So, where are things at with us? It's been super stressful with moving halfway across the country, starting new jobs and leaving old ones(for one of us at least). Ryan's had a bit of a culture shock and I'm having to adjust to not doing whatever I want whenever I want like I've done the last 4 months (tough life there, I know). I'm having to scale back my independence and we're both having to adjust to life living where we first met (almost 5 years ago....yowza!!).
A couple of months ago we decided to maybe try to buy a house in Richmond. We're anxious to have something to call our own and I want to faint/die thinking about having to pack and unpack even just one more time. However, once we started talking to some finance experts, we realized this crappy economy is making lenders HAVE to have at least a month's worth of pay stubs before we can get financing, even if we both had job offer letters and working in the same industry as previous jobs. Also, since Ryan was still away, it wasn't too fun house hunting without him by my side.
Once we realized the house wasn't going to happen right away, we decided to live somewhere in Richmond we normally wouldn't do. We signed a 6 month lease at a loft in the city. It's all inclusive rent so we didn't have to worry about setting up and disconnecting utilities which was a big plus for me! Hopefully we'll live it up while downtown and take advantage of being able to walk to restaurants and bars and enjoy the Canal Walk! Here's a few pics I snagged off of Google images since I'm too lazy to get pictures of our place:
Pretty nice, huh? We like everything about it so far with the exception of having to take Zoe into an elevator and down 4 floors to have her do her business all the time. We bought the "potty patch" to use in case of emergencies (bad weather, late at night and dangerous to take her out, etc) but she thinks it's a mat for her to lay on. $40 down the drain. Fail.
Apparently these dogs think it's a mat, too.
In other news, Ryan is in KC this week finishing out his last week on his job. I started my new job today which I think I'm going to really like. I'm an Assoc. District Manager at ADP and everyone I'm going to be working with seems super nice. My boss seems like one cool lady and I was assigned a great territory. No complaints in this department so far!
Before I go, I wanted to share a great link with ya'll. I thought some of these words of wisdom were incredibly smart and sounds like great advice:
