{infatuation friday}

A few things I like this week:

1. Both of Us. I really love the contrast of Taylor Swift’s sweet-sounding voice with B.o.B.’s raps. But maybe I’m biased because I like both of them anyway.
2. My new dress. I was having a bad day earlier this week, so I decided to try some retail therapy (something I rarely do). I tried hitting up the sales racks at Target (they had a huge sale, with several items up to 75 percent off!), but they had been picked over. I looked around anyway, and saw this dress. It was still full-price, but when I tried it on I fell in love. It’s super cute and feels phenomenal. Normally, I never buy clothes at full-price–I always wait for dresses to fall below $20 (sometimes less, depending on the material and season). But I knew I’d wear this dress again and again, so the $25 tag was okay with me.
3. Cuddles and Rage. I feel like I’ve heard of this blog before, but I am now totally obsessed. I posted the “Supper with a Sloth” photo to my personal Facebook last week. I’m telling you, these characters are hee-larious.
4. Exercise. We’ve been trying to come up with fun new ways to exercise since neither of us really likes to run. We’ve talked about Parkour and CrossFit, but I’m kind of a wimp so that hasn’t happened. Instead, we hung out at our apartment’s playground yesterday . Unfortunately, it’s built for kids ages 5-12, so it’s too small to do anything productive. However, there is a huge grassy area next to the playground. So we decided to bust out some old gymnastics/cheerleading moves (in the spirit of the Olympics?). The result? Two injured fingers. I bruised my pinky. Josh did something to make his ring finger swell. My guess is he just bruised it pretty badly, but we’re keeping an eye on it to be safe. I tell ya, we get into the weirdest shenanigans.
5. Chuck. I started watching this around Thanksgiving(ish) when I was visiting family and my uncle was watching it (he owns all fives seasons). I watched probably four episodes in one day (45 minutes long, each). I was obsessed, so he sent me back home with the first two seasons on DVD. Josh started watching it with me somewhere in season two. Now I’ve borrowed season three, and it’s become a nightly thing for us. One episode per night. We usually reluctantly stop there.
6. Seinfeld. I’ve been a Seinfeld fan for years (I think I started watching it when I was in junior high). Josh, however, grew up disliking Seinfeld. But I think I’ve converted him! We watch it almost every night after Chuck. We’re actually going through the episodes in the order they aired. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before with this show.
7. Rubbermaid Easy Find Lids. I got a set of these for Christmas, but didn’t open them until we moved into the new apartment. I am in love. They’re great for storing leftovers, but even better for packing lunches to take to work. The only problem? I need more!
8. Facebook Pages Manager. I’ve heard a little about this app over the past few weeks, but there hasn’t been much hype about it. I downloaded it Wednesday night (since I recently created a page for this blog) but haven’t had much of a chance to use it. I’m not sure if there’s any more incentive to use this app than there is to use the regular Facebook app. It seems to me it would be easier to keep everything on one app. If you’ve used it, I’d like to know what you think.
9. The PolishAholic. I rarely paint my fingernails. That’s because I’m usually too busy biting them. But on the off-occassion that I quit for a few weeks and let them grow a little, I get obsessed with nail polish. This blog is almost inspiration enough for me to quit again (for good? probably not…) so I have a reason to buy pretty new polishes, like the Super Mario Bros Collection from Dollish Polish (yes, I want them all).
10. Dutch Treats. I saw some hagelslag on Pinterest a few days ago, and it reminded me of the times when my dad would bring some to me and my sister after his trips overseas. That made me really, really want some. So he sent me a link to The Little Dutch Girl, a shop that sells lots of things from Holland. Now I also want some stroopwafels. Yum!

Did I miss anything good? Let me know in the comments!

Adventures of week one

Tomorrow will be exactly one week that Josh and I have lived in our apartment, and it has been one crazy week.

We didn’t have time to start unpacking until Thursday night, when my former roommates (so weird to call them that…) came over to see the new place, hang out, help unpack and borrow our washing machine. We were a little concerned about the drain hose not being secure, but we rigged it until we had time to buy clamps to hold it in place. My best friend threw some clothes in the washing machine, and we all sat in the living room to eat the cookie cake they brought over for my birthday (which was Thursday).

All of the sudden, we heard a whooshing sound. We ran to the washroom to find it was about 1/4-inch-deep in water, which was quickly moving into the kitchen and the hallway (the two areas closest to our laundry room). We grabbed all the towels we owned and began trying to soak the water with them. Almost immediately, we heard knocking at the door. It was our downstairs neighbor, who noticed our water in her apartment. Luckily, she was very nice about it (though I still feel like I should bring her some cookies or something to make up for the whole situation).

It took what seemed like forever, but Josh eventually got all the water out of the room. He soaked up the water with a towel, then ran it to the sink to ring out the water and do it all again. He’s a trooper.

By Saturday, when Josh’s family stopped by, all the water was gone and all the unpacking was finished. (Did I mention we unpacked everything in two days? I think we should get some sort of reward for that!) We had a great time with his family. Everything seemed perfect….

Until Saturday night. We had finally bought the clamps for the washing machine, and Josh was putting them in place. I went in the laundry room to move the laundry hamper out of the way and noticed something on the ground. I looked closer; it was a BLACK WIDOW!!! I, of course, freaked out (because it was a black-freaking-widow). I grabbed a shoe so I could squish it, but Josh wanted a closer look [which surprised me, given his phobia of spiders (thanks to this creepy thing)]. Instead of killing it, I gave Josh a jar to catch it in. We stared and took a few pictures, then Josh rolled the jar over it. A few legs detached from the spider, and one kept moving after it had left the spider; call it static all you want, but that thing was pure evil!

Since that incident, I’ve bought some Raid Max Bug Barrier in hopes of keeping all freaky creatures out of my apartment.

When I bought the bug spray, I was also finally able to buy another curtain for our bedroom. There are huge security lights all around our apartment complex, and it looks like daytime at night. Our bedroom window is larger than my last bedroom window, so the two curtains I owned weren’t enough to block all that light. We’ve been sleeping on an air mattress in the living room all week because it’s a little darker in there.

The problem with sleeping in the living room is that it’s right next to the kitchen, which contains our howling refrigerator. Seriously, it howls. It wasn’t so bad last week; it only made noise on occasion, which seemed fairly normal to me–or at least didn’t cause me to lose sleep. But by the time I started cooking dinner yesterday, it had begun making louder, stranger sounds. I swear it was playing music (it sounded like a saxophone). And as I tried to rest last night, I thought I was going crazy. I got maybe two hour of sleep because that thing sounded like a cat in heat. Josh has decided our apartment is haunted by ghost-cats. I’m glad he could find humor in the situation because he helped me calm down a lot (I’m telling you, the sound was driving me bananas).

Tonight I’ll finish lining the bottoms of our walls with the Bug Barrier and I’ll hang the curtains. Josh is going to call maintenance to try to quiet the fridge. Hopefully things will feel normal again by mid-week. I’m just really looking forward to some good-quality sleep in my bed.

The thing about moving

I wrote this yesterday and intended to post it at some point last night. However, I haven’t had a chance to set up internet since I moved, and I wasn’t able to go anywhere with WiFi last night. So here it is, unchanged from last night. (You can pretend you’re reading it in real-time.)

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Last night was the first night Josh and I spent in our new apartment, and I can’t tell you the array of emotions I felt. Honestly, the only few I can pinpoint were excitement, anxiety and sadness. They kept me up last night and will probably continue to for the next few nights.

I’m excited to finally be in this place, both literally and metaphorically. My new home is beautiful, and I love sharing it with Josh. And I’m stoked to finally have hit this mark in our relationship where we are comfortable enough to live together.

But I’m anxious too. Every time I move, I forget about how overwhelming the piles of boxes can be until the boxes start piling up in my new place. And I don’t mean empty boxes; those make me a happy person. No, I mean the ones still wrapped in tape and weighing what seems like a billion pounds. Yeah, those boxes.

The anxiety was expected. It happens every time I move. It takes me a week or so to get used to the idea that this place is my new home and I won’t walk through the front door of my former home again. It’s such an odd feeling.

I think the most difficult emotion to handle is the sadness, mostly because I can’t decide if I even should feel this way. It feels a lot like mourning.

Let me explain why this is so tough.

First, I hated where I was living before. The management was terrible, rent was ridiculous and my neighbors were obnoxious. So why should I be sad about leaving it behind?

Second, I’m super upset about having to get rid of my love seat. It wouldn’t fit in my living room, so now I’m left with only half the set (the couch). I feel so petty about it.

Finally, I miss my roommates. I’ve lived with my best friend for the past three years, and it’s hard to imagine not living with her anymore. She’s been my rock nearly the entire time I’ve lived away from my parents. This is the most difficult to deal with because it’s so hard to discuss without seeming like I don’t want to live with Josh (because I totally want to). Even though my best friend is, as she put it, only a text/call/drive/FaceTime away, I still miss her bunches.

So, that’s the thing about moving I always forget–the vast emotions I can’t seem to pinpoint. And they get harder to handle every time.