6 Reasons

In an effort to think about something other than baby sleep, I'm going to answer the call of Pam, who tagged me for a meme. It's of the "6 random things" variety, but I'm going to change it up a bit. I mentioned recently that we are considering moving next year, so I'm going to offer 6 reasons on both sides of the decision.

6 reasons to move to the outskirts of the city:

1. We currently own our duplex and rent out half of it. The rental values in our neighborhood have gone way up in recent years, so we could get a really good rent out of the place where we are currently living. Combine that with the current housing market, and financially it's a good time to buy a second home and rent out both sides of our current home.

2. Amazingly, we need to start thinking about how we might choose to educate our kiddos. The public schools where we live are just not a positive option. Unfortunately, I know this because I worked for the district for 5 years. There are some select schools in our district that I would consider, but they aren't the ones where we would be assigned. We still aren't sure what we will decide as far as public, private, or even home (?!?) education, but if we lived in a different school district, it would at least give us that option to consider.

3. I would really like for our kids to grow up in a neighborhood that was family oriented and safe for them to grow and develop. Although we have met some kids in our neighborhood, the vast majority of people do not have small children, nor are they sensitive to having them around. I wouldn't feel safe letting them ride bikes around, and we even have a hard time finding a park that isn't busted up and covered in inappropriate graffiti.

4. Besides the safety of my kids, I worry about the crime where we live. My sister, who lives a few blocks away, has had her house broken into 3 times in the last 2 years (one of which was while they were at home asleep, my worst nightmare). There have been lots of other significant crimes to houses all around us, and we don't have a dog. I have to admit, I'm scared alot. Every night when we go to bed, I take my purse to my bedroom, because if someone breaks in in the middle of the night, most likely they'll just take whatever they can grab in the main area of the house, so at least they wouldn't get my wallet. It would be nice not to have this conscious thought every night.

5. We are involved in a church that we love. Right now we live about 25 minutes from there, and while driving there once or twice a week isn't a big deal, it's hard to get into a community when most of the people live up in that direction.

6. Although there are some things that I love about our house, and we've made it our own, but there are also limitation to it. The yard is small, there are 3 flights of stairs between my bedroom and the laundry, and my dining room is also my office and my playroom. So the thought of looking for a house based on our needs as a family right now is so exciting.

Now if you are still reading...

6 Things I will miss about living in our current neighborhood:

1. Our neighbors. I know, I just complained about the people in the neighborhood, but I have gotten to know a few people really well and just love them. I will miss them terribly, and I don't know if I can hope to have new neighbors as wonderful as some of the ones I have here.

2. How close we are to everything. Within a 2 mile radius, I have my pick from 10 grocery stores, 3 CVS's, 2 movie theatres, Target, a zillion restaurants, and 2 major sport stadiums.

3. Speaking of close, Brian works about a mile from our house. I cannot overemphasize how great this is. I see him during the day a couple of times a week. He can swing home to watch the kids so I can go to a doctor's appointment, or I can easily meet him for lunch or drop something off if he forgets it (here's your lunch, sweetie!). Not to mention the cost of gas these days...

4. In the past couple of years, we've fixed up a lot of the house to be the way we like it. Well, Brian has. He finished the attic, added a full bath, remodeled the kitchen, and fenced in the yard.

5. After living here for 3 years (and in this neighborhood for 2 years before that), I've finally gotten to the place where I see people that I know when I'm out and about. I go to the pool, the library, the grocery, and there's a good chance I'll see someone I know. I love that, and I know it'll take years to get to that point again if we move to a new community.

6. Because we are centrally located in our metro area, we are 15 minutes from everywhere (except our church). So it really opens the possibilities of what you can easily do.

So that was nothing like Pam's original meme, but there you have it. And in case you're curious about baby sleep, we're in a significantly better place than we were one week ago, but maybe not as good of a place as I might have hoped we would be. Progress is good. We have a well visit tomorrow, so we'll have new stats to report.