things that make a home

We've been living in our apartment for almost two months now and it is still awesome. Both Boyfriend and I keep telling each other how happy the place makes us. With any luck, we'll be here for a long time.

Rather than taking pictures of each room (sorry, Mom), here are my top 5 favorite things about the apartment (right now).

 

Okay - so the first picture is a room, but it is the smallest room in the house. Its my wee little office (that I am very good about sharing). Its painted the nicest, pale yellow (this apartment has the BEST wall colors) and its perfect for books and thoughts and a desk full of treasures. When the sun shines in, its one of my favorite places to be.

 

Speaking of sun shining through - Hazel has found her favorite spot in the whole apartment. The window sills in our bedroom are super deep and just right for a nap. She also crawls through the blinds when they're down so she can sleep inside but pretend like she's outside.

Nearly everything in this apartment is modern and updated, except this amazing light fixture in the entryway of the apartment.  Its so fancy! Most of the lights are recessed halogen fixtures which I find to be super boring and unflattering but this totally makes up for it.

This picture is from one of our first days in the apartment, but it still makes me so happy. Look at our little yard! Its so nice to be reminded that things grow in the city and to get to see them every day. I can't wait to plant things next year.

I am sure this cabinet has some sort of practical application, but it has become my things-I-love-that-need-to-be-shown-off cabinet. Right now its holding my whale measuring cups, my Lilly Pulitzer animal cookies, my favorite panda mug, a chocolate alligator from Florida and fancy Queen's Jubilee tea. Things I don't need, but it just makes me happy to look at while I eat breakfast.

Its so nice to be in an apartment that finally feels like our home. Come visit.

dinner time

So Boyfriend and I are moving (DUH.) so in preparation we are doing the one thing we've managed to forget the past two times.

We are eating everything in the house so we don't have to move it.  This is all fun and games until you run out of normal food and are eating everything else.

So tonight's dinner is tater tots, baked beans and the piece de resistance - store brand velveta (that expired in July) mixed with salsa.

Do you eat it all together, do you eat everything separately with tortilla chips and/or ketchup or do you cover everything with Costco brand giardiniera and wash it down with a Miller Lite?

problem solved

We picked an apartment.  We went with the new adventure in the fancy apartment.  You only get to be in your 20's once - with expendable income and giving in to your childish whims.  The next place will probably be much more practical as it will (with any luck) be something that Belongs to us.

Get stoked for pictures!  And words about commuting (something I haven't really done in almost a year)! And the adventures of Roscoe Alexander Chompers I - the baby alligator who is going to live in our overly huge bathtub!

A shell on my back

Boyfriend and I are yet again looking for an apartment.  This our third apartment hunt in three years which is some sort of sick record.  We've had such good luck with the last two (well, except for the fact that we haven't been able to make them permanent) that we are having a hard time settling for anything less than really, really awesome.

The hard truth about not settling, especially when it comes to real estate, is that it requires an absurd amount of effort.  Real Estate, particularly rental real estate is about 98% crap.  And every so often you find a gemstone in the mounds of pooh but it takes so much effort.

And where does this effort come from?  Well, like any good virus or parasite, it sucks up effort and energy from wherever it can find it.  Work projects that should be started already have been pushed aside.  Our apartment looks like a very nice winter-themed tornado came through - leaving Christmas presents, coats, boots and other stuff littered everywhere.

 We do not even have the capacity to make food right now.  We are living off of leftover spinach dip and Christmas stocking candy.  Boyfriend has started taking a can of soup for lunch.  A Can of Soup.  Literally.  Today for lunch I had the class and sophistication to cut three or four pieces of Sommer Sausage and Cheddar cheese off their respective logs and bricks and throw them into a baggie with some stale pumpernickle.

Also there is a piece of pie, wrapped in tinfoil - I don't know a ton about you know, physics - but I am pretty sure that the density of pie cannot withstand my backpack.  It will probably be a pile of goo by the time I get around to eating it.  But I didn't think of that as I packed it, because my brain is going a hundred miles a minute about apartments and appointments and rental applications all the time.

Even this blog has felt the effects of the apartment parasite.  I started this blog at around 10 last night, with full intention of finishing it and posting it before the clock struck 12.  But no - it very much lost the battle with the other open tab on my browser - the craigslist apartments page.

Anyway - with any luck the hunt will be over soon.  Which does not make the insanity stop.  If anything - apartment hunting is a treat compared to packing, painting, cleaning and moving.  But here we go - one more time.

Believe it or not, this post is about moving.

There are some bright sides to this whole disaster. Mostly the fact that I find it perfect acceptable to eat whatever I want until we're completely done with this whole shebang. Completely - like every box unpacked, every new storage container purchased...

Seriously, since we really started moving which I will considered Thursday - the "healthiest" thing I've eaten is a southwest blackened chicken wrap...and a chipotle burrito bol. I say these things are healthy because the ratio of vegetable to cheese is higher than anything else I've consumed.

Currently we are eating a Whole Foods Toffee Chunk cookie and drinking a Blue Moon as we finish the last of the painting.

In non-Moving news, today I was in meetings pretty much back to back all day until 4 PM. For some reason saying that makes me feel like I have a job that matters. In some respects I do, but mostly I am totally in denial about the fact that I now have responsibility and a mid-level job. But I also lost a car key in the snow. So don't worry, I'm still a jerk.

moving shmupdate

-Clothing is now out of trash bags that were stored in the bathtub and into the closet. I consider this a success. I own a lot of clothes, but not enough to fill up this closet. I consider this a challenge. Also I need hangers for all my skirts.

-Kitchen is organized. Told boyfriend that Cuisinart takes counter-space-presidence over quesidilla maker. He is not happy.

-Missing particle board is found. I should have bookshelves by the end of the day.

-Living room is a disaster and we still have no idea how we are going to organize it.

-Kitten is adjusting well, or at least better than last time when she peed all over everything I've ever owned.

-Am attempting social life for a few hours. Have no moisterizer or make up. This should be awesome.

blog your mom

I do not have the time or the energy for this right now. Currently I am (ironically?) sitting in my home office chair, a place I rarely sit when I am on my computer. I am sitting here because its one of the only places in this apartment not totally covered in crap.

The painting is done, the moving is done and now comes the real ridiculous part. I am trying to unpack. It actually feels like trying to put a square peg in a round hole (or whatever) as nothing quite lines up with my old apartment. The kitchen cabinets are wider but not as deep, and there aren't as many. The closet in the mast bedroom is not evenly divided (like last apartment) so we're going to have to figure out some other way to divide it. Although, that is a challenge for another day...right now there is some particle board somewhere that we need. Otherwise I don't get bookshelves and really to me, the most important thing is getting books up in shelves. Everything else can wait.

I am also still shameless stealing internet from neighbors (and will be until we get back from HI) so I do not even know if this is going to be posted tonight. Fingers crossed. So long suckers.

Scrambling...

So for the first time in my whole life, I have a job where when I am at work, I do work pretty much all day. I will take the occasional cnn/facebook/gofugyourself break but for the most part I am busy all day.

While this does have its merits (like feeling productive) it also has its downfalls (like being tired and stressed out).

Also it means that blogging is going to be hard on the days that I am here (at this very moment, this job is only part time). So I am blogging right now mid-email, so I don't forget.

My apartment is not even close to being done. We needed 2 coats of primer in the nook and we didn't notice until like 10 PM last night that our bedroom ceiling is like 13 feet high. Sweet, except for painting. But we are optomistic, particulary because this is a great excuse to eat crappy delivery food and not feel bad about it. So tonight we are going to roll our faces off (not in the cool way, in the painting way).

In other Friday morning news, I suggested we use "Daydreaming" by Lupe Fiasco in our Spring childrens show and my co-worker laughed. Then he made me go look up the lyrics. Damn you, Lupe, you are a filthy fast-talking bastard. Its still a real good song, despite the line about making cocaine cool. Cocaine is not cool, kids. Unless you have a trust fund. Even then its really kind of a cliche.

More blogging later? Maybe... Except probably not, so I'm going to leave you with this:



nataliedee.com

Paint the town

No Seriously...

Sometime before February 25, I will have moved my entire life into a brand new apartment. But before I move, I have to paint. Yes. HAVE.

Back when I was young, I did not find value in chosing the colors of my walls. My bedroom in my Mom's house was this pinkish-purple color with an unfortunate accent wall of stripped wallpaper. It was fine while I was growing up until my penchance for posters and other crap on my walls totally destroyed it. Now there are these giant sploches of exposed plaster everywhere. Luckily, its my baby-sister's problem now.

Anyway, occasionally I would want to paint it, but my Mom always said that I didn't keep it clean enough. So I wasn't allowed. Touche, Mom.

So in every apartment and living situation I've always just accepteded the colors and moved on. I've lived in rooms that were coral, orange, green, and various shades of dirty-white.

This was fine until I moved in with the Boyfriend. In our first apartment (a year ago) - the master bedroom was this atrocious shade of mustard yellow. I still, to this day, cannot figure out why anyone who wasn't cracked out on European Interior Design magazines would think that was an acceptable color to paint ANYTHING.

At this point we were still in the woo-ing stage in our relationship and I told Boyfriend that I would never live in a bedroom this color. So we picked out paint and painted it (and the attached bathroom which was the SAME color. Horrifying.) - and it turned out really pretty.

So now we're moving and in our new apartment there is only one room (techinically its a nook) that is painted an unfortuntate color. The bathroom and the bedroom are both white, not great, but not terrible.

I figured since we are two very busy people with careers and theater engagements, we would just leave them the sad droopy white and go about our lives.

Inc ase you haven't figured out by now - I was gravely mistaken.

So we're painting. But of course, we don't have "days off" and we only gave ourselves 10 days to get everything done - so we're painting at night. I got home from seeing the Joffrey's Cinderella at 10:30 last night, only to spend the next three hours covering the bathroom with blue tape.

Tonight I will spend a cool 6 or 7 hours (after work) painting the nook (which was orange, and so really needed the paint job), bathroom and bedroom. One can only hope we'll get it all done, but I am not holding my breath.

This is, naturally, before any actual moving happens.

Last night around 12:30 the Boyfriend (who, bless his little go-getter heart had been working since 6 or 7 PM) turned to me and said, "are there people we can to do this for us, like Power Movers but with paint?"

"Yes. They're called painters."

"When are we going to figure out that its worth our time to pay people to do this for us."

"Um...soon?"

"Good."

I Hate Moving, part 34573458

I am *giant exhale of relief* done packing for the 4th time since late May. I am still in my pjs, I stink, and I've been mainlining coke zero and caramel hershey kisses for the past 48 hours but it doesn't really matter because tomorrow I embark on yet another journey into the unknown.

This journey is a little different...first of all, I'm moving to a new time zone! I will be all alone in this new world of everything-one-hour-earlier. Everyone I love sits comfortably in Eastern while I'll be out there in Mountain or Central or one of those middle ones. Plus, I have NO safety net. This will be the first move where I have no job, or school, or given purpose for being there. For the first time in my whole (very short) life I'll have to find my own purpose.

Thats kind of fucking terrifying.

But I'll be fine. I had a wonderful last week in the Eastern standard thanks to Courtney, Daniel Vosovic, Jon, the casts of Carmen (the opera) and The Last King of Scotland (the movie), various delivery men in Queens, Uggs, the crepe guys, the fine people at Gap, Tierra, Lizzie, Niki, the bartender at Fado, Annie, Taryn, Moira and the folks over at the Monocacy Goodwill.

And Courtney gets one more shout out for not passing judgement on the Uggs, the fact I wear kids clothes, the fact that I flipped my shit over Daniel Vosovic, the fact that I have to change clothes like 6 times and many more things I'm sure.

grumpy face.

So.

I hate packing.

I don't hate moving. Moving is exciting. Moving means new adventures. If there was a way to move with out packing than I would move a whole bunch more. My first few years in NYC I was bouncing around so much that I lived with just the bare essentials (which are not as bare as you might think...because I am insanely materialistic. No judging. Its hereditary). Then I moved to Brooklyn. And I got a huuuuuge closet. And I got comfortable. So here I sit, 18 months later, surrounded by garbage bags and boxes and piles of random shit I haven't seen in months but can not bring myself to get rid of. I'm close to done, but the closer I get to done the more I realize that there is no earthly way this is all going to fit in the back of a Mazzda Pick Up and a Chevy Impala. And there is the lingering fear that I won't sell my futon. Which means that I will also have to get a 600 pound futon mattress home as well. I'm freaking out. Freak.ing.out. It's 12:25 AM on Tuesday. I have to be out of the apartment by 10:00 AM on Friday. This seems like so much time but I'm working full time, going to tea, spending the night in a mansion, graduating, attempting to survive a meal with both my parents (ps. I wouldn't be in Tavern on Dean on Thursday afternoon if you don't want to deal with that hot fetus of mess) and uh...oh, going to my post office box. And buying my first piece of Hunter clothing (now that I don't go there, I'll wear their colors).

It also does.not.help that there is approximatly 100% humidity in Brooklyn with a whacked out pollen count. And where's my allergy medicine? Maryland. Because who gets allergies in the concrete jungle? Yea. I hate everything right now.

In happier news, I had a wonderful last weekend, full of all the right amounts of drinking and sailors and kisses and tears and smiles and self actualization and reality checks and true friends (occasionally via telephone) who I am far too lucky to have. I'm sorry I took absolutly no pictures. Boo, I suck sometimes. Luckily I have enough memories (and old pictures) to last forever.

And can we please discuss how Fraiser is the worst.show.ever!?