For the past seven months, we've been so blessed to stay with Ben's sister, Melissa. She and her husband own a house, but their family is still fairly small. When we moved in, they had a three-year-old toddler and now also have a five month old baby boy.
We've been staying in their upstairs, which has a very large room, which is Ben and my bedroom, living room, and Ben's office. There's plenty of space. There's also a bathroom and an additional room for Ashtyn. We share the kitchen with Melissa.
We feel both very blessed to have been able to stay here for so long and to be moving into our own apartment soon.
The good of sharing the house:
-Adam and Melissa are the perfect people to share a house with. They are accommodating and laid back. Melissa is always making food and treats for us to eat and we don't feel like invaders in their own home.
-I have someone to talk with during the day while Ben's working, without having to go anywhere at all. All I need to do it go downstairs and Melissa and I can sit and talk all we want (as long as our kids are playing nicely, ahem).
-I haven't had to make dinner or do the dishes everyday, because Melissa and I split the load. (On a side note, Benjamin does help with dishes a lot as well, both while we've been living here and when we weren't).
-We've been able to park in the garage, which was nice when it was hot outside and is especially nice with the snowy weather. When we move, we'll be parking outside again until we buy our own house.
-We have access to Melissa's deep freezer. This is really nice, because I like to put a lot of food in the freezer, especially since we're smoothie people.
-Our living space is really nice. They built their house only a few years ago, so we couldn't have asked for nicer living quarters. Our new apartment is really nice as well, though, as opposed to every other apartment we looked at, so we're excited for that.
-We're literally less than five minutes from Ben's parent's house as well.
-We were able to here while Adam has been traveling for work, which I think was nice for Melissa. We were also able to help right after she had her baby (though looking back, we probably could have helped quite a bit more).
-We're in the same ward as Melissa. She and I are visiting teaching partners and have the same visiting teachers, which is nice living in the same house.
-Our rent is ridiculously low. When we first moved in, while Ben was moving his business from part time to full time and our income was still a little lower, they let us stay here for free. Once we started paying, it was probably less than half of what we'd be paying somewhere else and that has been really helpful as we have been putting everything we could toward our house.
The ... harder parts:
-It's someone else's house. It's not my kitchen and I still don't always feel comfortable just making whatever because it's Melissa's kitchen and not mine. Melissa has been so nice about it, but that's just how it is, I think, when you live with someone else.
-Because it's not my house, I don't get to do things like organize it certain ways or use things like the washing machine just whenever. We've worked it out really well, but it's definitely something that makes me really excited to have my own home again.
-I don't have very much control over how much noise happens during Ashtyn's nap. Being in the upstairs, their isn't as much noise, but there are still things (such as the garage, the wheat grinder, laundry, chairs scraping, the three-year-old playing, the baby crying, etc) that make noise and have potential to wake Ashtyn up. I know this is something I just need to get used to, as we have more kids, but it will be nice to not need to worry about it for the few months between getting our own apartment and having the new baby.
-Because we're in the same ward, sacrament meeting can be harder with Ashtyn and Elizabeth wanting to play with each other and being quite loud.
-Elizabeth and Ashtyn sometimes play together really well, but most of the time, it's hard with our living arrangements. Anytime I want to do something downstairs and bring Ashtyn, Elizabeth doesn't want to share any of her toys, it's a pain to bring Ashtyn's toys up and down the stairs all the time, Ashtyn tends to screech at her (which is bad when Thomas is sleeping) and sometimes I feel like I just don't get anything done because I spend all my time down there mediating the two girls. It makes me feel like I can't just do stuff in the kitchen or get food whenever, but I really need to. This is probably the hardest part of living together for me.
I understand that when we have more kids, we'll have to work these sort of problems out as well, it's just a little different because they're not actually siblings. They don't have the same toys, so having them share can be difficult. I'm not Elizabeth's parent, so she doesn't respond to me the same. It's doesn't seem like a big difference, but I think it really makes a difference that they're not actually siblings.
While the pros outweigh the cons, we're still very excited to have our own place again. But even more excited for when we can finally buy our house!
No comments:
Post a Comment