Finding a Rental in a New City



After owning a home for nearly 10 years, it was super weird and super hard for me to transition to being a renter. I spent a ton of time looking into different places, locations, and types of rentals.

A few key things I realized about renting in a city, specifically Denver, Colorado:

  1. It is very expensive. Full stop. We pay $1400 for a 2 bedroom 1 bathroom duplex 15 minutes from downtown Denver. It has a giant yard, garage, and fireplace. Our mortgage in Grand Junction was $870. Ouch. Some things we lost in this rental: A/C, 2nd bath, 3rd bedroom.
  2. Private rentals seem to be better. They are more willing to work with you, are friendlier, and much more accessible for maintenance. They want to protect their investment. I eventually found ours on Zillow.com.

5 Things to Know About All This Messy Business




Moving away from my home town has been quite the experience. There have been so much to learn and so many new roads and directions to figure out! There's also been learning the ropes of my  teaching job at my new school and designing new coursework and curriculum for classes. We have way more freedom to do different activities and lessons here, but that means I have to build or rebuild a lot of it from scratch. Because of these tumultuous changes I've taken a break from blogging and we have tried to focus on our new life here.

Now! I realized just how much I miss it and am going to start all over, even if I never become a mega popular blogger where I can leave my day job to communicate and write all day with you guys, at least I have a spot where I can have a great time talking about things that are important to myself and others at this stage. So! Here are 5 things you need to know about This Messy Business moving forward into the new life and phase of this little bloggy and I'm excited for a fresh start!
Back in 2010 

In 2013.



  1.  I am a 27 year old high school English teacher and Speech & Debate coach! I've been teaching high school for 5 years now.  I love all things reading and talking. I am hoping to incorporate more book reviews, suggestions, must read lists, and even some lesson inspiration. 
  2. Brennan and I are engaged! We are going to be getting married on June 15, 2019 and I gotta tell you... I love wedding planning. If I were to forgo teaching I would totally go into the wedding planning business. It's awesome. 
  3. I started this blog when I was 19 or 20 to document remodeling and renovating my 3 bedroom 2 bath manufactured home in Grand Junction, Colorado. We sold it in under a week in July 2017.  You could read all about how I staged it to have it move quickly here.
  4. We are primarily a plant-based family! We are working to shift all our products to cruelty free and vegan. Brennan has been vegan for 4 years and I have been working to transition into that same lifestyle.  We love when we get to do a CSA with a farm in the summer, hopefully we find on like what we had in Grand Junction here in Denver! 
  5. We now live in Denver, Colorado and it is a huge change! We are hoping to go on more adventures that I can document and share with you, try out different awesome restaurants, and find cool neighborhoods. We want to purchase a home in the next 3 years so we need to explore the right place for us.  Right now, we love renting. Read all about why here!

I'm hoping reinvigorating the blog and widening my scope from the previous years will make this a place where I can enjoy others, collaborate, and share some fun pieces of our lives. What do you think makes a successful blog? What do you like to read about?




Our Engagement Story

The world works in mysterious ways, only making the meeting of two people happen when it was exactly meant to. We both attended Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado in 2009 and even knew the same people and had mutual friends, but we never had the chance to really meet. We are pretty certain we were even at some of the same parties in college without knowing it!
Fast forward to December of 2015 when we reconnected over the internet and began to find out just how much we had in common. We went on a couple of dates but what really sealed the deal was when B invited me to go to Ouray, Colorado at the end of January 2016 to spend the weekend getting a massage, soaking in the hot springs, and going to a romantic candlelight dinner in the mountains. Seriously, if you go to Ouray, go to the hot springs. It's amazing. 
It was perfect. From that moment on, we were together.
In May of 2016 we started to live together in Grand Junction before making the big decision to move to the Denver area in June 2017.
On August 20, 2017- we went to Wall, South Dakota for my cousin's wedding and Brennan met the whole family, and got all of them in on his plan! He spent time talking to my dad on the first night they were there and then on Sunday, as they were headed back with my parents and cousin Ashley, they stopped at Mt. Rushmore.
He is extra tricky because I absolutely loves teaching and learning about Abraham Lincoln which is why B coordinated my parents and family members to make sure she was all ready to be proposed to right there in front of the sculpture of my favorite president. The moment was fantastic and even other visitors to the monument clapped and cheered when they saw B get down on one knee to propose.
And of course, as we all knew I would, I said: Yes.
Here are all the pictures to prove it. Stay tuned for tons of eco-friendly and vegan inspired wedding posts!