details next week, then I'll know for sure, but right now it looks as if everything is a go.

When I took Roommate to the ER a couple of months ago, we ran into the town's librarian. She was unaware that I was living with Roommate, and she asked where I was going when Soldier returned home. I gave my standard answer, "I have no idea." She said that she and her husband have a one bedroom house next door to their house that they rent for practically nothing. It just so happens that "practically nothing" fits perfectly into my budget. They built the house for her elderly mother, but now the older lady is in a nursing home. When they built it, they knew that would happen sooner or later, so they built it with renting it in mind. I told her that I would give her a call about it closer to time.

Now it's closer to time. I didn't really want to call her for a while because she can be fairly nosy. But that's normal in this town, which is one reason I was kind of hoping not to live in this town. But with gas prices the way they are, living so close to work is a definite pro. This house is only about three minutes away from work, yet sits far enough off the road that people can't see all of my business. Thursday, I told my dad that I didn't have it in me to call her and he told me to keep praying about it. Yesterday, I woke up with calling her on my mind. It was a feeling I couldn't shake off all day, so I called her after lunch. I said, "Hey, it's Stacy. Is that house you were telling me about still empty?" She said, "Yeah, because I knew you were going to be calling me. What took you so long?"

I had made a list of questions to ask her about, and everything checked out like I had hoped it would, and in some cases even better than I thought it could. Since the house shares a yard and a drive-way with their house, her husband takes care of all the yard work, which means I don't have to mow the lawn; or rather, my dad won't have to, hahahaha. They keep the water and electricity turned on in the house at all times, so they'll just give me those bills and I'll mail them off. The coolest part of that is that I won't have to pay deposits to have all of that turned on. She said the utility bills at the house are dirt cheap year-round. I have to round up a fridge, but it has a stove, and a washer and drier. I'll also need to get a PO Box because there's not a mail box there, plus the drive-way is really long and I don't want to have to make that walk everyday. How lazy of me. There are only a couple of burning questions I didn't get to ask her yesterday: Can I smoke in the house, something I have become accustomed to but can cope with not doing, also she's a chain smoker so I'm thinking I might can. And, can I have a cat. Much to Step-daughter's disliking, Roommate is bound and determined that Trouble is moving with me. That's OK with me, since I love that little fellow. The fact that he's fixed, flea-free, and up-to-date on his shots will help me win that battle.

Another cool thing about the house is the neighborhood. the neighborhood I lived in when I lived next-door to Brother and Sister-in-law was a little scary. There were a handful of times that the three of us camped out in my bedroom with the lights out, staring out the window at the meth-bust going on right across the street. My old landlord didn't want me living there after Brother moved, but if I had tried, I could have convinced him to let me stay. However, I was not about to live there without Brother living next door to take care of me. No way. I'm a big girl and can take of myself for the most part, but not in that neighborhood! This house is in a nice neighborhood. I know probably 75% of the people who live around there, including one of Roommate and Soldier's really good friends. All of the homes have nicely manicured lawns, and there is no evidence of white-trash anywhere, something that is unfortunately common to this town.

I'm going to look at the inside of it on Monday. I'll get to ask the questions that I didn't get to ask yesterday, and I'm sure I'll come up with a hundred more questions. If everything goes according to my plan, I'll pay rent for the entire month of September, which will give me enough time to scrub it down, and take my time in moving in all my stuff. My personal belongings are scattered about in four places: at home, at my parents', at Cousin's, and in the garage of some church friends. You know that no matter how good the condition of that house, I'm not putting a single thing I own in there until every nook and cranny is thoroughly disinfected with a bucket of Pine-sol. The things I know I need are: a television, DVD player, and VCR (all of which I gave away when I moved the last time), a fridge, a vacuum cleaner (mine died when I was moving), and a microwave (mine is almost ten years old, and is loosing it's steam). I'm going to miss Roommate so much that I can hardly stand to think about it, but I'm getting excited about having a new place!!!