Found a new apartment

Hi there. Well, I have to say I didn't think it would happen, but we've pretty much found another apartment here to rent. I say pretty much because we are waiting for the rental company to change the contract so we are not locked into a 30 month lease, but rather a year to year lease. It's been quite a process, involving asking friends of ours to provide documentation of their income, their tax returns, ownership of properties, paychecks, bank statements, and identification. And then asking them to provide more documentation. And then even more. And it's involved my dear wonderful hubby driving back and forth between the rental office, the application office (because you cant' submit an application to the rental agency--they only do the renting, NOT the applications), and getting all the correction documents and signatures. Whew.

Thankfully the place is only about 1/2 a mile from where we currently live, but we still have a big list of things to do within the next month:

-find someone to help us clean the old apartment
-find someone to help clean the new apartment
-find someone to paint the new apartment (they say it's been painted, but that's not really true)
-find someone to help us remove light fixtures/ceiling fans/curtain rods/shower heads from our current apartment and install them in the new apartment
-find a moving company
-figure out how to change our address
-update our address with various companies
-cancel our phone/internet service at our current address and start it at the new address
-buy an oven (the new place doesn't have an oven)
-buy some extra furniture to make things work in the new apartment (shelves, storage, etc)
-buy a armoire for the bedroom that doesn't have one

This is just my "off the top of my head list." So, I probably won't be posting much in the month of July. BUT, not only will we be paying 1/4 less a month in rent (!), but we will have 600 sq feet of outdoor area that is all our own. I'm dreaming of container gardening, a little bbq for churrasco, and space for the kids to run around and do arts and crafts. And we won't be right next to two construction sights, a crazy loud public school, and a very busy street. Maybe, just maybe it will be a little quieter and we can make it our own space.