Housing Hunt

I never would have thought it would be so hard to find a place to live for the summer. I started looking online about 2 months ago but didn't really make too much progress aside from ruling out lots of places that didn't do 3-month leases. That was a start though. Jack spent several hours every day for a week before we left looking online, calling listings on craigslist, talking to bishops of wards around Akron, and waiting for people to return calls. Still, we had nothing set for when we arrived, just a list of a few places to go look at and an even longer list of ones that we didn't know if they were options or not. When we arrived on Saturday we went to look at a few of them but most of the offices were closed. I think we actually got to go into only one or two of them. But just driving by was enough to rule out qutie a few. I decided that if I was scared to even get out of the car, I didn't really want to live in the neighborhood.

We picked one of the three or four wards from the Akron & surrounding areas to go to on Sunday. We met several people there who gave us tips on places to look, which was great....but none panned out. We had a couple offers for dinner and really appreciated that. A home-cooked meal after 5 days of eating out sure is nice.

It really got old fast, living in a hotel. We're all looking forward to feeling a little more "permanent" ...as permanent as you can feel for 12 weeks. These were our requirements for a place to live:

-3 month contract

-Available now or within a week

-not nasty or in a scary place

-reasonable price on rent

-a separate room for Jackson...after sharing a room with him in the hotels for more than a week, we decided we really can't sleep well if we're in the same room.

We also wanted to have a playground at the place or at least within walking distance because I'm likely going to be at home with Jackson and without a car a lot...but this was less of a priority than the other things.

I found one that I was strongly considering, but Jack didn't like the idea of our son sleeping in the utility closet for the summer. It was pretty big (intended to be a laundry room too) but Jack didn't think it was the best idea. After calling about 50+ places (not an exageration), driving past a ton, and going to visit lots, we finally found a place. It's far from fancy, it doesn't have a playground, and I think the rent plus the short term monthly fee is more than the place is worth, but it'll work. Jackson will even have a bedroom, not a utility closet. The complex does have a pool, which I kind of have mixed feelings about. It'll be fun and nice when it's so hot out, but first of all, my pregnant belly in a swimsuit is kind of funny looking. And right now, Jackson doesn't even know what a pool is... I know as soon as we take him swimming for the first time, we won't be able to walk past it (which we have to do to get to our apartment) without him wanting to go swimming. I guess I'll have a nice tan by the end of the summer.

But we have a place to live! For right now we are staying at Jack's supervisor's house while they're out of town on vacation. It's a little weird to be living in the house of someone that I don't even know, but it sure is nice to be out of a hotel. It felt great to be able to make dinner last night, even if I couldn't find half the supplies that I needed, like a mixing bowl and aluminum foil. We'll move in to our apartment on Tuesday. Jack's supervisor and co-worker are supplying almost all our furniture, which is great because we didn't bring much and don't want to buy things for 11 weeks' worth of use.

More updates to come when we move in!