Extra extra

Thank you all for the funny jokes! They helped to cheer me up. The job thing that happened is still not ideal, but it's vaguely better than it was. Just keep plugging away, I suppose!

So, here is that other thing about my landladies I was going to tell you. Before Thanksgiving (when we'd been living there for about a month and a half), we found out that they had up and sold the building. To a couple expecting their second child. Who wanted to take over our apartment so they could renovate the bottom two floors together to be their home.

They asked us to consider moving to the third floor apartment (which is really the second floor apartment. As in, we enter our apartment under the outside front steps, whereas for this other apartment, you go up the front steps and up one flight of stairs) for the same rent. And, of course, under the terms of our lease we were free to say no, that we wanted to stay in our apartment. (But then we would just have to move out in September when it expires. Which, for those of you who were with me during this PAST apartment search, let me tell you, the rental market's getting worse, not better.)

Last night we finally got to see the apartment, and I think we're going to do it. Don't get me wrong--I really like my apartment. In fact, now that I know I'm leaving it, I feel somewhat mournful. Our pretty bathroom! Our lavish, huge bedroom! But if you take all things into account the apartment upstairs is a better deal.

Cons:
The bathroom's not as nice
It's a little shabby throughout--the floors are a little battered
No garden access

Pros:
The bathroom has a tub. Jets in the shower are luxurious, but there's nothing like a good old bath once in a while.
The floors are battered wood, which is better than grungy linoleum by a lot
How often are we in the garden in the winter? Which in the Northeast, is like eight months out of the year? (Just kidding. But damn, it's cold today.) In exchange for the garden, this apartment is bigger. More square feet, more rooms. Depending on how we set it up, we could have a bedroom, living room, dining room, walk-in closet/office, office, kitchen. Vs. the bedroom, living room, kitchen we have now.
Much higher ceilings and so probably more light (we were there at night)
They're going to paint it for us (do you have any color suggestions?)
I didn't get to examine the kitchen too closely, but at least it didn't have the awful plastic faux marble finish that we have now
We won't have people clomping around above us
We're waiting to hear if they'll allow us to extend our lease (as Chris put it, moving twice in one year is bad enough. Moving three times might kill us. Which, for me, is four times, 'cause I moved out of my place and into Chris's in August. But since Chris did all the heavy lifting it's pretty much four times for him as well.)

So, we'll see. If it happens, the move will take place after the New Year. I'll keep you posted.

I've been very happy in our little hobbit hole, which is the first place I've lived in and felt proprietal towards, but I think this might be a nice thing in the end.