Upwardly Mobile

After spending the last two days loading the final boxes into truck, scouring the apartment from top to bottom, and taking PLENTY of clear pictures as evidence, Dave and I have officially finished moved! And it could not have come a day sooner. We've been plagued with problems from the start and have made a pact that if we decide to sell this house and build/buy another one we WILL hire movers and Merry Maids to give the house a final cleaning before sale.

You know, Dave and I were laughing as we packed up the kitchen and reminisced about moving into our apartment in May of 2004. At the time, we lived in separate apartments at the same shat-tastic complex. When I had chosen that particular apartment complex, I was looking for a place close to campus, on the university bus route, and of course, cheap enough to fit into a budget based on my embarassingly low medic's salary. My parents subsidized part of the rent and utilities, but I was on my own for everything else. Not a bad deal, really. It totally taught me how to pinch a penny until Abe Lincoln shrieked for mercy.

Anywho. Where was I? Ah, yes. Shat-tastic apartment.

Dave could have afforded to live in a much nicer complex, but the poor schmuck was smitten and wanted live close to me. He ended up in an apartment three buildings away, maybe a three minute walk. We lived there for a year before deciding to consolidate households and get an apartment together. We were so excited to be moving into a nice complex, a place with great windows, a spacious floorplan, and an updated kitchen.

But then the apartment flooded on our move-in day. And two weeks later. And again four months later. And--well--you get the picture. It was a never-ending cycle of flooding, maintenance issues like a sputtering A/C, lights that flickered, a badly repaired kitchen, etc. So yesterday as we're scrubbing the stove, we realize that compared to the new house we were living in squalor.

OK. So not really squalor, but you know what I mean. When you've got a brand new four bedroom house with clean carpet and bright paint and no funky odors from the previous tenant who may or may not have kept a shrimp stand in the master closet, you really start to see the blatant discrepancy between the two.

We also had a pretty good laugh trying to figure out if one of us married up, down, or made a lateral move. Even though I pointed out that I benefited more financially from this whole ad hoc socio-political alliance by gaining a steady income and health insurance, Dave decided he was the one that married up. I'd like to think of it more as a lateral move, but whatever. I'm not going to argue. It's kind of nice to think that I'm the prize!

Either way, we decided that compared to a lot of people, we're doing OK. We have a steady, loving relationship, a beautiful home, a spoiled ass dog, supportive family, amazing friends, and low overall debt. Are there a ton of things that we want? Uh, yeah. New furniture, a second vehicle, a new lawnmower--all those things would be great, and sure, we could just charge away on our credit cards, but screw that! I like not struggling each month. I love going to bed at night knowing that we're completely solvent. So yeah. We make do with what we have and appreciate the hell out of it as we build up the savings to pre-wedding and house purchase status and put away a little here and there for our vacation fund.

Our game plan is pretty simple: Live Within Our Means. If we stick to that, there's no stopping us. We're upwardly mobile now and the sky's the limit.