This is how long my family has lived in our 1140 square foot apartment in the industrial town of Pasadena, Texas, just outside of grand old Houston. In this time, as far as making it home goes, we have placed a couple cheap rugs in some key areas, replaced some mini-blinds & vertical blinds, and hung exactly 4 things on the walls (not counting the surround sound speakers. (-.-) ).
This is what happens when you're starting over... This all comes with being laid off and starting anew, getting married, having a second child, but at some point enough has got to be enough, right? Well it is, starting now. Well really it started with me obsessing about six months ago and seriously considering moving to a nicer, more expensive apartment for the duration of our "wait to buy." I hate moving. I've moved 26 times in my 24 years on earth and I was never an Army brat. 11 of those times were since I've turned 18. Get the idea? I'm tired of moving. So here we wait in this abyss of white, spray-textured hi-gloss walls, and cheap stick-on tile, but while we wait, it's time to make things better.
Believe it or not, I'm a snob. I've actually given you no reason not to believe this if these are the first communications you've ever had with me. I'm a style snob. My mom says that I have champagne taste, problem is, I have a beer budget. On top of that I have a full time job, 2 kids, and a Chapter 13 bankruptcy. That's the kind where you pay it back over 5 years through your employment compensation... in my case in full. Yep. I went there. I don't want to keep secrets and I've never been ashamed to talk about. Some people need to hear about it and if that's you, I have a few good sources but that's not what this blog is about. Nor is it about how I got into the mess to begin with but if you are wondering how this 24 year old (I was 21 at filing) ended up having to file so young we will leave it at poor financial education and a pretty shitty ex-spouse. Excuse the language. You probably won't see much of that here. I do take responsibility though also... There are many things I could have done differently, but since there are no time machines I will settle on the lessons learned. There are many in the organizing and budgeting sector that I will probably pass on at some point.
Still with me? Well this is just an introductory post, but I don't want you nodding off just yet. I actually have so much to say as to why we stay here and not somewhere nicer and why I suddenly feel the need to put forth the effort, but I will save that for my next post when I put for the plans for my first 'official' project. The best is yet to come.
