We're Moving to Ripon!

We got the apartment! Now all the legal stuff needs to be completed and then we can pick up the keys.

7 minutes from my hubby's work, a quarter mile from walking trails, cute town, union job, and a pretty good view.

View from the balcony

Big area for my plants in the living area

Kitchen

Mini blinds! Not the vertical murder blinds!

Brand new water heater

New washer and dryer

 

It's Nice!

 We saw the apartment today, 2 bedroom upper, clean, washer and dryer are new, A/C is new, water heater is new, and there is a view. I am trying to be level headed and controlled because we still need to submit our applications. Our credit scores are good, background checks spotless, but still, until that lease is in hand, we are waiting to celebrate.

I have been dreaming of a place like this. There are a couple of trees that block little bits of the view, but it seems good. Two windows face west (for my plants) and one bedroom window faces north. Storage is a little tight but I'm going through stuff again. Papers can go, stuff I don't use anymore and don't need to keep can go, and some of my rocks can go. I mean, how many rocks do I really need 🤭. 

It's also in a quiet area (although we can watch college soccer ⚽️ 😅 from the balcony), and it's 7 minutes from hubby's work. The maintenance guy said two other people from the same company also live there.

Fingers crossed and prayers we are accepted 🙏 

No pictures until we are approved. 

Apartment Hunting

 We are going to look at an apartment on Saturday. The location is good, facing the road and looking out over the fields with a clear view of the sky. The area is quiet. However, it's in the same building that we looked at before. The apartment we saw was dirty, and the refrigerator was old and very small. There is no way we can be sure if the apartment we will see Saturday is just as bad, or worse. If so, slum lord comes to mind. If this one is ok, it will be available the end of September, and since it's not listed in the paper or on any apps, we would be certain to get it, pending approval, of course.

If it's not good, things will be more difficult. We might be able to get into this place, if we are lucky.

Stanton Street Estates are in high demand. They are across the street from my hubby's work. They are also busy. Families with kids and pets gather on the lawn around the pond. I would be fine with the other side, even though those apartments face the garages. I am hoping it is possible to see over them well enough from the second floor. One came up as available but before I had enough of hubby's employment history, so I was unable to apply.

 

Hubby's work on the left and to the right, the 5 buildings that make up the apartment complex.

Hubby's 40 mile drive is easy when he leaves at 3 am but absolutely terrible when coming home. There is construction everywhere on the expressways, with congestion and sometimes accidents.

I have begun to pack. Not so hard this time, because I hardly unpacked.

My husband hasn't stopped talking about his new job. He has a great teacher, and is learning a skill he never thought he could do, and he enjoys the job. The company is big, with a large variety of jobs, and they are union. People are friendly.

Below, a picture of the Patina Vie building in downtown Ripon. Looking forward to moving there.

My blood sugar is normal, finally. I'm pretty sure it was stress. 

TRIGGER WARNING. If medical stuff grosses you out....just to let you know, the post gets weird.

Speaking of blood sugar, my insurance sent me a home test kit for kidney health and A1C. I was a bit surprised. The urine part was easy. The sample ended up in a self-filling test tube.

How the sample gets into the test tube

The A1C part was a "whole nother ballgame". I was nervous. I've been testing my glucose for years with lancets that only need to draw a dot of blood. This thing needed to make 5 or 6 drops pour out. 

The whole time I was talking myself into doing this I kept thinking, they really expect me to jam this thing into my finger? I was really nervous.

Finally I anchored my finger on the coffee table and pressed that darn lancet into it. Nothing. Press harder. Harder. *CLICK* It was over. Didn't hurt as much as I thought. I had trouble getting the drops into the cassette. Finally I completed the dastardly deed and packed everything up and dropped the package off at UPS. My finger has a slit in it. I just removed a band-aid, which makes my finger look irritated. Was a bit sore, later a faint bruise. It's all good now, just a little tender.

I'm still weirded out by the fact that my insurance sent me this, given the stress I experienced building up the courage to stab my finger with a knife-shaped lancet. They have partnered with Everlywell. You can check out their website here Everlywell

It's been hot and humid, everywhere in the Midwest. Today we had some rain. Green Bay had a tornado warning. I didn't hear any more, so maybe it was just stormy with wind.

Nope. Don't Need These. Yay!

The Boswellia gave me nosebleeds!

I haven't needed the Omeprazole for months. It took over a month to wean myself off of it. My doctor had prescribed it a few years ago for Gerd, and I just kept taking it. Any time I tried to stop, the heartburn came raging back.

Eventually, after giving up most carbs, the heartburn lessened enough for me to try getting off of it. I used Famotidine as my crutch, and was finally able to eliminate that. The only time I need to take one is after I eat butter late in the day.

 

I just happen to have a lot of them. Oh well....

We Spent The Day In Ripon

The drive isn't difficult, but it's 40 miles from where we are now, that's 80 miles round trip for hubby when he starts work next month. We decided to make a fact-finding mission to check out apartments, the grocery store, etc. 

The downtown area is very walkable and has tons of local businesses. It is charming. It has not fallen into decay like some other cities we have visited, such as Stevens Point and Sheboygan, where the downtown businesses left and the storefronts are filled with tattoo shops and arcades. 

Ripon is charming, friendly and happy. It's easy to drive around in, no crazy expressways. They have hills! That makes me extremely happy. There is a hospital in town, plus every other service we might need. The grocery store is Hy-Vee. It's pretty good. The prices are almost the same as Walmart. There is no Walmart, which I imagine is part of the reason the town is so vibrant. The Walmart and Aldi stores in Fond Du Lac are only about 20 miles to the east, making them an easy once a month stock-up trip.

What we need is an apartment. Our fact-finding mission came up short. There are apartments there, but with a wait list, or nothing available, or just for seniors, or income restricted, or too cheap (dumpy), and one "maybe". We hope to be able to find something by October. We will be paying for two apartments until the end of the year. We could break the lease, but we would still need to pay the rent here until it had a new tenant. Because of the stupid walk-in whirlpool tub in the bathroom, this place stood vacant for a year until we came along. We took it because we couldn't find anything else in January.

This is the only picture I took, maybe because I was too busy taking notes.

Very similar to where we live now. The only available apartment was downstairs, like we have now. It had not been cleaned. There was dust everywhere. The older gentleman who showed us around is also the maintenance man. What I noticed is that the upper apartments have that extra big window in the living room. The apartment we are in now also has the extra window upstairs. 

For some reason only some new apartments have the extra window, many are built with a big storage area there instead. In any case, none of the new apartments have any vacancies. One has a wait list into next year. Another doesn't use a wait list, after applying and getting approved, one must call, text or email and ask if there is a vacancy coming up. It's first come, first serve, and there are over 100 applicants waiting to jump in.

Anyway, back to the apartment above. It has mini blinds (that open upward instead of murder blinds like here.) The area seems quiet, although there is a soccer field across the street. Other than the soccer field, there are just fields and tree-covered hills in the distance. Might be peaceful, except when they have a soccer game. The school year could be a mess of lights, noise and traffic. Below is a screen shot of the street side.

There are a few apartments downtown, upstairs in those ornate, historical buildings. I only found one listing, and all of the apartments are studio or one bedroom, nice but tiny, and no balcony.

We really need to find something by October.

Job Offer Accepted!!

 We are moving to Ripon as soon as we can, maybe not till fall because of our lease! Hubby got a good paying job there!!