Moving to a Smaller Place

This past year has been very stressful and it continues. The stresses just changed.  The ultimate was moving from the largest apartment I ever had to one of smallest.  There were smaller places I looked at. It was extremely difficult finding a decent place that I could afford. It was partly because it was the end of the year.  It was also because looking for an apartment moved to the web.  The owners get to pick and choose who to respond to.  It wasn't like it was when I was younger, the first one to see it with the money and decent references gets the place. Many owners required that the rent only be one third of my monthly salary. My salary was never that large.

I wasn't even able to look at many apartments.  One apartment may have a washer set-up but there was no closet in the bedroom.  The only closet was outside the back door in a mudroom.  Another place was in a nearby downtown city.  The living room was rather small. It had a gas heater and there was something wrong with it. The whole place reeked.  The owner who rehabbed the place didn't even know there was something wrong with it. The view from the bedroom was the side of the house next door.

I had trouble figuring out how to move from a larger place to a smaller place. There's a lot of information about down-sizing, but I didn't find it that helpful.  After pondering about what I should have done, I figured out the main idea should have been to move the most important things to the apartment, and store the rest until later. It might be obvious to some people, but I was so stressed and didn't have anyone to talk to. Everyone always has to vent to me.

I like where I am very much. The only problem is that I am allergic to the chemicals used to soften the water. I can't even drink a little of it now. I can buy a home water distiller but I haven't been able to save up the money. Moving was very expensive.

I have discovered that good windows are important.  I was upset when my old apartment  complex replaced the windows. The wood frame ones I had were good.  They had the screens and the storm windows and didn't leak.  The new ones were the new combinations with double-glazed windows and screens. Man, were they leaky!  I had to tape the cracks to keep the wind from blowing through. If they let in cold, they let in heat. My apartment was so much hotter in the summer.  

The windows here are good. It was never cold in here during the winter. My apartment is the coolest I've had during the summer since 1995.  I also have great cross ventilation as well. There are two big trees in front.  I get to hear the breeze blow through tree leaves again.  

The cats seem happy here. They'll be even happier when I've gone through and emptied all the boxes.  The cats have three views.  Since we are on the first floor now, they have a good view of the birds, squirrels, rabbits, and chipmunks.  We don't seem to have skunks and I"m very happy about that. In Latham almost every warm night ended up skunk scented.