trees and people

we're moving. when? we don't know. where? we don't know that either. but we've been looking for places for quite awhile. we've been in our teensy 1 BR apartment for 4 years and we really need more space. also, when R starts his new teacher job, he needs room to make & put his artwork, his school stuff, his student's school stuff that he's marking, etc. i mean, some place besides in a row of piles on the living room floor (if you've lived with an education student, i think you know what i'm talking about). no, i'm not complaining about him.... no, see, during the school year he can't put his stuff on the kitchen table because that's where all my junk is.

so, where to move to? we don't want to be in an apartment anymore so we've been checking out houses and townhouses. i don't care to live near the university anymore. this part of the city feels so.... i don't know. it's all concrete and brick. i want to live someplace where there are a lot of trees and people are out-and-about. so what if i have to take the bus to school? in 4th year, i only go to school 2 days/week anyways. and 3 days/week i'm at the hospital. so a house in wolseley? a townhouse in windsor park? who knows? it'll probably be for only a year anyways, because then i graduate and then who knows where we'll be.

but we're confused. there's this house in wolseley that we really really like. there's 2.5 bedrooms - a master bedroom, an art room and a small room for the office. there's a kitchen with room for a kitchen table in it. there's a garage. [no more brushing off the snow in the mornings]. there's an alarm system. there are a number of storage closets [ie. lots of SPACE!]. there are nice landlords. there's a laundry chute that goes from our 2nd storey place to the washer and dryer in the basement!!! it's really clean and well-kept and feels really nice. there's new appliances. there's a little fenced-in front lawn. it's right next door to some good friends of ours. and we really really like it.

the problem is, it's a lot of money. like, $200 more than what we're paying now. we could fit it into the budget..... but should we? are we just too infatuated with the idea of getting into a house that we'll do anything, pay anything? okay, we won't pay just anything. and judging by the prices of other houses in the area and elsewhere in the city, it's not really any more than other houses with 2.5 bedrooms. somehow we go hooked on to wolseley. i've always thought it would be wonderful to live there among all the tree-hugging hippies. it feels so rich and organic.

so yeah. we're still waiting to hear back from some other places on monday. but R and i think that we'll just apply for this place and see if we get it. there were other people who were looking at it yesterday too, so we need to get on the ball. but we feel like we have an upperhand because we are friends with the landlord's cousin [she gave us a good reference].
i guess the part that gets us confused is that we've never really had a real income and our budget has mostly just consisted of "let's spend as little as we can".

anyways.... what do you think, all you homeowners and renters?