The first box.

I was rearranging the boxes in the garage (yes, again!) and I came across the very first box I packed before I realized we were moving. Way back when, probably even around this time, I was sick of how [dangerously] messy the garage was, and I set about getting it cleaned up. I had put a few things in a box to set aside and decide if I was keeping them or getting rid of them because they certainly weren't going to stay in the garage! There was a few boxes like that (eight, if I remember correctly) and I just had them in boxes while I organized things. I got about 1/4th the way through the garage when we got the notice that because our landlords didn't feel like they needed to pay property taxes (for the past four years!!!) that we needed to move off the premises by October. At first we attempted to pay the back taxes ourselves, but the landlords wouldn't let us. Let me rephrase that....they'd let us pay the property taxes, but not to the courthouse, they wanted us to give THEM the money. Yet we had been paying them money for the past four years and they couldn't seem to use any of that to pay off the back taxes.

So we were done. Seven years and tens of thousands of dollars down the drain and we had had enough. So we started looking for a new place to live. Then like a gift from Heaven, one of my husband's friends posted a listing of a house on Facebook. We went to look at it and we liked it instantly. It was in our modest price range and it fit all our kids and pets and it had good neighbors and it was still in the school district! Everything happened fast after that, but not fast enough! I won't lie and say it all went perfectly, but overall it went pretty smoothly, and once we had everything in order we managed to get moved in just over two weeks.

I looked at what was accidentally the first box packed and all those memories came rushing back. It was a stressful but exciting time.

I think back and realize how awesome our decision was, because I don't think we'd be nearly this happy if we had ended up trying to get our old property.

Of course, here I am, once again cleaning up a mess in the garage LOL.