We have housing!

This past weekend I got to see the love of my life and we had a wonderful time together. We both agreed half of our time together was spent taking care of wedding business and the other half we chilled and relished in the fact that we were together. I will do a post about our weekend later this week but wanted to let you know we have housing!!!

God Bless Jace! He took one for the team and drove to Gainesville on March 1st. You just don't swing by Gainesville since it is a 10 hour drive from Jackson. He left after work on Friday and got into Gainesville around 11 PM. The next morning Whitney and I ran the Color Me Rad 5K and Jace ran his own mini-marathon around Gainesville looking at apartments.

The first apartment he looked at was our find on Craig's list. Craig's list scares me, as does Ebay. I don't buy anything from either sites and thought finding an apartment on Craig's list sounded incredibly shady. I was worried that it wouldn't be what the pictures looked like, in a terrible neighborhood, and have wild and crazy neighbors. I wouldn' t have thought to look at Craig's list for housing but Prof. Campbell suggested Jace search the site. Jace found an apartment that interested us the first day he began searching.

One Friday night we were Skyping and Jace told me about the Craig's list apartment. I asked him if he wanted me to email the owner and he said it wouldn't hurt to try. We got a reply within an hour and the apartment owner seemed incredibly nice. We exchanged emails for another two weeks and requested more pictures and information about the apartment. We were definitely interested but it is hard to commit to something that you haven't seen.

It was Jace's idea to travel to Gainesville and we thought while he was there he should look at a few other apartments. We had a list of several we liked and that were within our budget. However, we couldn't really judge just how far the apartments were from the law school. I didn't want to live too close to campus and be next to crazy undergrads but Jace wanted to be close enough to walk/bike to school. We decided that he should look at Cazebella which is an apartment complex the law school recommended.

The next part of this story is where God takes over. In our communication with the Craig's list owner, she said that she lives in Alabama and that she wouldn't be able to show us the apartment but the current tenant agreed to show Jace the apartment. I was a little hesitant about Jace going into someone's apartment and us not know the person from Adam. However, the owner was nice and we trusted her judgement and appreciated the tenant letting Jace tour her apartment. When Jace arrived at the apartment, they talked and Jace realized that she was at UF Law and in the tax LLM program!!!! Jace asked her about UF parking and if it was as bad as I tell him it is on UK's campus. She assured him that parking was easy to find and he shouldn't have a problem. She proceeded to tell Jace about a tuition program that allows Jace to pay in-state tuition! As a Kentucky resident, if Kentucky doesn't offer the graduate program that the student needs, they can pay in-state tuition at an out-of-state participating school. There are several schools in the South that are a part of this program!

By this point, the apartment could have been a dump and the trip to Gainesville would have been worth it since Jace got to talk to someone in the LLM program and learned about the tuition program!
It seemed like God was directing us to this apartment, the owner, and the current tenant. Everything was such a nice surprise and seemed too good to be true!

As for the actual apartment it is nice but it will be tight. The apartment is only 600 sq. ft. which means we probably won't see many of our wedding gifts for our first year of marriage but at least we will be together. The complex was nice and was quiet. It is close to shopping (Publix, Target, Lowe's, and Wal-Mart) and there are several bus routes near by. Plus, new carpet will be installed this summer! Jace called me after the tour and I told him that I thought we should go with this one.

Jace left the first apartment tour and went to Cazebella. He said it was ok. We could afford a larger apartment here but when we did the math, it just wasn't what we wanted. I think the decision was pretty clear for us! We chose the Craig's list apartment. Since he was in Gainesville, Jace explored some. He did a little shopping at the UF bookstore; we both have t-shirts and decals for our cars now!!! He explored Lake Alice which is right on campus. He got home around 9 PM on Saturday night. It was a quick trip but a worthwhile trip!

We are both ready to make our 600 sq. ft. apartment a home. Anything can become a home if we are together!