When In Doubt, Do Nothing

I've given up on finding a nice apartment we can afford. Nothing I've seen is as good as what we already have in our tiny little gnome hovel of a place. The house we live in was built in 1880 as a modest single family dwelling, and in recent years was hacked into four tiny apartments. Most everything is jimmy-rigged together. We have doorframes that are actually just painted 2x4s nailed to the wall, and some of our windowsills are fashioned out of painted particle board. One of the living room walls is painted over fiberboard paneling, and the living room ceiling is an artificial drop ceiling like you find in office buildings.


BUT at least the living room is painted a cozy shade of tan with white trim around the windows, which are spanking new. In our kitchen, the few cabinets we have are nice looking, our appliances are relatively fresh, and the linoleum in the kitchen is new and clean. We have blue-gray walls in the bedroom at the back of the house facing a shady wooded area, and the bathroom has hot and cold running out of the same tap. Did I mention the rent is super cheap?

So even though the place is sort of slapped together, it was slapped together by a guy who cares for the property really well and chose fixtures and appliances he would want to use himself, and painted colors he could live with, so it's much better than all that yuck in those thirty year old cereal box units we've toured.

BEIGE Epidemic Out of Control in Wealthy Suburbs' Rental Communities! Tenants' Unexpressed Rage Leads to Clinical Depression, Expert Says.

Hubby and I have been tossing around the idea of moving out into the suburbs, so today we spent a few hours looking at apartments. Now I feel like I need another shower. What is with apartments that update their grounds, tile and decorate their foyers, paint the office walls nice colors, but change nothing else?

The apartments we looked at were '70s constuction so I was expecting the sheetrock box look, but what I wasn't expecting were the hideous colors of the apartments. All of them the same: BEIGE walls, BEIGE carpet, BEIGE linoleum, BEIGE cabinets, BEIGE countertops, BEIGE ceiling, BEIGE stove, BEIGE refrigerator, BEIGE shower!!! It's that color that no matter how much you clean it, it still looks sticky and dingy. It's the color you get when you start out white and then somebody smokes a pack a day in a confined area for ten years. Putrid, disgusting, nasy, barf. P.S. they don't allow residents to paint. I guess I won't be giving any of THOSE properties one third of my income every month.

Are those my only two choices? Shitty apartments in nice neighborhoods or cute apartments in shitty areas? The apartment renting for $925 per month was just as outdated and scummy looking as the apartment for $750. But they both outweighed the the apartment renting at $789 in a filthy building that accepts section 8 vouchers located in another ideal neighborhood. I don't mean to sound like a snotty bitch, but I grew up in section 8 buildings all my life and I've worked my ass off so that I never have to again. It's a terrible feeling to know you're safer standing in the middle of the highway than in your own hallway.

But now it's all wrecked anyway because we stopped at Hubby's parents to visit and tell them about the window motor that burned out on the way out there today. In trying to fix the quarter inch gap at the top of the window, Hubby, his dad, and I made it worse so now it only rolls up half way. It's going to cost around $500 on top of the $600 we already owe for leasing the car, so it's a good thing we didn't find an apartment we like.

Every Pink Cloud Has a Gray Lining

Ok, I thought of something to piss and moan about. BS is being a lazy selfish SOB again. Seriously? I asked him last week to clean the bathroom floor after I did the tub, toilet and sink. We're talking barely four square feet of tile and a rug--and he can't pull it together!! What the fuck is that about? Every day he walks in the front door and sinks his bony ass into the arm chair and plays with his phone with one hand and the other is down the front of his pants! I come in the door and pick up, do some dishes, make dinner and I don't get to sit down till like 7:30. By 9:30 I'm falling asleep in front of the tube, and Hubby's all like, "let's do it..." Fool, I have done ENOUGH work today, and the LAST thing I need is to exert ANY more energy toward pleasing YOU!!! Then he sits there looking all injured--because, yes, I do actually say these things out loud to him.

HOWEVER, this is merely the grey lining to my pink cloud. Though I am but a lowly trainee in a vast call center, I am already getting compliments on my service from many field reps who call in for transactions! In fact, a nice woman from New York asked to speak to my supervisor to pass on a compliment which resulted in a small recognition bonus. Our company subscribes to BRAVO! so when we get bravos, the points add up and we can "purchase" select merchandise on their website, which rocks. My job rocks.

I'm one of those weirdos that like doing customer service. The most fun job I had was cashiering at Whole Foods (though only after I tried running the bakery and was a miserable failure and decided to go back to school and back to cashiering). Other cashiers would notice my level of service and think I knew the person. Nope, I just like talking to strangers.

So, aside from Hubby's compulsive pocket-pool-playing and refusing to leave it alone long enough to scrub the floor, this week was pretty good.

Goody Two Shoes

Oh my gosh, I don't have anything to bitch about. All I have is good news right now. Well... I could bitch about the fact that the VA totally swiped our federal return that we were desperately waiting for, but it went to pay down a bill so it's not like we blew it at the casino or shot it up our arms.

But really, things are great. It took me a couple months, but I'm finally excited about my job. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but as it turns out, the other shoe was just as nice. The company I work for is a recent spin-off and I won't bore you with the details, but everyone in the building (and probably all the other buildings) is really energetic so it's contagious. Even my uber-cynic Hubby is pumped! That in itself is amazing. Plus I've shed a total of 18 pounds as of this morning--yay me! How many husbands can say that as soon as they got married their wives grew their hair all the way down their back and started losing weight??? I remind him of how lucky he is continually.

At home, we're bitching a lot less and spend more time thinking about the future, what to save for, and how to do it. I feel like we're a team more so than ever. I'm amazed that we got through all the shit-caked garbage life threw at us for the last few years, so now that things are going even a little bit right for us I feel like the sun finally came out. It makes me want to cry. And it's not like we got jobs as apprentice millionaires--in fact, we're not even thousandaires because our bank accounts are empty at the moment--but finally the phone isn't ringing off the hook from bill collectors, our rent gets paid every month, we have an auto to get around in, and life has REAL POTENTIAL.

Like I've said before, money changes everything. Even just a little bit of it.