the first place ben and i lived (the door on the far left - the left side of the main floor), after we got married, we rented for over a year, but decided that we should live on the other side of the city - closer to both our jobs and our church.
we moved into a tiny yellow house, and 2 months later, ben got laid off from his job - with no indication of if he would get called back or not. so, he looked for 2 months, he found another job (at a resort), and we moved.
after 6 months, the resort owner decided to change what he was expecting of both ben and i and put stipulations on ben's pay based on how much i was willing to work in the office (right after maddie was born) - not cool.
ben found a great carpentry job and we found a place to live. the job lasted, the living situation did not. 6 months later, we were asked to find another place to live.
the house we found to rent was too expensive, but there were no other options at the time. we tried to make it work, but it just didn't. we lived in the house for 8 months, then decided we had to find something else before we got in way over our heads.
so, we started to make some long-term plans and for the short-term moved into an efficiency apartment (in a motel. we lived in a motel). we were very cozy in that tiny apartment for 5 months.
then we moved to the town we live in now. the place we first rented was wonderful (the porch at the far end was ours. there were some shrubs by it when we lived there). we lived there for two years and would have stayed, but the land-lord sold the building and the new owner wanted to live in our apartment.
we moved in april. into an old farm house. the owners told us we could put a wood-stove in for the winter as the fuel-oil heat was astronomically expensive. we loved living there. but toward the end of the summer when ben started talking to them about what woodstove he would like to put in and where in the house, they told him they had changed their minds. they didn't want him to put in a stove. this induced a drastic budget change. to the point where we needed to find somewhere else to live.
in january we closed on a little house back in town. and lived there for two years. we thought about adding on to it, and we thought about building.
we were given the go-ahead to build. and that's what started all of this.
and now we are living in our 800 square feet.
and that, my friends, is our 12 years and 11 living spaces in a nutshell.
(you can read this and figure out where each tree fits, if you want to.)
we are starting to do some christmas decorating here. and listening to christmas music. and drinking spiced cider and lots of coffee. always lots of coffee.
love to you, my friends. ~e