I AM Smiling.

Me at my banquet server job when customers try to tell me to smile.

Wilfred's back!

Seriously.... I don't do drugs.

New House: Week 2; The 7 Residences Later, I Finally Got Checks Without My Parent's Address Edition

All of this is in no particular order.

The screen door to the patio was all kinds of crappy and beyond fixing. I could position it so that it would stay on... until you try to slide it. And it wouldn't retain 90º angles. Not ideal for keeping bugs out. So I went to Lowe's checked out what they had and determined that I was going to get a new one home in my sedan. It just... Barely... Fit.

I had a bungee cord to keep the trunk closedish.

Yay it works! Hmm that trim could use some paint...

So my kitchen is kinda teenie to the point where there is no good place for a trash can except under the sink. But as much as I like trash cans that flop around under the sink, where there once was not a place for one...

Now there is one!

So many things that slide were installed last week.

I got the rest of my furniture moved in thanks to my 2nd roommate being in town to move her furniture and her dad having a truck. And her dad and boyfriend being willing to carry my super-heavy pull-out couch which was super appreciated!

Anyway. I think that maybe we need even more furniture because there is just too much space to walk around still. You cant even really get a sense of it from this photo so just trust me. One of the tables and the extra TV stand won't be staying.

This photo does however show the new paint colors pretty well :)

I just really don't want to get rid of any furniture since in a couple or less years I'm hoping I won't need to have a roommate in the basement, and will already have some furniture that will go down there. 

So this is what the lock on my gate looked like. As you can see it worked REALLY well. If you lift the door you can force it but no thank you so $5 later I have one that works!

Yay. Not the most fun trying to fit it inside/around the holes already in the wood.

There was this really nice door knob and deadbolt on my front door... As you can see, the spring in the knob doesn't work any more so, while that was useful when carrying heavy boxes in, not ideal post move-in. I also felt it would be a good idea to change the locks just because.

It was easy enough to do but what I did not anticipate was that this lovely design would remain after removing the hardware.

It almost looks intentional but, no, I will be painting the door now. But look how pretty my new ones are!

I also decided to get one of those silly designer keys for myself when getting extras made, and when showing one of my friends discovered she had gotten the same one years ago!

The paint has since gotten worn off...

One other thing I did last week was order new checks so they'd have my new address. The last time I ordered checks I was in college so I chose to put my parent's address on them. I have been working off the same 2 boxes of checks ever since because I write something like 2 checks a month or less these days. I could keep using them but after 9 years, and now owning property that is not my parents address, I'd say its time for a change. Knowing how long it will take to use the new ones up, this was a tough decision with so many designs to choose from. I also had to decide if I wanted to still with fun/cutesy or try to have something somewhat professionalish.

If they still existed, I would have chosen these, no question:

 But they don't. So I considered a variety of flowers and patterns and secretly really wanted these so that I could send out checks that had Orlando Bloom's face on them:

 But I couldn't get past how much most people would judge me for them. After much deliberation and searching, I came across these and had to have them:

They represent something about me with out being silly and I <3 them. Plus, they are printed on recycled paper and spread the message! Albeit, only about twice a month. Still.

Arts Fest is outside my building!

Technically mine is the part on the left, but it's attached to this one

One Nemisis

This app needs to exist.

I'm pretty sure you can find the same information on Facebook.

New House: Day 5-6

Day 5: All I wanted done was my mattresses and one of my loveseats moved. That somehow took way longer than it should have since they needed to get on the road and I had to go to work. However, I did find time to hook up my wireless router! Yay internets! I then worked till about 11:30 at night so that was it for the day. I also put in (on?) the cable outlet thingy which previously did not exist. The previous owners had a light switch-plate. Yup. But yeah I still have all the other outlet/switch-plates to return to their homes.

Day 6: Without having to do any actual work with the parents and their projects
gone, I got a chance to actually start unpacking and organizing. I also
was running out of room for the additional stuff I have yet to move. My priority was my television. I was originally just going to take it out, hook up the cable then leave the rest for another day. But then I wanted to hook up my Wii to watch Netflix and because I have to use a digital box now that I have to have Comcast I figured I might as well just do it all. So. Many. Wires. But it is done!

New House: Day 4

I swear, when I find my iPod, I am adding those pictures cause... yeah. Anyway.

Dad got straight to work on turning the laundry room into a makeshift clothes closet. You can't really tell what is going on in this really-good picture, but it's shelves with a bar for hangars. I will be having a second roommate in the basement which is finished, but as a den not a bedroom, so no closet. She's only going to be with us for the Fall semester which is a hard thing in this town to find a lease for, so she will be glad there is somewhere to put her stuff even if it's not ideal.

I didn't have to work finally, so I helped my mom with painting. We still had the yellow (same as living room) hallways and my orange bedroom. In this picture I was practicing karate. The green is less terrible (I'd even say awesome) in real life and with out bad lighting/flash/camera phone changing it. The yellow in the picture is actually orange, believe it or not.

Wax on, wax off.

My mom had a bunch of chicken left over from her American-portioned dinner at Red Lobster three nights ago. She kept complaining about the portion size (seriously all week) and I kept telling her, "Welcome to America." For some reason she hated that. Hmmmm.... Anyway. She bought lettuce, intending on making the chicken into a salad two days ago, which didn't work out with the chaos and my dad's tasks taking longer than we'd hoped. I finally brought the ingredients with me and with us to the house and with the help of a frying pan to toss the dressing, we had an almost-free dinner!

When the counters are covered in boxes, the stove top becomes surprisingly useful.

My dad's second project, while all the painting was still happening, was hanging blinds, which the previous owners were "kind" enough to buy, never install, and leave behind. I didn't take any photos of them specifically so you will see them in the next post.

His third project we were shocked to see him get to was this new light fixture for the kitchen. The one that was there was missing the cover which was super awesome and while I was okay with leaving it for now, my mom was not and got me this guy at Wal-Mart (I did select it) for 15$ Woot!

Wow. This picture is boring. I should have cropped it but didn't and oh well.

So even though a lot got done it was all not that interesting apparently. The best part may have been the tacos we had at 10pm because that's when we finally called it quits for the night.

Soon to come: What projects do I take on by myself!?

New House: Day 3

So this is where the not having my iPod comes in. I was taking photos with it and not my phone and now they may no longer exist in my life.

Okay so Day 3, my mom's project, now that she knew which paint was which, she turned this mess of a color:

Into this!:

It's actually bluer in real life. And, oh yeah I took down the terrible curtain rod yesterday so I did a teeny bit of work.

Dad spent the entire day on another project, a clothing rod. As you can see. what was currently there are weird little hooks that hangers go on. But no thank you to fiddling with that (plus its about a foot higher than I wanted to reach) and having a finite amount of hangers I can hang. So another 12-14 hours later and many more trips to Lowe's and clothing rod and new shelf I can reach! I can reach the other one, hence why he left it, but again, about a foot higher than I'd like.

I was working again and tireder from being up late so I was even less useful except I did unpack like one box into my pantry! Actually to be fair, both this day and the previous one, I stopped at my apartment to load up my car and then unloaded it solo. So as the only one moving boxes I had a right to be too tired to start painting at 6:00pm.

Not in focus enough to be worth being bigger.

Onwards!

New House: Day 2

Okay so trying to get stuff done and not knowing where my iPod went caused photos of the progress to be unavailable and posts to go by the wayside. So for anyone actually paying attention to my blog, these have been pre-dated to match up with, well, a calendar.

Dad spent the entire day installing a new hose for the dryer. There was a vinyl one which is considered a safety hazard these days. So he took out the other one and discovered that the hole to outside wasn't actually circular or one of the sizes that exists in the i-dont-know-the-actual-word-for-the-metal-tube-he-was-messing-with metal tube. I guess he did spend about 1/2 hour of the day hooking up the washer so not the WHOLE day on the dryer, but I'd say at least 12-14 hours. This included something like 4 trips to Lowe's for more supplies.

They work!

Mom "didn't know which paint went in which room" and I guess I don't have a phone, so spend the day gardening. Really, I think she just wanted to garden. Which is fine, but why's she gotta lie about it? </bad grammar>

Also now I get to take care of said plants. Sigh.

Sam started painting her room. Looks pretty dang amazing. but the color looks better when you're not also seeing the blue she painted over.

Oh yeah, the air conditioner was also installed on day 1 but not photographed till this one.

I moved in the memory foam mattress topper from my bed. It will be serving as my actual bed until Sam gets her bed as I have lent her my mattress until then.

The orange is even worse in real life but my phone couldn't capture the terribleness.

So what did I do all this time? I didn't want to take off work so I was doing that, and then was tired when I joined the new-house-party but I did locate the worlds longest ethernet cable and activated our internet.

Pretty sweet color in the living room also.

Stay tuned for yet another episode coming soon to an internet near you!

New House: Day 1

I guess today is technically day two but there wasn't much pre-move in prep work yesterday so, yeah.

Got my key!

With the Rents coming into town to help and the holiday and all the paper work based road blocks, the only thing I was concerned about was having the key in hand yesterday. Hungry and mentally exhausted, I  celebrated with a post-closing McFlurry!

Today; rented a rug doctor and cleaned ALL THE CARPET. And so much carpet it was. I feel I can excuse the 70s carpet in the basement due to the super amazing awe-inducing hiding drawers in the stairs.

Hands down, favorite part of my house!

2nd most important was finding, getting, and installation of a washer and dryer! Got these two guys for under $400 together on craigslist and only required a bit of driving around town and the help of one of my awesome guy-friends who volunteered to help me move.

While all this was happening my friend-and-roommate stayed behind and removed some of the terrible wall paper, presence of which confused us.

This is the previous owners' stuff

You can't really see it in the photo but that lovely paper border is actually two different patterns; half fish/half surfboards.

This ripped wallpaper was hidden cleverly behind a framed picture of birds. I don't have a picture of how else it was terrible but it was and now it's gone!

Stay tuned for more home-improvement edition posts soon to come!