On the inside looking out

Having just finished moving Sunday and having not yet called the cable provider, I am at a local coffee shop getting my Internet fix. It's pretty nice and if I didn't need the Internet quite often for work, I would just go to a shop whenever I wanted to use it. I'm trying to remember if there was something else I am supposed to do on here before I leave. At least this place is only about a 3 min drive from our place, just 9 blocks away.

Our place is starting to take shape, ever so slowly, and ever so expensively. We've spent at least 200-300 dollars on new rugs, shower supplies, cleaning utensils, alarms, and various other things in the past few days. I'm hoping to get reimbursed for a few things from our landlord. He's okay, pretty laid back, but he doesn't sound that helpful about maintenance. The main things that need fixing are a window that tends to drift open, a light about the kitchen sink that doesn't work, and we are in need of a couple more keys. One or two of the copies he made aren't very helpful. Oh well. Overall, I'm happy with the place and I know I'll be even happier when we get more boxes unloaded and arrange some furniture.

I'm almost done with the kitchen. It sucks because the people who moved out were bastards who didn't lift a finger to clean the place before they left. The oven is a mess, the fridge could use work, the bathroom is icky, and I had to wash out every drawer and cupboard in the kitchen. I figured I'd do the kitchen first since having a usable kitchen is rather essential to eating. I've put down new liner in almost all of the cupboards and drawers in there. I still need to do a few more, but I think I may need to buy a new roll. The primary dishes are washed and put away. I hope to finish it all by the end of the day.

Then it's time to clear some boxes and figure out the living room and office areas. It's difficult to decide what should go where. It would friggen help if we had a bed together. We couldn't get the damn box spring out of our apartment. It got IN there, so it seems logical it can get OUT of there. I think maybe since our landlord redid the front stairs there's a little less room...just enough inches to make it nigh impossible to remove the box spring mattress. So, we've been sleeping on our regular mattress on the floor. It makes it dang inconvenient to move around in the bedroom and prevents us from arranging the room how we'd like it. I suppose we could put our dressers and such in order, but the motivation is lacking knowing it'll still look tacky with a mattress on the floor like so many college students.

I really like how many outlets we have. Seriously, there are 4 usable ones in the kitchen, not counting the one in use already for the fridge and oven. AND not counting the one that is disturbingly situated under the sink by the pipes. Every room has at least 4 I think. That's in vast contrast to our last place which even had a few ungrounded outlets. Having an actual furnace and vents in every room will also be nice. We have a lot of windows...11 I think, instead of our old 6, even one in the bathroom. We'll definitely have to put up plastic this year, since we're paying for heat. But I already have 3M plastic in the basement in winter storage.

Ah, our basement. I love it. It's so nice having a decent basement that doesn't seem creepy at all, with free laundry machines all to ourselves. We can actually store things down there without fear of big nasties crawling into our boxes. The only down point is that it's not easy to store a bike down there and haul it upstairs, as Chris is finding out. He's going to have to work something out with our hallway or something. Maybe he can store it in the front area. Eh, details.

Another down point? We don't know our neighbors too well yet. They seem nice enough, though they go to bed early and maybe are a bit too trendy for our taste. Oh well, not every neighbor can be your best friend :) I miss you Tricia! And Barbara! And lovely little 3rd floor apartment. But I can definitely get used to this neighborhood. It's cool and I can't wait to explore it more. Well, battery's running low. Time to fly! Or maybe just go to a Twins game.