Why I Love our Apartment

This past year, we have lived in a fairly small apartment...around 400 square feet. And while there have been a few challenges in transitioning from our house in the country to a tiny apartment, I have really loved living here this past year. And if we do get a bigger apartment next year (which is a possibility since we will have another child), there are some things that I will miss about our little home! These are the things I have loved about our apartment this year:

1. I don't have to clean a bathroom. Why is that? Because we don't have one! :) All of the students here (except the moms) have a SWP (Student Work Program) assignment to help keep the school clean. So the bathroom down the hall that I share with 20 or so other girls is faithfully cleaned every day by two girls here. It has been really really nice not to have had to clean a bathroom this past year!

2. I can hear my kids if they wake up at night...very easily. I don't have to use a monitor to listen for my kids at night, because they both sleep about 10 feet from us!

3. I am always in close proximity to my whole family. I always told Aaron that I didn't want a house that was too big, because I don't like how big houses separate families. For example, in the evening some families may all split up around the house...someone watching TV in one room, someone doing something at the dining room table, someone else in the basement, etc. I love that we don't have room to get away from each other :) It is so great to all be together the majority of the time, and a small apartment sort of forces that upon us.

4. Laundry gets done more quickly. That's because we don't have room for a washer and dryer in our apartment...so we are allowed to use the shared laundry room on the first floor. We are actually given two time slots per week (1 1/2 hrs. each) during which we can have the entire laundry room to ourselves! So instead of doing load after load all day long, we can put all of our loads in at one time in, say, four different washers. Same with drying. It is a blessing!

5. The size of our apartment allows me to listen to the 8:00 class each day. As a mom, I can't take the 8:00 class each day, because childcare doesn't begin until 9:00. However, they record and stream live the class each day online, so I listen to it each morning. And whether I am getting Ivy breakfast in the kitchen, getting Israel dressed in our bedroom, doing Ivy's hair in her room, or getting ready myself, I can hear the class throughout our whole apartment. :) The farthest I can ever get from our computer is about 10 feet in any direction. It would be difficult to listen to the class every day if I had to keep walking out of "hearing range" of the computer. I feel like I have learned a lot from those 8:00 classes...so I am thankful for that.

6.The size of our apartment has forced us to downsize. You just can't fit as much in a 400 square foot apartment as you can in a 2100 square foot house. So we've gotten rid of a lot...and that whole process has really shown us that many of the things we thought were necesseties actually aren't. It has been nice to shed some material items that we really don't need. (We still have a long way to go with this one, though!)

7. It has hopefully prepared us just a tiny bit more to live on the mission field. We now know that we can live--and truly enjoy living--in a small and simple home. And it seems that that is something that may come in handy on the mission field.

I am thankful for this home and the memories that we have made here!