shoesonwrong

Ta-da!

After a mere five and a half years of marriage, we decorated our apartment. We didn't want to rush into anything, you see, so we took over sixty months to choose cheap Swedish furniture. In forty or fifty years we may buy a house or have children.

In reality, we never had the money to decorate, instead (gratefully) taking hand-me-down furniture from friends and relatives. But a few months ago, we started talking about what we wanted for our apartment. We came up with three basic things:

1. More kitchen storage.
2. Lots of bookcases.
3. Something that doesn't suck.

We started the process a few weeks ago, but everything's finished now.

Picture Post

We redecorated and I got a haircut. I promise my mom these pictures would be up sooner -- sorry, mom!

Apartment Evolution

A larger version of that picture series can be found here, and a collection of apartment pictures can be found here. In the last picture, did you notice the cat in the last picture? You win a dollar!

 
SUPER CAT CLOSE UP!

The cats, of course, are crawling all over everything like the little hellbeasts that they are. Their most amusing new found belief, though, is that they cannot be seen if they are under the couch. They don't even have to be entirely under the couch, they don't think.

 
Where oh where could Momo be?

 
Wicket doing his Wicked Witch of The East impression. (WICKET WITCH OF THE EAST. GET IT?!)

And, upon deciding that my hair was completely unmanageable and becoming more akin to a hedge, one that requires four to five hours of air drying or forty five minutes of blow drying, I decided to cut my hair. I asked for a bob about chin length with rough edges and a small side swept bang. They gave me a bob with the roughest edges they could (my hair doesn't do "rough" very well) and a small side bang that's just long enough to tuck behind my ear if I want it out of the way.

 
Before and After

And now, I am going to go enjoy this long weekend we have.

Twitter Wit

I may have forgotten to mention that I'm in a book. Just one little joke out of the whole book, but I'm in it along with some of my comedy heroes, so I'm pretty thrilled with that. Sure, Twitter is FREE but I'm not telling you what joke is IN the book, so there's the element of complete surprise that you get if you purchase the book.

 

On a more serious note, though, if you purchase the book through the link above, a portion of the proceeds will go to Lucy Kate Hopkins, the happiest baby you'll ever see who also happens to have health problems. A lot of us from Twitter and Tumblr have rallied behind the Hopkins family while Lucy Kate has been in the hospital recently, having open heart surgery, and frankly, I can't think of a more deserving family. 

 

That's Lucy and her Mama, finally together after eleven days of not being able to be held because she was hooked up to so many machines. There's more adorable and heartbreaking pictures here.

I'm not trying to give you the hard sell on this book (though I will assume you don't love me if you don't purchase it), but I do ask that if you choose to buy it, please use this link or the link at the top of the post so some small amount of money can go to the Hopkins during this difficult time in their lives.

I No Longer Feel Like I'm Going To Pee!

Two weeks and four days ago, I had another bout of acute renal colic, brought on by a kidney stone. The kidney stone gave me a bladder infection to boot, and by time I made it into the ER, I was peeing a decent amount of blood. Of course, for me, any amount of blood is too much blood because EW.

For the next two weeks and two days, I've been dealing with passing a series of kidney stones through an inflamed and bleeding urinary tract all while being bounced from doctor to doctor and ER to ER because nobody knew what to do with me. I've been repeatedly x-rayed, CT scanned, and ultrasounded. I'm practically glowing from the radiation of the first two. Things have finally settled down now, after a couple weeks of painful spasming, and all my doctors claim they don't see any more kidney stones -- they also, however, told me that they didn't see any reason for ongoing pain while I was screaming in agony and throwing up. SO we'll see how that goes. At least I'm not peeing every seven seconds anymore.

With the upcoming hospital bills and the landlord trying to jerk us around, we decided it would be fiscally responsible to stay put in our current apartment rather than moving to the bigger, two bedroom with an all new *sob* kitchen. The plan had been to move and redecorate, but we compromised and just agreed to redecorate the current apartment. It's a one-time (as much as IKEA can ever be a one-time) cost as opposed to the ongoing cost of increased rent, and since the apartment is smaller, it would cost less to redecorate.

Last Thursday, we walked into IKEA with hope in our hearts and money in our pockets. We left exhausted and with no more money in our pockets. The furniture was delivered on Friday, by which time I had to get rid of all our existing furniture, or at least most of it. My mom claimed my armchairs, but I had to put up a flyer in the lobby that said COME GET OUR FREE CRAP. It was all gone within twenty minutes, and I was left standing in an empty apartment, wondering if I'd done the right thing. Then the boxes arrived from IKEA and I was sure I'd done the wrong thing because I knew, in my heart of hearts, we would be assembling them forever. FOREVER.

 

The before and after of our apartment (Basically. The before picture was obviously taken prior to hanging the little pictures on the wall.). I was considering living on the boxes. Doesn't the long flat one look comfortable? We could have set our TV on the tall one!

By 11:30 on Saturday night, however, we had the whole lot assembled. Our apartment isn't quite done, as we're still lacking a table and chairs, but we're saving that for another payday rather than put it on a dreaded credit card or anything. The result is a very pretty living room with one empty end that I'm referring to as "The Pony Paddock" and have big plans for. An electrified fence, a small pony, some hay -- it's going to be awesome.

I'll post pictures of the new living room later, after I've finally gotten them off my camera and onto Flickr.

I Feel Like I'm Going To Pee!

And not just because of that kidney stone still rattling around my bladder!

We have been thinking about moving to a different apartment in our same building for awhile because we only have one bedroom, the kitchen here blows, and the bathroom is off the bedroom (which sucks when guests are spending the night). None of the two bedroom apartments in our building were exactly what we were looking for except for one. It was perfect except that it had carpeting all through it. We don't do carpet. Allergies, cats, spilling -- none of it's good. After thinking it through, we decided that we'd just stay put because it's cheaper to live in a one bedroom than a two bedroom and it's not like we HATE our apartment or anything.

Then, the landlord showed us an apartment that was a huge one bedroom converted to a two bedroom. It's unpainted drywall and concrete floors right now, and he said we could pick the floors and the paint for no extra charge. So we're getting a two bedroom apartment with hardwood flooring throughout. The bathroom is off the living room instead of the bedroom, and it has a much bigger kitchen with an island that has a seating area on one half. We haven't had a dining area in over five years of marriage because we've always lived on the cheap in tiny apartments. I WILL NO LONGER HAVE TO EAT SITTING IN AN ARMCHAIR, HUNCHED OVER MY PLATE LIKE AN ANIMAL.

This is a big deal for us, guys. It's our first big kid apartment. The first time we've been involved with any of the design aspects of our living space. The first time I've had a hall closet or even a hall. The place won't be done for two to four weeks, but I am SO EXCITED.