Today is probably one of those days when staying in bed would have been the smart thing to do.
I’ve been at work for almost two hours now and I am still unbelievably exhausted. It doesn’t make any sense, really. Yesterday I got plenty of rest. I managed to sleep in to an unbelievable 11:00. And I never really felt like I fully woke up. I even fell asleep for a short nap between 5 and 6. I took a sleeping pill to try to konk me out later in the evening, but didn’t feel it kick in and was still awake for longer than I wanted. The stupid pill is probably why I’m having so much trouble this morning. It took me forever to get out of bed. I’ve even had a cup of cappuccino already and I’m still sluggish. I feel like I could have slept for at least another three hours.
Justin, just to show that I’m not alone in this rough morning thing, is not tired but is having an awful commute to work this morning. After dropping me off, he got stuck waiting for a train. After waiting for that one to pass, he got stuck waiting for another train. Now he’s stuck in traffic trying to get onto the island that’s completely mired because of an accident. There’s only one way on and off the island and most of the lanes have been blocked off because of the accident. It will be a long, long time before he makes it into the office this morning.
The exciting thing, though, is that in two months we’re going to move to Bluffton! We found a place this weekend! We looked at seven or eight different places over the last month, trying to figure out what we wanted. We looked at an apartment and a house and lots of townhouses. And there were lots of good things we saw and lots of not so great things. The house was huge and actually just inside our budget. Some of the townhouses were absolutely amazing. The apartment was not so great.
But yesterday we saw a couple of places that were really wonderful. One was an end unit with a loft and huge amounts of light and closet space and counter space and even a window seat in one of the bedrooms. On the way home, Justin and I actually wrote down the pros and cons of this place and the other place (of four) we saw yesterday because we were having trouble making up our mind about which one we liked the best.
The other one won.
It’s also an end unit, which is nice because it means we get light through three walls instead of only two. Of all the places we saw, I think it might actually be the smallest, especially by way of closet space. But it’s also the least expensive of them all—it’s actually $50 less than we’re paying for our apartment and garage right now. We lose the garage, but we have two parking spots right in front of our house. It has a great yard, huge for a townhouse because it covers the side of the house as well as the back. It backs into a forested area which is really lovely.
It’s two-stories, three bedrooms, 1.5 baths. The half-bath is on the first floor and the full bath is on the second, leading off the master bedroom. It’s a walk-through bathroom, with both a shower and a tub unit, side by side. There are two separate sinks. There are windows above the shower and tub units. It’s a really awesome bathroom. The two other bedrooms are side-by-side, equal in size, each with one window. All the bedrooms have ceiling fans and arched ceilings. There’s attic space for storage.
The kitchen has new stainless steel appliances that are amazingly beautiful. This means that we’ll actually have a garbage disposal that will actually work. There’s a lot of cupboard space and a pantry. The counter overlooks the dining room, which has lovely flooring and connects to the living room, which has a large door that leads into the back garden. It’s very open and the owner has painted the walls beautiful colors.
The location of this place was one of the major reasons why we decided to go here. It’s in a housing development community. The street that we’d be living on is the only street with townhomes. The rest of the place is all houses. So our street is packed pretty tightly, but the rest of the place makes up for it. There’s an amazing swimming pool, with sprinklers and fountains and dedicated lanes for doing laps. Around the pool is a short running track (seven times for a mile) with pull-up bars and parallel bars. The neighborhood is safe for running. Across the street from the community is the local school. Down that street, which, by the way, is a divided road with two lanes on each side, is a cute outdoor mall with restaurants, a movie theatre, and a gym. There’s a grocery being built about halfway down the street. And Target is about 5 miles away.
I was going to post pictures of the places we’d seen but I realized that pictures of unfurnished places are really not very interesting, especially the ones I took, which were done in a hurry, without framing or lighting well or anything close to good photography skills. And I don’t have any pictures of the inside of the place where we’re going to go because the owner is still living there and she wasn’t comfortable with me taking pictures of her stuff—completely understandable. I do have a picture of the front of the house, but I put it online somewhere I thought I’d be able to get to it from work . . . and I can’t. Grumble. I’ll have to post it later.
But we’re both thrilled. We love this place and we’re very excited to be moving there. Our rental agreement at our apartment expires on 10 August, so we’re going to have a 10-day overlap when we take the townhouse—plenty of time to move. Of course, we’re the crazy people who decide to move at the absolute hottest time of the year . . . .
It’s going to be great, though! I can’t wait to start finding new places to put all of our stuff in this new place. Until then, I’ve got to really work hard at finding a Bluffton area job. And we’ve really got to start packing. We’ve got a lot of work to do!