Casey and I have had a busy week! Last Friday she was offered a job as a special education teacher at West Elementary in Grand Forks, so we’re understandably very excited. This news opens up some new possibilities for us, the most urgent of which is moving. We’ve been living in UND married-student housing since we got married two years ago and are ready for a change. The upcoming issue was that I will only be taking four credits this fall (Intermediate Accounting) while the requirement to stay on campus is six credits. We did receive a fall semester waiver from the housing office, but the issue might come up again next fall as well. The bigger problem was that after I graduate next December (2005), we would have to be out by the end of the month. Neither of us are big fans of moving in the first place, so the thought of moving during the North Dakota winter really wasn’t appealing to us. We figure that if we have to move eventually anyway, why not live at the new place for a little longer, especially now that we have an extra salary for our household.
This began our search for a new place to live. We’ve been checking the Grand Forks Herald and websites like Apartments.com, and Casey also posted a request on the Grand Forks Public Schools classifieds mailing list. While I was in Valley City, Casey made several calls and three visits, and I think she already found our new place. A teacher responded to Casey’s message on the email list and said that her brother had an apartment open on the main floor of a house and was looking for a couple to live there and act as managers. Casey went to see it while I was traveling back to Grand Forks, and then we both went to see it yesterday afternoon. It seems like a great setup: an early 20th century home (not really sure how old), lots of space, use of a garage, laundry hookups, and a great location. This house is actually right on campus and is literally a 30 second walk to my office building and probably a 2-3 minute drive to Casey’s school. We’ve been talking to the owner’s sister, so we still have a couple of questions for the owner, who lives out of town. Barring any unforeseen issues, we may have found our new place already!