Homeless no more

Good news! We found a place to move. I am very relieved that there will finally be some stability in my life. It's been a long, hard road.
The house is nice, it's a year newer than our house we have now (5 years old), it has a fenced yard and a large covered patio so we can finally put our brand-new-still-in-the-box patio furniture to use. We will section off an area of the patio and yard for the doggies, and they will still have access into the house when the weather gets hot (which it's well on the way... 87 degrees today!). That way the area of the patio won't get all messy from them running around, and I won't have to worry about them eating the cushions! We've had this patio furniture since right after our house was built and kept it for the day we'd get the yard walled in and a pool. That day never came! I'm glad hubby talked me into keeping in the boxes. Anyway, the house is 3 bedroom, 2 bath, almost 1700 sq. feet (our house now is 2200 sq ft), but it seems large enough because it has an open floor plan that is very popular out here. We live on a very busy street now, and the new house is on a quiet cul-de-sac, which will be great for my grandson. It has a landscaped yard, which our house doesn't, and a huge garage (thank God) which is actually bigger than our 1800 sq. ft. garage we have now (yes, it's gigantic)... let me tell you, that was a big concern because we didn't know how we'd fit all the stuff from our garage into a 2 or 3 car regular garage. It's really a lot like our house now in many ways, which I think helped me think it could work out. We are planning on getting an above-ground pool at some point. The landlord is the builder of the house and is super cool. We are very lucky to have found him and the house. He was with us when we looked at it on Saturday, and decided that the carpet in the master bedroom (which I thought just needed cleaning a little), needed to be replaced completely! I was blown away. He's going to have the landscaping freshened up, the carpet replaced, and the place cleaned from top to bottom. Awesome!
We started to go into our speech about how we got to the point of losing our house, and how bad our credit was, and why we weren't horrible people for it, etc., and he goes, "I just want someone who will pay the rent and take care of my place! I know how bad things are, and that's the kind of people I'm looking for." I was like, "Well, then we are your people! We have always paid rent/mortgage ahead of the due dates, and when we were renters, we took care of the place as if it was ours. We always leave a place better than we found it! Look, here's a letter from our previous landlord stating just that!!" He laughed and said, "That's great! I'll keep the letter, but I really don't need it, just fill out the application so I have your information if I need it... it's a very short basic application." So I whipped out a very detailed application I'd already filled out for a different rental we were thinking about, and said, "Will this work? It doesn't have any company name on it, and it has a ton of information!" He looked at it and looked at me and said, "You're something else!" My hubby laughed and I said, "You got that right!" So we gave him some money to hold it, and we'll be moving in on or possibly even before the 1st of April. :-)
My MIL is due to arrive next Tuesday, I'm nervous how it will be with her living in the house with us, although she has done a complete 180... I still don't trust her. It will be nice having someone on our side though, when it comes to the idiot step-daughter and her failed attempts at parenting. I just have to grit my teeth like I've been doing (they are worn almost to nothing!), and get through it. Seems like that's the story of most of my married life, but with the economy being what it is, there is no other choice right now. It won't be forever living with these people, but I really hope it won't seem like it....LOL