long weekends and making a deal with the devil

hi loves! I hope that all my American friends had a wonderful Memorial Day holiday!  I made sure on Monday to take a moment and remember the real reason that we have such a holiday and to pay homage to the men and women in the service who have dedicated their times and sometimes their lives for our safety and to protect us here in the USA.  It is honorable what they do and what they devote and give on our behalves <3

I want to make a Memorial Day post with some pictures I took of my niece but unfortunately I am a bad little photog and haven't yet uploaded my photos or done any editing whatsoever.  It's my goal to do that tomorrow however so keep your eyes out for a photo-post in the next few days.

I also want to make a post about our Big Move!!  As many of you know, my husband Ryan and I moved over the weekend and are now living with my parents!  We have two rooms on the second floor that are our own (three if you include the bathroom) and I am currently typing this from my new "Living Room" here on the second floor.  We're doing awesome and are loving our new space and I have to say, it's been really great to have family dinner with my parents every night. I've totally loved it.

As of now we still don't have our TV hooked up and there have been some central air issues (such as leaking from our ceiling in the middle of the night last night lol we were definitely awake and looking for buckets at 3:00AM!) but those have been resolved and things are great now. The central air guys came and fixed everything this afternoon and tomorrow the TV person will be here too.

So yea there's a bunch of Super Exciting information for ya! lol

here's a (webcam)photo i took our first night here...note that there are still boxes piled up. Unfortunately if i were to take a photo right now it would look very much the same. We've still got boxes piled up and things are generally kinda a mess. I guess you could say we haven't made much progress unpacking our livingroom area just yet but we are going to get there - my husband has promised me that it will look lovely and soon (now if only he would stop playing xbox for more than 20 minutes at a time, i think i might me more inclined to believe him lol).

I will do a more detailed post as there are more details to post but just know that we are doing great and we're happily settling in!

Oh and i have to say this: notice how the window behind me is completely without any window-treatment? Yep.  Well, we have 8 windows total amongst our two rooms and while this is great and we have been basking in the glory of all that natural light, it's NOT so fabulous at 6:00 in the morning when Mr. Golden Sun is rising right in my eyes.  Our old curtains that we used to have are sheers and therefore obviously won't be of much help to us since the livingroom windows are directly opposite from TVs and computers (and since sheers in the bedroom are kinda pointless lol).

The point of all this rambling is that I wasn't excited to get 8 curtain rods and 16 curtains. Those things are EXPENSIVE. I knew that i had to do something though because really, it's not cute with no window treatments and every time i get dressed i hafta kinda do it hunched over so no one can see me through the windows! (especially at night!)

So i decided to see what I could do to resolve the issue. I knew I had to go shopping (lol "had" to go shopping, poor me, right?).  I did however have to be economical about it soooo i had the genius idea of going to Wal*Mart for curtain rods.

Brief rant: i typically avoid walmart at all costs. Not only because it is the singular beacon of what's absolutely, disgustingly WRONG with America today (i will enthusiastically write up a list of reasons why for anyone who is curious lol) but also because they CONTINUE despite multiple lawsuits, general eye-rolling, protesting and disgusted tsking of the tongue, to NOT PAY women equally as they do men. I swear, it's true!

Basically, they're EVIL.

Anyway...despite this truth (and honestly i am saddened to admit that i went there anyway), this morning i realized that I am broke enough that I had to see if i could find a good deal (lack of money drives us to do awful things. i am not proud of my decision!) I promise, i will make up for this by donating to a women's charity or something else that i see fit in about a month when Ryan and I are done bleeding ourselves dry in order to break our lease at our old apartment (they are literally getting our ENTIRE paycheck this month).

So yes, i gave in, and I went to Wal*Mart. Land of the realization of the American Dream.  In a bad way.

I was specifically looking for curtain rods today because I happen to know over at good old Target, they sell curtain rods for no less than $11.99 each.  That's nice buuuuut $11.99 times 8 = more expensive than I could justify for poles that hang fabric on them.

So I checked out walmart's curtain rods and i kid you not, i got non-ugly ones - all 8 of them, for $35. $35!  Thirty-five dollars.

And that's how they get you!

It's awful, I know. It's like making a mini deal with the devil. I am aware and I do feel badly. But I got 8 curtain rods for $35 this morning. I do feel like i deserve a little high-five with myself or something.


So there we have it, my domestic adventures so far since The Big Move.

I swear to come back with more interesting content next time. In the meanwhile, comment here and tell me how YOUR Memorial Day Weekends went! I'd love to hear about them :)

Packing Day (dun dun dunnnnn)

so yea, today is packing day. can you feel my excitement oozing through your screen?

Packing day. The day that everyone who ever plans to move again dreads.

Sometimes before I knew we were moving again, I would look around my apartment and laugh to myself thinking "ha-ha! we won't be dealing with all of this STUFF again for quite a while!" And somehow that would bring me some kind of temporary high or weird feeling of elation. Crazy, I know but the thing here is that Ryan and I have moved....3 times in three years and this will be our FOURTH time in three and a half years. That officially sucks.

So it's no wonder that today I kept the covers pulled up to my chin for as long as possible once I realized that it was, indeed a new day and that unfortunately Saturday this week didn't mean "yay! what do we want to do today??" but instead had a much more ominous outlook: Packing.

Ryan's mom is coming over to help which is really nice of her. She whipped us into shape when we first got here and were unpacking so it just seems pretty fitting to have her here on this end of it. The Departure end.  The Packing End. The annoying, stupid, boring, tedious, takes-forever-i-just-want-it-to-be-over end.

So okay, as much as I would like to prolong this experience even more (okay and really I want to sneak away with the xbox and continue kicking cowboy ass in red dead redemption) i have to go and help my husband who has diligently begun the packing process already (he's so great).

At least he's fun to pack with. He just discovered a large drawing i had done that was being *stored* in our closet:

"look! you're outside!!!" hehehe he's so cute

okay, UGH, wish us luck. And please, if you're the praying kind, offer up a prayer to the Packing Gods on our behalf. We could seriously use it.

Breaking News!

okay well i guess it's not so breaking to us, but since I forgot to update about it, it can be breaking news here!:

We've decided to move!

And to answer your questions:
Yes, we did just move into our current apartment in January.
Yes, we realize that it is only 5 months later.

Buuuut add to that equation a pregnancy that took us both at least somewhat by surprise only a month after we moved in and you'll see our dilemma.

Here's another equation for you (I am doing surprisingly well so far for being such a non-mathy person!): 1 bedroom + lots of STUFF + no closet space + a whole new person currently marinading inside my tummy + all the STUFF that said new person comes with = a need for somewhere else to live.

Soooo where are we moving, do I hear you asking? Well, I'll tell you! (duh):

We are moving in with my parents!

I'll let that one sink in for a second.

You feeling okay? Good.

So yes, we're moving in with my parents. Two adults, one little unborn person, a cat and two birds. Moving next weekend.

Why? Well there are several reasons. Most of them involving the obvious....

No, we're not masochists. The obvious is MONEY! DUH!

Ahhh money. That sweet, and evil little word that means so much in life (and yet ultimately means so little). Money, money, money.

See the thing is, Ryan and I realized that someday in the not-so-distant future we would like to own a home. And, after looking into it a bit, we realized that even if Obama does ship us $8,000, well, houses are still hella expensive. Hella Expensive, my friends. Especially considering one of us is a full-time student (when she's not on modified bed rest, that is).

And so while we could buy now (and we really did look into it), we've decided to play it a little differently and to go room it up with Mom and Dad and pay off our debt while simultaneously saving some ca$h towards our future.

Plus, there are other bonuses too:

1. My parents are awesome. Seriously, they are. They're not like typical parents...they are funny and light-hearted and legitimately enjoy having interesting conversations with you and they like to do fun stuff and they're just great to be around. All of my friends have always said to me, "I seriously love your parents so much! They're awesome!" and it's happened enough that I know it's true and not just one of those things people say.

2. My mom has had 4 kids. FOUR. that's a lot.  And, well considering that so far I haven't had any yet, I'm figuring out that I could really benefit from her wealth of knowledge. Plus, i will have people around to talk to all day when it's just me and little Baby L at home together.

3. We will be having our own space. Two spaces actually. Well, three if you include the bathroom.  See my parents have a pretty awesome house (now that it's been renovated from the fire that happened a year ago) and they have more space than there are people who live there now (just for now though, wait until we get there, all that space will quickly be filled up).  We will be having a livingroom space (that is the size of two former bedrooms which have been combined into one super-room), a bedroom and our own bathroom. So really, we will basically have the same amount of space that we do now. Only it's plopped down in the center of my parents house which is fabulous!

4. I'm a hustle-and-bustle kind of person.
This might seem like a weird bonus but I was raised in a very active household. There were forever people coming and going, weird things occurring, interesting events taking place and honestly, living on my own with just my cat and husband is not quite the same as being in the center of a busy family universe. Don't get me wrong, me and Ryan have a great time together but at my parents' house there are people forever stopping by, random things always breaking and needing fixing, funny stories always just waiting to happen. They have dogs and grandkids and all of my siblings and it's just a good time. I guess it just feels like home to me (duh, because that's what it is) and i'm really looking forward to going back home, you know?

So there we have it. Our big news!  Within a year we shall be wealthy home owners and in the meantime we get to spend that year having family dinner and hanging out with my rad parents and swimming in the pool.  I'm pretty pumped about it to say the least :)

Wish us luck though because I have a feeling that once I get there it might be easier to remember all of those scenarios that sent me stomping up the stairs and slamming my door when I was a teenager.