What I'm about to tell you is crazy. It's probably the most stressful adventure of my life thus far--at least in my married and motherly life. It's so different when you're single and adventurous. When you're married with a child, adventure can sometimes seem more like crazy stress. This is the story of our recent move to Nashville.
Packing up was no big deal. I love packing and pairing down. I was in my element. Then the first thing that could go wrong, went wrong. Our trailer we were borrowing from a friend was massive and we couldn't haul it with our Honda Pilot. So we made arrangements for Andrew's brother to haul it a day or two after we moved. Then when we went to put it on his truck, the lights on the trailer didn't work, the pin broke, and the ball wasn't even screwed on tight! We thought, "Thank God, we didn't try to drive that thing to Nashville ourselves. We would have lost it and got in an accident!" So, we left it in his brother's hands to fix and bring up later, and we set off for Nashville.
Sunday, we were so excited when we arrived at our "new" place. From the outside it looked like an older bungalow with lots of character. We had Skyped with the landlord and had only seen it over the phone camera. When we walked in, the living room and kitchen looked nice, but a lot smaller than we had thought. And then our hearts sank as we walked through the hallway--the bathroom was small and hideous (with no lock on it and no window shade for the window INSIDE the shower), the bedrooms were tiny with curtains stapled to the WALLS covering holes and patches and who even knows what, and the upstairs was an attic with ceilings so low Andrew had to duck as he walked through. We thought, "What have we done?" We then had a larger freak out when we discovered roaches--10 within 20 minutes. My three-year-old initiated her move to Nashville by stepping on her first roach, and saying "Got one, Mommy!" Nope. Not doing this. We called the landlord and packed up all our stuff and left the house an hour after we had arrived.
We frantically called friends and asked if we could stay with them. Then we got on Craigslist, Zillow, and Trulia and sought out any available houses. We went to see one that night, but it was a no, so we went to our friends house to call it a day. The next morning, Andrew was on the phone updating his work and telling them that we had no address and they couldn't send his equipment to the original address because it was a roach-infested DRUG (more on that later) house. So, they told him he had by the end of the day to give him an address. How would we find a place to live in the hottest city in the nation right now by the end of the day?! Honestly, I can't remember how many houses we looked at that day. It was all a blur. We were so stressed. And have I mentioned yet, that our sweet three-year-old was such a gem during this all? She was amazing--never complained once and would just ask, "Mommy, are we going to another place?"
Thankfully, we have awesome friends in Nashville and we had a place to stay all week. So we lived out of our car and out of a one bedroom apartment above our friend's house while we searched and prayed. By Wednesday, we thought we had found a place. It was actually an apartment complex with townhouses and Nick (our brother) was planning on moving his family there as well. So we all applied. BUT, our friend who would be living with us was still back in NC and had to get her application notarized. She tried with several different notaries but they wouldn't do it because they didn't have the right document from the apartment complex! Finally they figured it out and she got her application in a day later, only to be denied that same day. Our brother also got denied for no great reason. More doors were closing.
The next day (Thursday) we had several appointments set up to see houses. We had decided that if nothing worked out that day, that we would have to go back home to NC in order for Andrew to start his job on Monday. We were running out of options. We missed one showing simply because we were stuck in traffic for an hour. Then the last showing we went to was late at night. Our realtor told us to bring our checkbook in case we liked it because someone was coming with their applications and deposit in the morning to take it if we didn't. We said no to the place, and sure enough, the other people moved in at 4pm the next day. That house had been on the market for two days.
Nashville real estate is insane right now. So many people are moving there and the housing market is trying to keep up with all the people. This was exciting for us, but frustrating at the same time. So we folded. This was incredibly freeing, but also super complicated. We were heading back home to a place that wasn't even ours anymore (thankfully our sister still lived there and opened it back up to us). Our whole life was still in a trailer at our brother's house, and we still had no place to live permanently. And Andrew started his new job from "home" on Monday. So, Friday morning, we packed up and left the city we just tried to move to. "Just kidding," I thought. What was God doing? We were so sure we were supposed to be in Nashville. Why this? What now? I asked questions all the way home.
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