what i've been up to

1) I got new bangs.



2) I was in Chanelle's wedding and Ryan was the photographer.



3) Sean bought a black suit!



4) Sean and I went to Gypsy Hill Park in Staunton and it was BEAUTIFUL.



5) We celebrated 2 1/2 happy, fun years by going to the park, seeing foliage, bickering a little, seeing Michael Clayton and predicting that Tommy Lee Jones will win the Oscar for "In the Valley of Elah," while George Clooney will probably be nominated.

whew...almost

so, with the exception of some heavy boxes in my car that I am too tired/lazy to tackle, I am moved.

The apartment is old, shabby, somewhat in the ghetto (on only one of its four sides) and still charming. my bedroom is what sold me on the place and what still sells me.

I promise I will post pictures someday, once I find my camera battery charger (i haven't unpacked anything, I just finished packing up the H-burg apartment).

The move has been all-consuming and fraught with worries, but soon, once I'm unpacked, I can get back to actually communicating with people.

I never realized how hard moving can be when you don't take any time off to do it. It really is a full-time job as it is and I'd never moved before when I only had one full day and a bunch of half-days to do it. Never do that ya'll! Always take a week off!

new home!

I am moving into the above apartment next weekend!

potential problems: i forgot to look and make sure that clawfoot tub has shower option. disasters?
Otherwise, kindly old man landlord has promised to remove ugly wallpaper in kitchen, repaint, fix closet doors and AND I only pay electric, no gas. WOOOT!

The house is way shabby chic (partially b/c the artists downstairs seem to do all their art projects on the porch AND broke the porch swing), but it gets tons of natural light, i have more rooms than I know what to do with (one room I didn't even remember being there!), central air, clawfoot tub, hardwood floors, mantels and a bay window. Now, if I could only start fostering kittens and get Sean in the vicinities, I would have a dream come true!

and the beat goes on

my week in pictures:

The good








The Bad




The UGLY


These are images from four apartments I saw this week, ranging from $450 to $895 a month. It seems $895 gets you prettier wood floors, the end. One of those places has scuffed wood floors, but is MASSIVE, and the American spirit in me was swayed by the idea that bigger is better, even when it doesn't come with a W/D.

And the search continues!

actually, that's irritating

I was supposed to see the ideal apartment tomorrow

$650, 1 bedroom, AC, Washer/Dryer, above a fancy restaurant in Staunton, across from the independent movie theater and literally BEHIND my new job.

but alas, the realtor, a kindly older gentleman, emailed me tonight and said, "Actually, it's rented. I was nervous when you said you couldn't see it today, but I didn't want it to sound like a threat. Call my friend Tim and say I sent you! He'll have some places to show."

I can't decide if that's really rude or really nice. For now, I'm going with "annoying."

I am, however, seeing a different apartment downtown tomorrow. It's an open showing, and I'm not really ready to put anything down, but whatever. We'll see how it goes. Bet you're all glad to be done with your housing searches, huh?

want. hardwood. floors.

I looked at the apartment in the front of the top floor. The window was the only good thing about it, unfortunately.

So, the Staunton apartment search continues.

in other news, i cannot get a cutout to work in photoshop. i don't understand layers on photoshop. It's like how I speak french; i know what I want to say, I know about half the vocabulary, but I don't know the in-between words. In this case, the layers part. argh.