Shelby and I are not apartment people. I'm also not live-with-my-parents people, and moved out asap on my 20th birthday to a beautiful farm house down the road. Unfortunately it wasn't mine, but I enjoyed having a cat and dog to keep me company while I ruled the roost for three months.

The homeowners came home after fulfilling their exciting employment opportunity in Abu Dhabi, and I relocated to the basement. Not long after, they decided not to renew my lease and I could either move back in with my parents or head to an apartment. I chose the latter.

Shelby and I hunted for a place to live together, and settled in a small apartment building in Bethlehem. It wasn't ideal, but we were together. We also started looking at houses and took a home buying class to ascend to the next step.

After 13 months- and plenty of stress- we are now living in our own home! We had a few heartbreaks prior to finding our house, such as coming close to buying one on a hill and loving another that wasn't meant to be. Grandpa was in hospice at that time, so we always had family around to look through listings together.

We were about to leap on an 1870s farmhouse in Lisbon that Grandpa adored, but our realtor advised us against it. I was crushed. Grandpa had passed the day before and I was so excited that he would know where Shelby and I would end up. Against all hope, I searched Realtor.com. It must have been fate, because up popped this newly listed home in Littleton that looked absolutely adorable.

We looked at it, won a bidding war, showed both sets of parents, and waited anxiously to move in. Finally we closed this week, on September 13. What a coincidence, as Nanny & Grandpa had many happy years and I grew up visiting them at 13 Nichols Street. Maybe finding this house and closing on the 13th was more than a coincidence.

Either way, we're happy at our Mellow Meadows.