Apartment life

I moved more in 2015 than I have in the rest of my life combined. No really big major moves, but still moving.

For January and February I was living alone in my condo until the lease expired.

After I came back from my trip at the beginning of March I stayed with my parents for about a week.

Mid-March I left home and moved to Regina to live with my Grandparents.

Mid-June I left Regina for another trip and then moved back home to Edmonton where I lived partly with Ryan and partly at home.

Middle of September I moved in fully with Ryan at the house he was living in.

December 1^st we finally got an apartment of our own.

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Even though I craved it all along, I forgot how good it feels to have my own space. Doing what I want, when I want. No tip-toeing around because other people are sleeping, showering as early or late as  want and best of all, any mess that is around is my own (or Ryan’s, but that is beside the point.) I really love everything about it.

Something I don’t love is how much I own. More and more over the years I’ve become uncomfortable with clutter and excess. I’m certainly not saying I’m a hoarder or anything, I just think I could have less of a lot of things. It is an ongoing goal of mine to continue shrinking my belongings.

Ok, I also don’t love physically moving. It’s stressful and sometimes painful. Thanks to Ryan for keeping me from losing my head on more than one occasion when I got frustrated with things.

Our building allows for a 1.5 hour window when we got exclusive use of the elevator but that’s pretty useful in the scheme of things. How do you move your whole life in 1.5 hours??? In the end it took us a total of 4 trips in 3 days to get everything moved in. We had to get everything from where we were living, everything I was storing with my parents and fully empty my storage unit where the bulk of my belongings were. We managed to get everything out of the unit in only 2 trips, EXCEPT 1 mirror!!! It just wouldn’t fit.

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As for the actual apartment, it’s so lovely!! We looked at ads for a long time and almost never saw anything that was decent and/or reasonably priced. This place is both, and more.

2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, big living space, open, lots of storage, ensuite laundry, 2 parking stalls… It ticked every one of our boxes and then some. Laundry was non-negotiable for me so this place is a real winner.

The location is great, near pretty much everything we need. It’s easy for both of us to get to work. I can take the train instead of driving in rush hour and paying to park every day. We have walking paths, grocery stores, gas, post office and parks all in our immediate area and less than 10 minutes down the road is a huge outlet mall/shopping area with tons of restaurants and a movie theatre.

It’s really a 10 out of 10!

We are still working on making the place feel more settled but we have almost everything we needed now. A few small kitchen things, stools and/or table and chairs and then it is all about the decorating and little touches. I really want lots of plants for inside, art and pictures for the mall and mirrors to add more light and space. It will be a cozy, tropical, well-lit paradise when we are through!