Mixed Blessings

Oh what a strange, convoluted, and wonderful day...

I guess I should just start at the beginning.

Keebler got a call at 9am from his job. They called to fire him. I suppose it wasn't really firing, since he hadn't started working, but it hit him just as hard. We have spent the last month thinking he had a job, didn't have to look anymore, and things were looking way up for our dreams. Not sure why they waited until the last possible day to tell him, but whatever works, right? Maybe it was kismet, as if we had known earlier, I would have rented a different place than the one we finally settled on...

Without him having that job that pays so well, however, we didn't have to settle for the dingy, dark little apartment, and now made little enough money to get into the tax credit apartments, which were much nicer.

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I drove over to housing to exchange the papers yet again, as I'm only allowed one set out at a time, and rushed over to the new landlord's office to claim an apartment with better lighting and a washer-dryer hookup. We looked at two possible places, but after some mathematics, discovered that we couldn't afford the three bedroom town house, so had to take the two bedroom. Said two bedroom's fenced in back porch opens out to a view of the swimming pool, a grassy play area, and a BBQ grill & picnic table. The playground and more run & play area are on the side of the building, one door down from us. We won't even have to leave the house to watch the kids play and swim. The management company encourages folks to decorate the outside of their apartments and plant plants (even tomatoes!). It also has a basement, and that's about as good as a third bedroom as far as Ladybug is concerned.

The new place is in the same complex as the "old" new place, so the application fee transferred over. Yaaay for not having to pay extra! I got the new paperwork into the housing office a mere 15 minutes before the office closed, and I go back to the apartment complex on Monday to fill out their computerized application and give them my deposit payment. It is very likely that I will also be able to get my past due electric bill paid off at that time as well, so that I can literally start to move in as soon as the place passes inspection on Tuesday.

On the homefront, we literally now have everything that we had asked for. *grin*

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My mother's landlord dropped by to get her weed eater from mom's garage, and actually managed to retrieve it with Ladybug's help! She also asked ladybug why the big yellow car wasn't parked "straight" yet, and Ladybug told her that we had discovered the driveway blocked when it was parked "the right way", so settled on convenience over propriety. Landlady seemed satisfied with that answer. Wonders never cease. Then again, Ladybug had a small talking-to for answering the door when an adult wasn't at home, but I decided to go easy on her since landlady likely would have tossed a fit if someone was home and refused to answer the door for her. Lesser of two evils I guess. *shrug* At least we've known the woman for over 12 years, so she's definitely a "safe" person to open the door for.

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We finally parted ways with our ratty babies today. It was a sad parting, but a happy time as well. Their new family simply adores them, they are comfortable with their new people, and their people are just as obsessive about spoiling their babies as we have always been. We also had a great time chatting for about an hour.

I asked them if they wanted the dumped stray cat that was at the old apartment like I have done with nearly everyone for the past two months, and since they are with rescues, they said they would indeed take it and at least clean it up, feed it well, and find it a good home. They followed us over to get it, but when we picked it up and handed it over, it curled up in a lap and happily fell asleep. They fell in love with each other immediately, and kitty rode home to it's new forever home in the lap of a new friend, unafraid, and, finally, safe.

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And a beautiful orange-red flowering something planted in unlikely dirt on the back porch to welcome us home.