We're Moving . . .

*sigh*

We received some rather unexpected news the other day that we will be required to move out of our apartment within the next two months (by June 30, D's 40th birthday!). We have been living in seminary housing for almost three years now, with some special disspensation from on-high. Because I am a PhD student and not an MDiv student, I do not technically qualify for seminary housing. I don't know. Go figure. Because PhD students are so much wealthier???

Well, it turns out that this Fall there will be an unusually large incoming class plus three new faculty members who have all requested transitional housing. (Read, "our apartment," apparently.)

While the news is not welcome, (it will be expensive and a huge upheaval in the midst of everything else), we are at least glad to have good reason to get out of campus housing once and for all. We went straight from my MDiv program on the East Coast to this PhD program out here--which means we've been living in seminary housing for (ugh) six years. That's just wrong. That means for six years we have not received any mail on Saturdays, for instance, because the mail room is not staffed on that day. Nor have we received the mail at our actually home for that long, but stuffed into little locked cubbies on campus.

I have gone into pitbull mode in trying to pro-actively attack this situation. I've filled a purple folder full with our credit reports, rental options, maps to sites, contact information, etc. (Hmmm, I think I take after my Mom.) We saw some places on Saturday and hated 'em. We've realized that we are not, by any means, cookie-cutter folks. We love old homes, quirky corners, wood more than cement, green space more than parking lots.

The housing market out here is insane. One website gives instructions for how to create a pet resume in order to help yourself get into a place. It includes vaccination records (and obedience school records if you have a dog!), plus letters of reference from your veterinarian, landlord, friend, and pet sitter (whom they assume is a professional pet sitter). Good grief.

In the meantime, I've added a new mantra to my daily life: "If I break it, I don't have to pack it."