Our first home

A fellow blogger asked her readers to post about their first married home. Of course, this got me thinking and I decided to participate. Sorry, no pictures right now. It's 3:45 in the morning and I have to dig them out.

Anyway, neither Craig or I really ever lived anywhere on our own. Sure, I lived at my grandmother's while she was in a nursing home/rehab but that didn't last long. A few months before we were to get married, we set out to find an apartment.

It was 1997 and we were living in northern New Jersey. Buying a house was NOT cheap! Heck, to be honest, RENTING wasn't cheap and we weren't making a ton of money. I was a store manager for a European furniture store & Craig was a teacher's assistant.

The places that were in our price range were either in bad parts of town or really in poor condition. Finally, a friend of mine told us about his parents' apartment complex. There was going to be a basement apartment available and the price was right up our alley.

It was a cute little apartment. Weird layout. Kitchen & living room were one giant room. There was a bedroom and a bathroom. Because it was an apartment complex, there was a laundry facility available - right outside our door. Which was, for the most part, convenient. However, it REALLY stunk when people would do their laundry at midnight.

Shortly after getting married (about 3 weeks later), we found out that I was pregnant. Let's just say I was hormonal!! One of the tenants decided to run the washing machine at 11:30 at night - even though there was a sign posted stating that laundry was not to be done after 10pm. Did I mention that this washing machine SOUNDED like it was permanently off balance? Yep - hormonal pregnant woman, LOUD washing machine, late night. You can imagine that it did not make for a pretty site.

Another thing that drove me nuts about that apartment was the fact that it was in the basement. Don't get me wrong - I LOVED that it was so dark at night. But having people living ABOVE us! Holy Cow!!! It often sounded like they were having office chair races at all crazy hours (we later moved to that unit and found out that the rolling noise was just a closet door).

We were young & poor, but we were in love - and pregnant. Shortly after our 1st child was born, we were offered to move to the upstairs unit.

So, that's it. Our first home. It wasn't much, but it was ours (on a month to month basis anyway).

Many blessings,
Allison