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Okay, so I have a LOT to share with you guys! Trust me when I say; these past few months have not been a case of writers block. I have had so many story’s I have wanted to share about my life, my job, and everything in between that has been going on! The thing that was stopping me from writing has been the fact that I now have zero free time, and I had to allow my new ‘seeds’ to grow…

It has been this very blog post that I have been needing to write, and yet it hasn’t felt like quite the right time to do so. Until now.

So, what’s been going on in my life? What’s up with all the secrets, and why have I been offline for the past two months? Well have I got a story for you!!!

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Quite a few months back I started looking into apartments. Looking at land around here was abysmal, and I wasn’t at my job long enough to be pre-approved for another loan to buy any land, so my next step was to move out on my own (more or less) and get a sense of what I needed to do. Around this time, my longtime boyfriend (*GASP* “You have a boyfriend?!“) was making plans to move up here to Michigan to be with me. So an apartment seemed like the best course of action for the moment.

Now, getting this apartment had to be the most frustrating process I have ever had to go through, and the amount of time I was strung along before I got an apartment had a lot of people telling me to look for something else. However, I ain’t no quitter! (And it was the only place around that I could afford.) But any story worth telling isn’t all sunshine and roses, so here we go.

Back in November was the first time I had contacted the apartments about getting on the waiting list for an apartment. There were two different apartments close by (run by the same person), and I had my name on both of the waiting lists to ensure that I got a place sooner rather than later. My boyfriend and I had filled out the paperwork and sent it in to wait…

A month goes by and it’s now December. I had to call the apartment multiple times in Nov. and Dec. to ask them what was going on with the paperwork and ask them if we had been approved yet. The only time I heard back from them was when I needed to fill out more paperwork. And we kept waiting…

By January I was starting to get excited for moving. A lot of my stuff was slowly getting packed, I had been saving up for all of the new apartment expenses, and it was still a few months before my boyfriend was scheduled to move up to Michigan, so I wasn’t too worried that I hadn’t had the apartment. Besides, by packing, I was letting the Universe know that I was ready to move! However, January took its toll on us because they wanted more paperwork.. By the end of January, we were told that I had to come back in and redo all of the paperwork for them because it was ‘past a certain date’.. Three months they had been collecting paperwork from us, they knew everything about us, and now because they couldn’t get their act together, the dates on the paperwork started to expire!

At this time, I was spending most of my days off from work either filling out paperwork, printing out paperwork, or bringing in paperwork.. As for my boyfriend, whom was in another state, he had to go to the library and print out paperwork every time they needed another paper from him. He then either had to send it through mail (which took more time), or take a picture of it that I had to then print out and bring in. Most of this paperwork that they were having us fill out was stuff we had already given them, but they wanted it redone because either the date expired, or we forgot to check one little box on the paper. While all of this was going on, someone finally moved out at the beginning of January and (after they cleaned the place) I was told that I would get an apartment! But of course, they decided that things weren’t hard enough, and they decided to change the landlords on us! I had already gotten used to the first one, she knew our situation well, and they changed people on me right when things are finally getting done! Now, I had a new girl I had to work with and she had even more paperwork for me to fill out.

By February we were absolutely fed up with the apartments, but we really had no time to find somewhere else, and nowhere else to really go anyways. I was already fermiliar with the new landlord, as I was seeing her at least once a week, and we were all getting fed up with the paperwork issue that management was putting us through. You want to know what the real kicker was about all of this?? I wasn’t even approved until the middle of February! And finally… FINALLY! I was approved, the new apartment had been ‘cleaned’, and I was able to go in and look at it.

To say that the apartment had its issues was an understatement! The person before us had apparently let their child finger paint all over the walls, the floor, and even the toilet! The apartments did what they could to paint over the walls (that’s fresh paint you see in the picture below), and we signed a paper saying that we were not responsible for any of the stains on the carpets and wood floors since they couldn’t get the stains out. (It was either that, or we would have had to wait another two months for new carpeting.)

By the middle of February, I got the keys to my new place and started getting to work on cleaning it. The crew that came in to ‘clean it’ was just a simple maintenance crew, and they were more concerned about things working right then whether or not the bathtub was washed out and the carpets were vacuumed. It took me two weeks of cleaning after work everyday, and another two weeks of bringing stuff over before it started to look like home. The kitchen and bathroom were my main concern for getting stuff around, and my family and friends have been amazing for getting the stuff I need! I got almost all of my kitchen stuff from my grandmother’s kitchen. Our new couch came from a friend of mine at work. A lot of our cleaning supplies came from my Aunts. Most of our big furniture was from my parents old house (or stuff my boyfriend had already), and everything else we have is from the local thrift shops.

All in all, it’s peaceful here and we are officially all moved in. We are surrounded by trees on all sides of the apartment, so we have a little bit of privacy, and we could not have asked for a better view that what’s outside our windows!

March came and it was finally time for my boyfriend to make the move up here! With the help of my whole family, I was able to go down there, pack his stuff up, my parents brought his stuff back to Michigan, while we traveled back separately after saying our goodbyes to everyone at his old place.

In April, just when things started to settle down from moving, we got another little surprise… The company that owned our apartment had sold, and another company would be swooping in with yet another landlord! (For any of you that are counting, that is three landlords in the past four months…)

Needless to say, it has been a crazy ride to get here these past few months.. But I want it clarified that just because I got an apartment doesn’t mean I’m giving up on my dream to be a homesteader. On the contrary, this is getting me one step closer to that perfect property once it becomes available! There are just a few things I have to do before I get there, and moving out was one of them.

Next, I’ll let you guys know about my awesome job upgrade, and the amazing work I’ve been doing. Until then, Smile, have an amazing day, and give yourself a hug from me because you guys have been so incredibly patient! More to come soon! -TO BE CONTINUED!