Are we living here now?
Sarah and I have always appreciated a good move. We’ve moved 10 times in the 14 years that we’ve been together across 4 cities. It’s refreshing to clean out all of the stuff that builds up and start fresh. We also love yard sales and putting stuff out on the curb as well as getting stuff free off the curb, but that’s another story for another day. Sarah is a great picker and dumpster diver. Let me just say that.
Our passion for movement has now seeped into our personal/professional lives in an unusual way. We started off by posting one of our triplex apartments on AirBnB and quickly found it to be a great alternative to full-time rentals. Plus you get an amazing dopamine hit every time you get a booking. It’s somewhat similar to the feeling I have when playing blackjack and seeing that ace/face card combo come down.
So we started off with one apartment and it went so well we opened up the 2nd unit upstairs and the bookings started rolling in. BLACKJACK = DOPAMINE. We were addicted. Also, good thing Atlanta doesn’t have a casino.
We ended up buying a 2nd home to support our habit. At this point we were renting out all 3 of our triplex units and were settled into a 3/2 single family home right around the corner, but still we couldn’t stop. Sarah took the unprecedented step of listing the house we were living in on AirBnB which begs the question…where do we go when it books? It doesn’t matter just post that shit and we’ll figure it out once that hit kicks in.
That brings us to our current state. Most of the time we wait to see what books then stay in the last apartment standing. We have trimmed down our stuff to the bare essentials. A few changes of clothes, toiletries, a few toys and a couple pairs of shoes. Parents know that at least one pair of shoes is wet at all times so having a couple is clutch. We have a closet at each house that we can lock while other people are there which helps us keep a few other things that we can’t fit in the KIA Sorento. Sidebar — the Sorento is a pretty reasonably priced car that has a 3rd row for anyone looking.
Blocking off an apartment for us to stay in is pretty key because we don’t want to disrupt the kids school week. We can walk to school everyday so even if we’re switching houses the routines don’t vary that much. The real fun stuff happens when we leave all apartments open on weekends or vacation days. We become homeless and have to figure something out. This has led to some great adventures.
We’ve done cheap weekend trips in Knoxville, Macon, Savannah, Clayton, Dillard, Cherokee, Albany, Augusta, Chattanooga, Blue Ridge, Athens, Watkinsville and Atlanta. We’ve spent more time with friends and family which has been great. We started to camp as a family which is a great profit generator since camping is only around $30 a night. Our kids are more like savage animals than domesticated children so they sleep excellently out in the open air. This has led to a pretty awesome nickname for Ruth, Little Wolf.
With any dopamine-related habit, we hit rock bottom a few weeks ago when we lost control of our calendar. Over the course of 8 nights we moved 6 times. It was a little exhausting and we need to find a solution for something more permanent and cost-effective, which we’re working on.
You’re probably wondering how this impacts our kids. We’ve thought a lot about this. Are we depriving our kids from a “stable” environment? Are they going to develop agoraphobia? Will they never have the ability hold down a job for more than a few days? We don’t really know what the impact will be, but we do ask them how they feel and observe their behaviors. No one seems anxious about moving around. Every now and then we get a few complaints but mostly it seems pretty normal for them. There is one funny/maybe sad thing that happens; almost anywhere we go Little Wolf asks same question:
“Are we living here now?”
