her first backyard.

lately i have felt a little crammed...my kitchen just seems to be shrinking, the 1920's pipes have been turning our water a brown shade and reagan's busy body keeps being a bad excuse for me to put off reorganization projects.  but i love it here.  finding this place was a little miracle.  and i need to remember it.

a couple months after our wedding jd's one year lease ended.  i wanted to move down the road to uptown...old architecture and wood floors were my dreams.  joseph didn't want to move there because of the parking (he is so wise...i would hate that with a baby!!!) and loved our location so encouraged me to look close by.

one afternoon, after my car engine blew and i took one of many, many aimless walks around my newlywed surroundings...i saw these old brick buildings two blocks away that looked like they might be condos or apartments.  there was a small plaque with a phone number on the side of the building...i called, and called, left messages and never got a response.  i figured they must be full.  i would walk by at least ten more times and just wonder what they were like.  it sounds odd but i had a weird longing to live in these random, old brownstones.  they were uptown buildings transported to our not so uptown neighborhood.

3 months later...still no luck in finding a new place.  looking quite often.  need to make a decision.  jd on a business trip in oklahoma.  get on craigslist after work to see if any aparments in our area are newly posted...top of the page, a 3 minute old post of a vacant apartment in one of THE brownstones.  Wood floors.  brand new appliances.  ARCHES??  Little quaint nooks and crannies?  A perfect backyard with a clothes line?  I called 2 minutes later.  They had already booked 3 showings for the morning but she said that if I came tonight I could have first dibs...i would have to sign the lease right away though.

my sister in law and I went to see it and as we walked in we knew it was right.  had to sign the lease...or it would be sniped in the morning.  I got married 5 weeks after my college graduation, 3 weeks after my 22nd birthday....didn't have a lot of big decision making experience and tended to lean on JD for all of the big stuff.  he was in oklahoma.  had to make this decision by myself, without him seeing it.  he told me he was fine with whatever I liked :)

almost three years later I can say with confidence that God provided us with this perfect home.  and with His help, I made a very good decision.  I can't wait to drive by this place when Reagan is older...be the soooo typical obnoxious mom and say..."that's where we lived when you were born! you loved watching the cars go by..." and show her these pictures of her in her first backyard.