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As a result of receiving a couple of Target gift cards as well as a couple of Bed, Bath and Beyond gift cards as gifts for the wedding, I decided to redecorate our bathroom.

Before

Here are two photos of our bathroom before:

Things worth mentioning about our bathroom:

• We rent. Therefore, even though I hate hate HATE the fact that we have ½ an electrical outlet for the whole bathroom (the bottom half is the light switch, not another plug area) I cannot do anything about that. I also dislike the lack of storage (we have an over-the-toilet cabinet that came with the apartment) and the really awkward, misshapen area underneath the sink. And the lack of counterspace.

  If I had my way, I would replace the sink with something that:

  • Has a counter
  • Has one spigot instead of individual ones for hot and cold (you can’t ever have WARM water - it’s either scalding or icy cold, unless you turn both on and plug the sink and splash around in the pool that forms. Ick.)
  • Has cabinets underneath for storage
• I am still not entirely sure if we are allowed to paint or not. I think maybe they said we can’t, but it would be worth asking about because the area above the towels is woefully blank.
• The walls are very hard and it is incredibly difficult to pound nails into to hang things. It is not concrete or anything, just very bizarre drywall. This limits our art-hanging endeavors.
• Itemized:
  • Shower curtain and plastic hooks from Target (I think it was on clearance as a set for maybe $10)
  • Mismatched hand-dyed towels, originally white ones from JC Penny for about $4 or $5 each
  • Bright lavender bath mat, hand towel, and bath towel that was a present for my high school graduation five years ago.
  • Blue trash can left over from my days of living at home. Have probably had it since middle school.

Total:

Roughly $20. We really didn’t buy anything new for it when we moved in.

After

Here are some photos of our bathroom after:

The photos are really poor-quality and not very color-accurate (I need a new camera). See the links below to get a better idea of colors.

Things of note about the redecoration:

• Couldn’t do anything about the over-the-toilet cabinet. It’s not ours to mess with.
• Itemized:
  • Shower curtain, liner, and metal hooks from Target; $20, $7, and $10 respectively
  • Matching “Cocoa” towels from Bed Bath and Beyond (4 large towels, 1 bath sheet, 2 hand towels, 4 washcloths); $55
  • Bath mat from Target; $30
  • Not pictured since we haven’t bought it yet, but Rubbed Bronze trash can from Target; $20

Total:

Roughly $150. Most of it was on gift cards.

Verdict:

I love it! It looks so much nicer now that things are color-coordinated and actually given some thought. Looking at these photos, it would appear that I bought a shower curtain and a towel and called it good, but it really looks so much nicer in person and with natural light. The nighttime+flash look is never pretty. The mat is a nice cream and sage green, the towels are this rich, chocolatey brown, and the shower curtain is very lightweight and brings in not only the leaf imagery from the bath mat but the black and white of the floors.

See, I told you the HGTV was getting to me.

This time they are not on our porch, but they keep showing up in the bathroom. We have killed three identical spiders in the past week and I AM NOT ENJOYING IT.

This morning’s spider was found on the inside of the shower curtain, so I tried to push the curtain closer to the front wall of the shower to get a better squishing area, but the spider fell over and I had to shake the curtain to get it to fall into the tub. Then I squished it with a Q-tip box. Gross.

The spider prior to that scared me half to death as it appeared on the OUTSIDE of the shower curtain, conveniently right by my head as I was rinsing my mouth out after brushing my teeth. Horrifying. It climbed its way to the back wall of the shower and then on to the ceiling, whereupon Daniel tried to squish it with a broom but it FELL and I screamed and somehow it ended up dead. I don’t really recall that part.

The first spider was spotted in the morning as I was getting ready for work. I saw its reflection in the mirror and couldn’t figure out if it was just a weird paint spot or something more sinister. I turned around and saw that it was sinister and on the move. It climbed all over the wall and the shower and our shower caddy and Daniel’s shampoo and generally violated everything cleanly in the general shower region. Ugh.

And then I lost it.

I had no idea where it was hiding. I didn’t see it on the wall, the shower curtain, the shower caddy, any of the bottles or soap things… It was lost. I HATE THAT. If there is a creepy spider in the room, as counterintuitive as it sounds, I would like to know where it is at all times. And I lost it. And I had to leave for work right then.

This meant that I had to leave a note. It was a horrible note, as no one wants to wake up to something that says:

BEWARE: Spider in the shower. Tried to kill it but it got lost.

Poor Daniel. He said he wasn’t sure if he appreciated the note or if he would have felt better discovering it on his own. I still maintain I could not have gone to work with a clean conscience if I hadn’t at least warned him. But he managed to find the spider and kill it, so all is well.

Semi-unrelated tangent: After dispatching the spider, I jumped into the shower and several minutes later had another terrific scare. You know how water sometimes makes weird noises on plastic shower curtains if it hits it just right? This made some godawful noise like a croaking frog-man growl and my heart flew into my throat and I jumped and generally had the everloving wits scared out of me. By water. In the shower. Where you are probably the most vulnerable ever. It was awful.

I just hate when mornings start out like that.

Maintenance has started cleaning! [Read the beginning of the story here.] We were supposed to have a follow-up visit today (our kitchen cupboards appear to be detaching themselves from the ceiling so we mentioned it when they came in last week) and I left a note about the mess in the basement. The note was still there when I got home from work, but Daniel and I ran downstairs and checked and they have totally made progress.

They got rid of all the boxes and opened up all the storage units (except ours - I think it’s the only one being used) and shoveled out the foul grossness on the shelves. It actually looks kind of nice down there now. I didn’t take any follow-up photos but trust me, SO MUCH BETTER.

I still suspect that the maintenance people were the ones that discovered it and dragged the boxes out to begin with, but I still felt like too long a time went by before they really cleaned it out, hence leaving a note. And, yay! No more grossness.

I loved all of your comments about how gross it was. I mean, on a whole I don’t mind mice. I am not afraid of them. Even so, I do not want to live with them and have them leave that kind of filth behind, because YOW. It was like I could feel myself contracting Hantavirus.

I don’t do laundry nearly enough. If it gets really bad, I can usually find some long-neglected, ill-fitting t-shirt to wear for the day until I can get home to do laundry (or ask Daniel to take care of it). Today, though, he threw in a load and then later asked me to go downstairs and switch it over. Cool, I said, and off I went.

Upon reaching the basement, I noticed a rather… pungent smell. Sort of like cat pee. But there are not any cats in the building. I looked around, thinking maybe it was my imagination or maybe a cat zoomed in the building and peed in the basement? And died there? I did notice a bunch of cardboard boxes all over the floor in front of the haphazardly built storage units, but didn’t think much of it.

I finished switching over the laundry and decided to investigate. The closer I got, the worse it smelled, and there were multiple chewed up boxes with furry hairballs and mold spots and piles of what looked like dirt clumps but I think are actually poo. I stood there for a minute, staring at this godawful mess on the floor in front of the storage units, and came to the startling conclusion that A VERITABLE HORDE OF MICE must have been living there for YEARS and have only now been discovered. ACK.

ACK ACK ACK

I can only assume (based on our scheduled apartment inspection today) that the maintenance people have discovered this alarming situation and have dealt with the offending storage unit (the cardboard boxes used to live in there, not on the floor) by spreading it all over one end of the basement. The now empty unit looks like a chicken coop. It is SO. GROSS. Layers and layers of poo and cardboard and hairy tufts of grossness and OH MY GOD I DO LAUNDRY DOWN THERE. I have no idea when they are actually going to do something that gets rid of the offending mess, but jeeze I hope they do it soon.

Pictures should be forthcoming, as there is really no way to describe it that will do it justice. I only wish monitors had scratch-n-sniff so you could experience the horror in its entirety.

EDITED TO ADD: Okay, photos!

First, the chewed boxes I came across first:

Then, the floor in front of the storage unit:

Theeeeennnn… inside the unit:

And the other wall:

ACK GROSS FOUL

Daniel just came home and told me that his co-worker Matt gave him a ride home and…

…AND…

MATT KILLED THE SPIDER.

He held the lamp aside, grabbed a phone book that was laying on the stairs, and SKOOSHED it! (Apparently, he is tall.)

If you need me, I’m going to be composing a heartfelt thank-you card to our wonderful, spider-killing friend.

Lest I continue to create any more confusion, um, I am not a derby player. Sad! I know! It would be so cool, but I am not. I am, however, a spectator who is considering maybe eventually learning to skate well and try out for derby. So, um, when I say “our” team, I… I mean the team I cheer for. Because I know one of the players. Not that I play derby because I don’t.

Now that I have gotten that embarrassing confession out of the way, I shall delve into the spider saga. It is pretty well documented that I hate spiders. A lot. I claim I have arachnophobia, but I don’t do the hysterical screaming and crying and trying to hide under chairs at the sight of one, I just get really scared and run away and get someone else to kill it because IT IS INVADING MY PLACE OF RESIDENCE PLEASE HELP.

Naturally, there have been several spiders that have decided to take up residence in the area directly above the front door to our building. Yes. This means that every time I want to LEAVE HOME, I have to walk under them and it is a harrowing experience. And it is less of a walk than a quick, sprinting jump through the door onto the top steps that lead down to the sidewalk. Coming back in is much more difficult because it involves attempting the quick, sprinting jump inward through the door while simultaneously unlocking said door. Of course, all of this is an effort to spend the least amount of time possible standing underneath the wretched creatures.

They are up high, and the most offensive of the bunch is probably bigger than a quarter if you laid it out flat. Its back end is as big as a peanut M&M, at least. You will not see photos, because there is nothing I hate more than being confronted with a giant spider photo on a website when that is very much the last thing I’d like to see. Also because I do not want to have to take a photo of it.

Seriously, what can I do? I am considering writing a letter to our property management company to get rid of them. I do not, however, want them to spray for spiders, because you know what that does? It brings them out in DROVES from where they have been hiding out into the open to die, and I don’t think I can handle any more dangly spiders over my front door. We did that once at the hotel I used to work at and it was horrible. We have occasionally been coming in through the back door to avoid them, and one of our friends is absolutely petrified of spiders and we have to tell them to wait outside on the sidewalk instead of being able to come in for a moment.

Options? Solutions? How can we get rid of them without a) killing them ourselves, or b) spraying for them?

Thanks for your responses to my last post. I’m always interested in details of other people’s lives, and I’d love to change my own habits if they prove idiotic. We did some apartment-improvement recently and bought our first kitchen table (JOKKMOKK from IKEA) and a matching set of hampers (the hampers match, I mean - they don’t match the table. That would be weird) so we’ve been combining our laundry into “light-ish” and “colors, dark things and jeans” instead of “his” and “hers” and it seems to be going well so far.

We’ve also talked about putting some reversible magnet on the fridge that shows whose turn it is to get groceries. Then there’s no confusion. I figure I can come up with one out of felt and embroider something clever on it.

In other apartment/flat news, you remember the people below us that smoke up a storm, right? The ones whose blinds are all yellow and disgusting? The ones where, when we mentioned their (forbidden) smoking to the move-in inspector, the inspector chuckled and made an “oh, that’s just them” remark and mentioned how they’d lived there for 18-odd years and they’d just have to replace the blinds when they moved out? There was a pink eviction notice taped to our front door today regarding that unit. EVICTION. Now I am curious what they did to deserve that.

I’m finding it increasingly difficult to post anything interesting since the place I spend most of my time (work) is the exact thing we all know is a bad idea to write about. Be ye not so stupid and all that. Let me just say that my department seems woefully understaffed for the amount of work coming in and it is not so good for the sanity bit of my brain.

I am also having some valid concerns about that thing we have coming up next year that starts with a W. The planning of it, I mean, not the W itself. In short, I am coming up short on enthusiasm from my immediate family and it is ruffling my feathers. Figuratively speaking. Asking for favors is like pulling teeth and I am becoming increasingly frustrated and worried and hurt.

It is difficult to plan a wedding long-distance. I get that. BUT. This location thing? If that is worked out, I can take care of invitations and catering and so many other things over the phone. I don’t have to be there. My problem is that I can’t order save the date cards unless I know where the goddamn thing is going to be held, you know? I’m just getting the distinct impression that this is more of a total pain in the ass rather than a fun event to be excited about. And that makes me feel bad.

That said, it could be worse. I could be having fears that Daniel is not the person I want to marry (he definitely is) or something else equally as important. I am not having those kind of fears and that is a positive thing. Because honestly? I could get married in a dirt hole for all I care as long as we end up married. And that’s the important bit.

To those of you who live with your significant others, especially if you are not married: How combined are your lifestyles?

I ask because I have recently noticed that Daniel and I keep an awful lot of things separated when it comes to cohabitating. For instance:

Grocery Shopping
We more or less take turns buying. That said, sometimes, 90% of the items are “mine,” as in, things for me to put in my lunch that Daniel doesn’t necessarily want or eat, and how is that fair that he has to pay for all that food he won’t eat? We usually compromise by having the offender pay for the groceries that time and then resume tradeoff the next time. This is obviously not a perfect solution, and I am curious how other people deal with it. Do you view it as a “household” expense that just gets paid regardless of who does the eating of the food?

Laundry
We have separate hampers and generally do our laundry completely independent of one another. Sometimes someone will ask, “Are you doing laundry? Can you throw in [blank] if you have room?” or whatever it may be. Is it more efficient to wash everything together? Are we just crazy?

Finances
None of our finances are combined. I’ve heard off and on that this is a smart move, as you don’t want too many things wrapped up “just in case” - whether that’s true or not, we’ve just never bothered to get a joint account. We handle most jointly-paid items by switching off who pays them. I might pay the cable bill one month while Daniel covers electricity and gas, or I pay rent and he pays me back half of it.

I suppose these questions could apply to roommate situations as well, but in that case I feel like you are less inclined to voluntarily cover someone else’s expenses if need be. How do you handle these things in your household?

Moving is rarely a pleasant experience. I have bruises all over my legs from hefting boxes around, and a couple on my forearms to match. I’ve been eating horrible food because we hadn’t been grocery shopping in weeks. We haven’t unpacked yet, so we’re still rummaging around various boxes to find the things we need from day to day. Also, I appear to have come down with a cold. Bleh.

On the plus side, the apartment (flat) has been wonderful so far. I mean, sure, it has its pitfalls (top floor gets pretty stuffy, people beneath us smoke and it drifts upward occasionally, etc.) but for the most part it has been lovely. I wake up to natural light, can get ready without turning any lights on, and don’t have to turn them on until late evening. We have food in the cupboards like real adults and I even have HOUSEPLANTS. My avocado plant survived the week we were gone, plus the week of the move. It now has several nice, green leaves and I have no idea what to do with a three-foot-tall stick with leaves at the top. Seriously. It is the stupidest looking plant ever. Is there any way I can stunt its upward growth? Or growth in general? I don’t know the first thing about houseplants. I dread the day I will have to commit a mercy killing because I can’t handle a 40-foot stick with leaves on top in my apartment.

I’m really looking forward to doing something cool with my yarn and crafting supplies. We’ve considered using the main closet as a sort of craft room, since it’d be big enough to house some shelves and possibly a small table of some sort. Ideally, I’d like to commandeer one of the bookshelves and then stack my yarn there so I can see it all, because I have a tendency to not use something if I don’t see it. Daniel got me a gift certificate to Hello Yarn for my birthday and I can’t wait to use it on some pretty wool.

I promise to try to post some photos. I forgot to take any before we started filling the place up with stuff, so now I sort of want to wait until we’re unpacked before I document just how much junk we really own. I’m continually amazed at the amount of things one can fit in a tiny apartment if allowed to do so. I found a pair of shortalls (you know, overalls? But with shorts instead of long pants? The ones that I wore in the 8th grade and have not touched since?) that I put in the give-away pile. WHY DO I STILL OWN THOSE? Argh.

Side note - if you are ever in North Idaho, I’d recommend stopping by the Kootenai County Farmer’s Market and getting some coffee from the wonderful Jon Lewis from Bumper Crop Coffee. *waves* Hi Jon! Jon is probably the nicest person ever and Daniel managed to talk to him twice while we were in Idaho. Also? His daughter is Too. Freaking. Cute. Our friend Rita here in Portland knows Jon because they competed together in the barista championships, so that was kind of a funny coincidence.

Also, we didn’t decide on a wedding location yet. We only looked at one place, which admittedly was very gorgeous on the outside, but the inside was a bit log-cabin-y and had taxidermied animal heads on the walls. I can overlook that pretty easily considering my parents have a freakishly large moose head in their living room, but I will agree it’s a bit unnerving and probably not well suited to someone who is a vegetarian. If we didn’t have to choose a place with a “plan B” in case of inclement weather, this would have been really, really nice. I mean, we could always just pick it and then pray we don’t have to use the inside, but… Ehh. Even though we didn’t pick a place yet, we have some scouts (Daniel’s sister and my aunt) canvassing the area for suitable locations so we hope to hear from them soon. I trust their judgment.

How have you been these last two weeks? I had a birthday, went on vacation, moved apartments (flats, sorry ) and got sick. What have you been up to?

This moving stuff is rough. (We got the apartment, in case you missed that in the last entry. I hid it.) I am living in a sea of cardboard boxes and packing tape.

Compounding the moving issue is that we are leaving for Idaho on Saturday. That means that I have three days left to pack and get everything in order because we will be gone for a week and then THE DAY AFTER WE GET BACK is our official move-in date and we have no time to get things in order then. So I have to decide what I will take with me when I pack for our vacation (oh god, forgot I had to set out time to pack for that. Argh.) and then put EVERYTHING ELSE into boxes.

The packing is coming along well though; we managed to get rid of our two twin bed sets (two mattresses, two box springs, and two metal bed frames) through Craigslist - somebody just came by and picked them up. I would have rathered we receive some money for them, but I think these people were very much in need and, well, we needed them gone more than we need the money right now. So it’s okay.

I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to negotiate the computer moving and subsequent cable-hooking-up so you may not see me around here for… a while. Two weeks? I figure that my posting has been erratic enough that you may not even notice. Heh.

In other news, Daniel just bought his first high-end home espresso machine. It is used, but totally souped up and comes with a zillion accessories and milk pitchers and tampers and all this other stuff that makes it a total deal. He’s having it shipped to Idaho so it will be there when we arrive - that way he can test it out and make sure everything is in good working order and then we can just bring it back with us when we leave and hook it up at the new place.

(There is another topic I have been dying to post about - it involves a knitting celebrity - but I have to upload pictures and everything and it will be time-consuming. Will try to post that soon-ish.)

Edited to add: Hate crime in Indiana - Why no coverage? This story is both horrifying and very, very sad. Do what you can to spread the word and try to get some media coverage.

I heard rumors yesterday about our local Hollywood Video selling all of their VHS tapes for a dollar each. Turns out those rumors were true. I managed to find a ton of movies and then Daniel came by after work and found more. We narrowed it down to (I am ashamed) twenty-six. Seriously? If you had the whole pick of the movie store? For a dollar? I had a horrible time trying to decide. Daniel got a ton of music video tapes from the 80’s that I’m sure we’ll never watch, and I got a ton of movies I’ve wanted for a while but probably would never buy on DVD.

The finds I’m most proud of, though, are both of the Ewok movies. EWOKS. I love the Ewoks. I grew up watching Battle for Endor and had absolutely no idea it was even remotely related to Star Wars until I was in the eighth grade. I understand that hardcore fans of Star Wars are probably booing me right now and I get that, I do, but I still like the Ewoks. And Teek. And Wilford Brimley as Noa.

I also bought Chicken Run, Monsters, Inc., and Where the Heart Is, as well as Willow and Labyrinth. All in all it was a very productive evening. :cheer:

(more…)

Finally - some good news on the apartment front:

We went to look at a place last Wednesday. It was 875 square feet (our current place is 525) and was a top-floor apartment in a four-plex. Rent is just under $800 (very reasonably priced for a huge 1-bed in this neighborhood), and the apartment had hardwood floors, lots of light, a good bathroom and kitchen, and a little nook-type thing for a dining table. There is a porch out back and an assigned parking spot, should we need it.

When we went to see the place, it was an open showing so there were about six other people milling about checking it out. The lady showing it went through all the details and then mentioned she would take the applications first-come first-served basis. I have never filled out an application so fast in my life.

Problem was, neither Daniel or I thought to bring any cash for the application fee. The lady said she’d take the first app that had money with it, so while we did finish our applications and turn them in first, Daniel still had to run out to find an ATM and another girl turned in her application with her money while he was gone. Apartment Lady kept mumbling “Ooh, this is hard… That was in first, but without money, but the other was in afterward with money… Hmm… This is difficult.” I casually mentioned that we had rented with this particular company before, and wondered if that would make any difference. After I said that, the lady got this huge smile and was like, “Ohhh… FABULOUS. We may not even need your application fee, since we’ve already done a background check on you.” Sweet.

She still seemed a bit wishy-washy even after that, so when most everyone else was leaving, Daniel and I stuck around and chatted with her a bit in hopes that she’d decide she liked us more. We were instructed to call the office before 5pm on Friday to see whose application they ran and if we’d need to bring in our money. After our call on Friday, Daniel and I were still no clearer on whether we were going to get the place or not. From what I understood (since Daniel was the one who called) they mentioned something about running the other girl’s application first but they weren’t sure and we could call again later. It infuriates me that they’d run the other girl’s app first, since we got ours in before she did and they weren’t going to need our money anyhow.

At any rate, I was remaining cautiously optimistic and Daniel was refusing to get his hopes up. After the Friday call, I think we both just wrote off the apartment, figuring they had run the other girl’s application and she had gotten it. I even called another place on Friday to try to set up an appointment. (They didn’t call back.)

Cut to today, noon-ish: I got a call on my phone from a number I didn’t recognize. I typed the number into Google just to see what it’d come up with, and right as the phone finished ringing I realized it was the rental company. I quickly called back, and managed to talk to the Apartment Lady. They did run the other application first (*shakes fist*) but IT GOT DECLINED. I didn’t even consider that a possibility. I know it happens, but I just assume that most people have clear histories.

So! The apartment is not yet ours. After work today we have to take a bus to the rental company and give them some money for the background check (turns out they need it, initial check was over a year ago) and then they will run our application first thing in the morning, and then I think we have 24-48 hours to give them the deposit money and then I think it is ours.

Very long-winded way of saying hurray, we might have a new apartment.

Our apartment hunting isn’t going as well as planned. We’ve looked at several places so far and none of them have seemed “right.” A few of them were okay or even good, but my position is that since we’re in no rush to move out, we can afford to be pickier with regards to the new place.

One place was nearly perfect. It had a huge kitchen, giant windows (light!), a dining room, a living room, and a bedroom; the bathroom was appropriately modern and we could afford rent. Problem was, we were the second people to be shown that particular apartment, and the first people had already submitted their application for it. I’m actually pretty disappointed we didn’t get it. The price was a bit more than we wanted to pay, but we could have made do and it would have been worth it.

None of the other apartments have really measured up to that one. The first one we viewed would have been like living in some mobster’s flat in the 40’s. The bathroom was old and stained, with one of those pressure-flush toilets like public restrooms have - the ones without a tank. Just… weird.

One was kind of nice, but I hated the floor plan. I never thought I’d be someone with an opinion about a floor plan, but here I am. You walked in and were standing in a hallway that went to the left and right, and RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU was the bedroom door. You would be able to open the door to the apartment, take three steps in and be standing in the bedroom.

At the end of the hallway to the left was the living room. It was an okay size, but it was a giant box because it bordered the bedroom. At the end of the hallway to the right was the kitchen. It was on the “pro” list for the apartment because it was big, tiled, had built-in china hutches (which I love), lots of storage, and a huge window. In between the kitchen and the bedroom was the bathroom, which wasn’t bad but wasn’t anything special. It just seemed weird to me that the floor plan was this stupid hallway with four rooms off the far side of it. It was the antithesis of an “open floor plan” and it irked me.

We looked at two 1-bed places that were located a bit farther away than we’d have liked, and I think I could have been convinced to rent them if we were getting more value while being that far away. For instance, if we could get a 2-bed for the same price, or if it had a bigger kitchen, or something really awesome that made it worth being so far out. The on-site manager was this wonderfully nice lady with an extraordinarily well-behaved baby that she wore in a baby-backpack while showing us around. I really liked her. The apartments were new, or new-ish, at least, and it was close to a big park, but I just couldn’t justify being that far away when it was still expensive and there wasn’t anything spectacular about the apartment.

Daniel looked at a great place without me (he had to - I was at work) and he absolutely loved it so we put in an application - sight-unseen on my part - but the guy didn’t call us back. I think there was another lady looking at it and they wanted to get it rented as fast as possible so I’m not surprised it’s gone. That one had a giant shared deck and a big backyard, too.

Oh, and to add insult to injury? Our rent is going up. It’s only $25, which we can more than afford, but this apartment is not worth a penny more than what we are already paying for it. I have honestly been considering writing a nice letter to the management company that says “Please do not try to charge more for this apartment, because it is not worth it.” and then detail the reasons why. (Most of which are complaints about the poor construction quality. You’ll recall the mouse incident and the fact that we have pipes running across the ceiling in the bathroom, kitchen, and bedroom. It’s not awful - it’s laid out very well for the space - but… agghgh.) I’d been considering writing this letter before we got the rent change notice, and now I’m thinking I totally should have done it.

I’m hoping we find a place soon. I’m just sick of people not calling us back, not emailing us back, taking applications but not responding, and renting places to other people once we’ve seen them. Frustrating!

In order to understand my book collection, you have to understand how I purchase books; rarely do I buy anything I haven’t already read. This may seem strange to some, because why get it once you’ve already read it? With me, I buy books generally because I read it and loved it so much I had to own it. I’m very, very big on re-reading books.

Without further ado, here are some books I’ve read recently and would like to recommend:

A Handmaid’s Tale
I’d only heard about this book, but never talked to anyone who had read it and hadn’t ever had it recommended to me. The subject matter seemed interesting and I’d heard it was somewhat of a classic, so I got it.

If you have any interest in books about future societies (e.g. George Orwell’s 1984), women’s rights, or just well-written books, you should totally read this. I think it’s especially appropriate given our administration at the moment.

The Leap
This is by Jonathan Stroud, the same guy that wrote the Bartimaeus Trilogy that I liked a lot. The story follows a girl who is recovering from nearly dying trying to save her best friend. Nobody believes her story that he’s not dead, and her family constantly tries to take her mind off of the situation. Then she starts having weird dreams where she gets hurt and wakes up with real wounds. She just knows her friend is still alive, and she’s determined to save him. It’s a young-adult book, but very, very good.

The Notebook
I rented the movie The Notebook on a whim because 1) I heard it was good, and 2) I heard people kiss in the rain. Really, how could you go wrong? I ended up loving the movie and when I found the book at a thrift store, I picked it up. It’s very short, but it’s absolutely beautiful. Both the book and the movie make me cry - in a good way - because you can just feel the love that these people have for each other. Sappy but true. It’s a wonderful book.

Blink
This talks about your gut reactions to people, places or things and how they can actually be beneficial to you. Malcom Gladwell, the author, contests that your instincts are not often wrong, and this book talks about the times they do go wrong and what you can do to avoid that. It’s thought-provoking and interesting.

Edited to add:
Eats, shoots & leaves
A must for anyone who likes grammar and spelling. I bought this on a whim because I heard good things about it, and it’s seriously so great. If you see signs like, “All patient’s welcome” and cringe because you know they’ve misused an apostrophe, this book is for you. I love it.

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Otyg - “Trollslottet”

I’ve been reading a lot lately on organization, clutter, and hoarding. I stumbled across a site called Squalor Survivors a while ago, and while my problem is not nearly as bad as some, I realized I have tremendous difficulty throwing certain things away. The difficulty usually involves some emotional attachment to an item, more than it deserves, and I feel bad about getting rid of it. Either that, or I overestimate its future use and keep it around “just in case” I may ever need it.

My problem stems from worry: I have difficulty getting rid of something I feel I may need in the future, or something I feel holds sentimental value. Case in point: a few days ago, after reading bits of the Squalor Survivors site, I decided to go through a cardboard box that had been sitting in our bookcase since we moved in over a year ago. In it I discovered things like:

• A cardboard box from a Slinky I once bought
• Two AA batteries
• An empty film canister
• An old toothbrush

What you should also know about those things is that I know they came from the time I lived with Callie in 2003/04. Three year old batteries. For what purpose? Furthermore, the old toothbrush? Was once used to scrub dog poop off of a pair of shoes. AND I KEPT IT. I kept it thinking “Man, if I ever have to do this again, I should use this same toothbrush so I don’t mess up another one” and I packed it up in a box and moved it into not one, but TWO new apartments. Of course, now I can recognize that as totally bizarre behavior, but before, I apparently thought that was perfectly reasonable. Moving a dog shit toothbrush to two new apartments under the guise that “I may need it someday.” How screwed up is that? I threw it away.

I got so motivated that I grabbed another box off another shelf. In that I found some things that I did want to keep, but one item was an empty, plastic water bottle. It was the bottle that the singer of Moonspell drank out of and then threw into the crowd one of the times I saw them. Cool, right? A rock star’s water bottle? I thought so. Except, do I really need it? I remember it happening - I wrote about it on my website once (can’t find the post, may have been before I installed Wordpress and did it manually), Daniel remembers it, I’m writing about it here… So I decided to throw it away. Yeah, it was awesome, but I don’t need to keep a mangy old water bottle around for 40 years just because it was awesome. I’ll remember it.

I also decided to go through a giant box of school papers and organize them into plastic folders for the stuff I actually want to keep. I’m going to recycle the rest. I don’t need to keep the half-inch by 4 inch scrap of paper that an instructor wrote a grade on, especially since I have no idea who the instructor was, what the class was, or what the project was. Recycled. I don’t need to keep every quiz I’ve ever taken. Papers, maybe. Sketches, yes.

My next project is going to be getting a filing cabinet and organizing my important financial and school-related papers. I have a small-ish plastic filing box, but I feel like it’s not big enough to do a decent job, plus Daniel has a bunch of stuff he could file and my little file box can’t handle it. I found a decent filing cabinet at Target for $40, so I’m sort of looking into that - I just have to make it to Target somehow. The section on the website about Paper and Bill-Paying was especially helpful to me and gave me lots of good ideas on how to get a handle on all my papers and documents.

I know that most people are generally pretty good about getting a handle on their messes and throwing obvious trash away, but I thought I’d post about it in case any of these things ring true for you. Take things slow - maybe just go through one box. You don’t have to do everything all at once; that’s a surefire way to get nothing done since you’ll be so overwhelmed. I’m actually making pretty good headway on the piles of papers surrounding my computer. Yes, there are a few piles that need to be taken care of, and a plastic bin that needs to be dug through, but I’m making progress.