we moved.

yup. we moved. but only a mile away. again.

in fact, we now live one block away from where we lived one year ago. kind of silly, if you ask me.

the reason we moved a year ago was to begin managing an apartment complex.

the reason we moved last week was to stop managing an apartment complex.

lots of people have made comments to me along the lines of, "oh, aren't you so glad you don't have to manage anymore!?"

and the answer is yes. and no.i'm glad i don't have to care for keys for 42 different apartment dwellers as well as those of their laundry rooms, fire extinguishers, storage and maintenance closets and pools. i'm glad i only have to clean up the mess i make in the laundry room, not the garbage and lint and detergent and unmentionables others leave behind. i'm grateful i only have to worry about my toilet leaking or my furnace not working, not the toilets and furnaces {and lightbulbs and fridges and stoves and doorknobs and screen doors and cockroaches and bed bugs and car registrations and pilot lights and water heaters and breaker boxes...} of 42 others. i'm grateful i no longer have to carry an emergency pager with me everywhere i go. i'm grateful i only have to answer the phone if i feel like it. i'm grateful i no longer have to tell kids that they can't play on the grass...or the rocks...or the cement...or in the pool if their parents aren't there. i'm grateful i no longer have to spend leah's nap time showing apartments to people who really aren't interested or filling out application paperwork for people who never-in-a-million-years would be approved.

but...

we felt it was a great opportunity and blessing to be able to manage. the positions are hard to come by and the financial rewards are great when you consider the amount of work you end up with on an average day. it is a job, and it definitely requires work, but it's great to be able to do it while you stay at home.

when we started managing a year ago, i had a relatively normal two-and-a-half-year-old and spent most of my day at home. as the year progressed, that relatively normal two-and-a-half-year-old turned into a very not-so-normal three-and-a-half-year-old and we spent most of our days and afternoons shuffling ourselves around the county to her various school sessions and medical appointments.

for a job that requires you to be home, it just wasn't working out so well.

we also had neighbors that were pretty particular about the amount of noise they desired from their upstairs neighbors. we were ever-so-lucky to be those upstairs neighbors. and they let us know on more than one occasion that leah's middle-of-the-night screaming was absolutely not okay. i'm pretty sure the worry and stress ryan and i felt each night if we heard leah so much as stir {let alone scream for hours on end} has taken multiple years off our lives.

we were lucky to find a ground floor {read: no downstairs neighbors}, single story {read: no upstairs neighbors}, duplex with only one adjoining wall, a garage {read: no next-door neighbors}.

oh yah. we have a garage. it is big enough to park a smart car in and that's about it, so we use it as storage. it also houses our dryer.

oh yah. we have a dryer. and a washer. and we don't have to go to the bank every month to get pounds of quarters to feed the washer and dryer. i just push a button and they work. it's truly magical. i can actually do other things while i do the laundry, like clean the kitchen and use the disposal and load the dishwasher.

oh yah. we have a disposal and a dishwasher.

and while we're at it, we also have a full-size oven, stove, fridge and freezer. i kind of like it here.

so, yes, we were glad to have managed for a year. it was right for our family and it was a blessing. but it's no longer the right thing and i'm ever-so-grateful to be able to spend the spare time that leah and i have together...with leah.

burden lifted. life simplified. that's always a good thing.