Moving. Again.

I’m moving.

I know, I know. We just moved from here only a year ago:
We left an 1100 sq. ft 1910 bungalow with a 1/2 acre, four small bedrooms, no garage, ONE bathroom and a finished basement with outside access and no access from the house above. My parents own it, but we payed the mortgage. We moved so that the company my husband owns with his brothers could use it as it is also commercially zoned.

Then we moved here:
A 1900 sq. ft brand new townhouse with 4 large bedrooms, 2 car oversize garage,a master suite, walk in closet, no pantry absolutely no yard and too small family/dining/and kitchen. (You can see photos of the whole place here)

We have been here a year now and our lease is up. We originally only planned to be here a year to 18 months while we saved for a down payment, drew up house plans and paid off some credit card debt and student loans.

It hasn’t worked out that way and now something has to change.

So, we are moving to this place…

Yup. BACK TO THE HOUSE WE MOVED FROM A YEAR AGO.

I know, I know. I can’t decide if this is a really good thing or the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.

THE REASONS WHY:

When my insurance company declared my pregnancy a pre-exisiting condition, it blew all our savings and plans to buy or build a house. That has been difficult to swallow. We have QUITE a medical bill to chip away at now, along with the previous debt we had. We can meet our monthly obligations but we are just treading water-not making any real headway on our debt and things have been depressingly tight. Since Jonathan just got a raise he has already increased what is coming in so now we need to cut expenses.

Jonathan and his partners cut an entire department of their company that wasn’t profitable, so the employees fit nicely into the basement unit and the top (where we used to live) is vacant.

My parents found out that if they do not rent a portion of the house as a residence they will lose the grandfathering of it (since it’s in a commercial zone) a year from when the business obtained a city business license. This means they could never rent it as a residential unit again. So, the top unit must be rented out to someone; it might as well be us.

THE CONS

SPACE: Dude. This is a huge one. It was a tight fit in that place and now we have another baby. However, since Jon doesn’t need a home office anymore it will give us an additional room to play with. And I INSIST that we will not take everything back into the house. THAT will be a great incentive to declutter. I’ll either dispose of or give away the surplus, anything old, broken or unnecessary. If we have to, we’ll rent a storage unit.

ONE BATHROOM: This is right up there with space. I went from one bathroom to three and the thought of losing my master suite and walk in closet makes me WEEP. I WILL BE SHARING WITH 3 FREAKING BOYS. GAH! I hate sharing bathrooms with boys. You clean and get it shiny and lovely and withing seconds they have it smelling like a locker room/contaminated swamp area. My heart hurts thinking about it.

NO GARAGE: I will hate that, but it will be much more painful for my husband.

THE PEOPLE: Um. There are just some people around that I don’t care for. The eleventyhundred people packed into the house next door would be one example.

THE AREA: It’s just not the most esthetically great neighborhood. It’s fine starting about three streets up but where I am is just not that awesome. The area around my house is occupied by a crumbling silo, a tractor store, storage units, a school and a polygamist compound. (Ok, it’s not really a polygamist compound. It’s a bunch of cabins some guy threw down to rent out. But it TOTALLY looks like one.)

I HATE GOING BACKWARD/BAD MEMORIES: We had good memories in the house but we also had a WHOLE LOT of shitty ones. My son dying in my bedroom would be one of those. Since I have an infant that will be almost the exact same age as him and that is resembling him more by the day, I worry about it and what it will bring back, etc. I imagine the anniversary of his death in September will be very hard living there.

I left. I moved on. I don’t want to go back. It’s kind of like moving back in with your parents. Still, I know that even though it seems like we are going backward, if we stick to our goals it will catapult us forward in the end. (Hopefully)

THE PROS

WE WILL SAVE MONEY: Quite a significant amount of money for us. To the tune of 1,200 to 1,400 a month. That will really add up. Will have to crunch the numbers some more but I am hoping to be out of debt in a year at most and then depending on how things go, any additional funds from time we stay further will be used for a house down payment. How long that is will depend on the market, interest rates and what we look to spend.

WE WILL HAVE A YARD AGAIN. My boys and I have missed this TERRIBLY. I miss my flower gardens and working in the yard. I LIKE doing yard work. I miss my riding lawn mower. I miss having parties in my backyard and bonfires in our fire pit and sitting on a porch swing. The boys miss their trampoline and living next door to the school with the playground equipment.

THERE ARE SOME PLUSES TO THE HOUSE: There is a walk-in pantry which I have SORELY missed in the town house and pipes that don’t shriek when the water is turned on. There are gas hookups and I have missed cooking with a gas stove and my washer and dryer that hold more than 3 pairs of jeans. I LOVE my front porch and I think my house is pretty dang cute from the outside. We worked hard on improving the house, replacing the flooring, redoing the small and ONE bathroom.

I WILL GET MY CAT BACK. Wilbur has been an outside/office kitty for a year and I miss her terribly. We will probably still keep her outside but she will be able to come in on cold nights. She may be a total ho of a cat that likes to fornicate loudly outside my window, but I have really, really missed the little fur ball.

THE PEOPLE: There are people I really like in the area and my kids have some friends there. Their schooling situations will not be changed from what we wanted.

JONATHAN WILL WORK AT HOME 3 OUT OF 5 DAYS A WEEK: This is the single BIGGEST reason I am agreeing to this. Right now, my husband doesn’t come home until 7, 8 or 9 at night. He is MISSING tons of time with our baby and our two older boys and that is the single most important thing in the world. When Matthew was born Jon worked out of the basement office and it was WONDERFUL. He came upstairs all the time to see us and cuddle the baby. We ate lunch together and he was available to let the baby hang out while he worked and I took a break and twent to get a soda, see friends, run errands without packing baby along.

It was a very sweet time for us. I think it would be even happier this time around and I want that more than anything.

There are a lot of stipulations that I have in moving back there. I have thought long and hard about what it would take to make the situation more bearable and work with me and Jonathan has agreed to them. He’s also agreed to a probationary period. If it isn’t working? We find another place to live. PERIOD.

To me, even though the thought of going back to one bathroom makes me want to curl up in the pit of despair, the pro list is by far more important for the long term happiness and well being of my family.

And at the end of the day?

You do what you gotta do to make that happen, right?

NOW IF ONLY I WASN’T SO FREAKING TIRED I COULD DIE AND THE THOUGHT OF HAVING TO PACK, CLEAN, REPAIR THIS HOUSE, PREPARE THE OLD HOUSE AND MOVE DIDN’T MAKE ME WANT TO STICK A FORK IN MY EYE, CURL IN A BALL, SUCK MY THUMB AND BABBLE INCOHERENTLY IN A CORNER.

I’m not really sure there is anything I can do about that last thing.

Wish me luck.