Category Archives: apartments

Sick Girls Like Corn Bread

Posted in apartments, bread, music by

First of all, did you know Jewel has made like four or five albums since her first one in the 90s? Pieces of You was one of my first CDs (along with Dave Matthews Band, Crash). I recently heard Foolish Games on the radio and suddenly got a Jewel craving. So now I’m listening to that album on LaLa.com. But the song Pieces of You, kinda disturbing!

You know what I miss? Mixed tapes. Mixes on CDs just aren’t quite the same. There’s nothing quite like sitting by your boom box, waiting to hear a song on the radio so that you can hit the record button, and inevitably get some of the DJ chatter at the end of the song on the tape too.

The most exciting thing that happened to me this week involved my plumbing and pasta in my bathtub. On Tuesday the kitchen and bathroom sinks started to drain slowly. I then discovered that not only were they draining slowly, but they were draining right into my bathtub! SCORE! I tried Drain-o and plunging but no luck. Pretty soon my bathtub was a log of what I’d eaten in the past week. Good thing I don’t care much if I don’t get a shower ever day, or for three days.

Well, I’ve managed to get sick three times in the past month, which is pretty rare for me. Cold, Norovirus (which is the most hilarious and gross stomach bug EVER), cough/fever. (By the way Foolish Games does not sound pretty when sung by someone who is on the verge of losing her voice. Worst sound that has ever come out of my mouth.) I’m hoping for a healthy February. So not much cooking or baking has happened. I did make some black bean soup and corn bread earlier this week though. The soup was so so. The corn bread was fabulous. I want to make it again with chili.

The recipe calls for milk or buttermilk. I don’t drink milk and really only use it in baking, substituting soy milk most other times. And usually it works out fine. I’ve made some damn good gratin potatoes with soy milk. The only thing I’ve had trouble with is alfredo sauce. My body cannot handle all that heavy cream but oh good Lord I love alfredo sauce. Soy milk, in my experience, when heated up and subbed for heavy cream in this case, gets sweet, and alfredo sauce should not be sweet. Does anyone have any tips on cooking with soy milk or other dairy substitutes? Anyway, back to the corn bread. I didn’t have milk and was almost out of soy milk. I did however have heavy cream for some weird reason, so used that instead. No need to do that I’m sure. I’d stick with milk or soy next time.

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Clutter

Posted in apartments, babies, weddings by

Let me take  you on a journey.

It’s 9am on a Friday morning (this Friday morning in fact). I’ve just opened my internet browser at work and my homepage slate.com opens up. “Introducing Flutter” it says, “because 140 characters is 114 too many.” Huh, is there something cooler than Twitter out there? Doubtful I clicked and was taken to this video. Have you watched it? Because it’s fairly hilarious. I obviously have to see if this Flutter exists, so I Google it. Nope, it’s just a cruel joke that the good staff of Slate came up with. But I did find a website called Flutter that sounded suspiciously like Etsy (LINKS EVERYWHERE OMG!). Upon browsing the site I came across chandeliers.  My first thought was “Oh my God these are awesome! Now I know where I’m going to buy my next chandelier.” My next thought was “wait, when the hell will I need a chandelier in the near future?”
Good Morning!
Oh have you noticed there’s a plague going around? It’s called the baby plague. I think it’s a side effect to the better-known marriage sickness. I felt behind when my friends all started getting engaged and married. Now that they’re all going to Babyland, I feel like the runner in last place who can’t even see the guy in second-to-last place. Apparently I have a lot of catching up to do, but I’m not going to start sprinting anytime soon.
I moved successfully into my new and fabulous apartment. Fabulous because I can actually cook in the kitchen!! I will be posting pictures soon hopefully of not only the apartment but of my most recent baking adventure in said kitchen.
I’ll leave you with this delightful conversation I had with a man while answering the phone at the front desk at work last week.
Phone rings.
Me: Saturday Evening Post.
Man: Yes, hello ma’am, I want to report a child support fraud.
Me: Ok, um, this is the Saturday Evening Post, we’re a magazine.
Man: I need to report a child support fraud. Can you help me?
Me: Well this is a magazine. We publish a magazine here.
Man: Do you know who I can call?
Me: Um, I, no, I really don’t, I’m so sorry.
In retrospect I probably should have told him child services.

reasons not to rent from signature communities

Posted in apartments, spring by

Things that have broken in my apartment recently

  • the radiator, three times to be exact, which leaks water all over the floor of my living room/dining area/entry area (they’re pretty much all one and the same)
  • the bathtub, which no longer drains properly.  After 20 minutes of plunging this morning I was left with a 1/2 inch of water plus all sorts of gross shit floating in it in the tub.  Washed my hair in the sink.
  • the kitchen sink, which provides me with a nice background of drip drop plip plop leaky faucet.
I am sick and tired of this piece of crap apartment and the landlords who do not know how to fix shit.  Two visits ago, the maintenance guy said he didn’t know much about radiator heat so couldn’t fix the leak in mine.  On the last visit he said he’d be there at 9AM.  9:30 rolled around, I had to leave, had told him I might be gone.  He showed up sometime later that day I assume, only he COULDN’T GET IN though he assured me he had a key to do just that in the instance that I was not there.  
Moving next weekend.  Thank goodness.
At least spring is almost here.  If you consider 16 degree weather almost spring.  I found the perfect dress for warm weather.  This week peas are available in my Farm Fresh Delivery.  I can smell warm weather, horseback riding, and camping.  Oh and golf.  But oddly enough I am not dreading golf season.  I don’t mind when Adam turns on the golf channel on Sunday mornings.  I actually watch.  What’s happening to me?!
And then all was ok in the world because there were doughnuts in the break room.  I scarfed down a custard-filled chocolate frosted one in about 1 minute.  It’s going straight to my cellulite-y booty and thighs.  

She got it so good

Posted in apartments, relationships by

Update on my noisy neighbor.

The weather has cooled off considerably. My windows are now closed, as are my neighbor’s. I crawled into bed on Sunday night after a long day of driving and, floating into the night came the familiar sounds of the girl next door having a giant good time. THROUGH CLOSED WINDOWS! OK, enough is enough. I composed a letter and stuck it to her door this morning. Honestly, I’m a little nervous about the results or possible consequences but I complain a lot and figured that it’s time to take some action.

Dear #19,

All throughout the spring and summer months I’ve had my windows open, as have you, so of course we hear things in each other’s apartments like the tv and people talking and me yelling at my dog. I have also heard, and most of the time been awoken in the middle of the night, you having sex. I’ve been regularly woken up a few times a week by your passionate screams.

As the weather has cooled off I have closed my windows and figured that I would no longer hear your nocturnal activities. Turns out I was wrong and you are louder than anyone could imagine. Last night as I lay in bed reading with my window closed, I heard, yep, you guessed it, you having sex. OK so it probably won’t wake me up anymore but I am really tired of being a third party to what you do with your boyfriend. Honestly, I have no problem with what you do with your boyfriend, it’s your business and I’m glad that it’s obviously so great. I just really don’t like hearing two people have sex. I’m really just hoping you guys could try to keep it down a little bit. I understand that sometimes it’s hard but I’d really appreciate it. Unfortunately we have thin walls and apparently thin windows too! Thanks so much!

#17, Julia

We shall see.

Might post some NC Vacation Pics later on.

Late night ballad of a neighbor girl

Posted in apartments, relationships by

Have I told you about my neighbor? I don’t know much about her other than her name and that she has this one skirt that I really like. Oh and what time she and her boyfriend (whose name I also know…) have sex, and how great it is.

This is what’s been happening for the past, well since the spring probably. Two or three times a week I climb into bed and disappear into dreamland. Anywhere between the hours of 3 and 6 AM I am awoken, from a dead sleep mind you, by the joyful noises of my neighbor and her boyfriend having sex. This sex must be pretty good, and every time, for the elation I hear floating out of her open bedroom window and into mine.

I’m not gonna lie, I really dislike being awakened in the middle of the night, and especially by sex noises. I’ve been pretty goodvnatured about the whole thing. Her escapades make for pretty funny stories. The other night though I woke up to, not only the orgasm screams, of which there were more than usual this time, but the sound of bare skin hitting bare skin in the heat of the moment. SICK. Pushed over the edge. So now I’m trying to decide what to do, because honestly, I’ve had enough. My initial thought was to write her a note and stick it on her door. Just politely saying “I have no problems with what you do in your spare time and in the privacy of your own home, but please keep it down!!” A few of my friends told me to fight fire with fire and have my own loud mid-night sex. I think next time it happens I just might yell out my window “KEEP IT DOWN YOU FUCKING FREAKS!!” I mean I can’t be responsible for what comes out of my mouth in a state of just having been rudely awoken.

Please enjoy the music while your party is reached

Posted in apartments, friends, Green Cove by

Last night I called Bette via Skype for the first time since she’s been in Ireland. We’ve talked online but nothing is quite the same as a phone conversation with her. We talked about absolutely nothing for an hour and a half and the only reason we hung up was because I had to call Adam back. We spent a good half hour browsing pictures on Green Cove’s website from Early June camp. Some of the first year counselors there were campers when we were on staff. That, friends, is odd. The girls at that session are so little and adorable. They wear huge hiking boots and big tshirts and riding helmets to meals.

I think we then spent another half hour discussing how much it would cost me to drive down to camp. Between gas and wear and tear cost on the car, it’s quite a bit. Figuring out how much I would spend on gas took us a pathetic 15 minutes I’m sure. We basically had to set up a word problem. If gas costs $4 a gallon right now, my trip is 494 miles and my car gets 27 mpg, how much will gas cost for my whole trip? We are poor mathematicians. I like that I have a friend who I can call up for no reason other than just chatting and end up talking to for hours. Actually, most of my good friends are like that. I’ve had countless long and random conversations with Marnie and Sam too. That is true friendship.

I am having an inner conflict regarding my living situation. My apartment does not have air. My kitchen is tiny. I have no backyard for Mira to run around in. It takes me forever to get places because of downtown traffic and weirdo streets and stoplights. I live in a small pocket of decency in what might be described as a somewhat ghetto area of town. On the flip side, I do live very close to lots of downtown happenings and events. I can ride my bike to most said events. Walking on the canal is lovely. I do have a lot of the necessities (grocery, post office, cleaners, etc) within five minutes of my apartment.
Either way, I’ve started browsing apartment and house listings even though my lease doesn’t end until November. I have a little dream that involves a house with a big kitchen, a dishwasher and garbage disposal, air conditioning and a fenced in backyard. Bette claims that I’m nesting. I say it’s my goddamn biological clock trying to tell me it’s time to settle down, start a family, blah blah. My clear and rational mind knows how ridiculous that all sounds. As if I am anywhere close to being ready for anything that resembles a family beyond the dog and boyfriend “family” I have right now. I hate being a female.

do it with the bathroom door open

Posted in apartments, work by

As of tomorrow I am officially moving out of my parents’ house for good. I’m sure I thought that very thing as I got onto I465 last November, my car packed full of my things, and headed down South to the land of the pines. This time I do mean it though. I’ve got a nice little apartment downtown in a cute historic neighborhood called Woodruff Place. There are trees and fountains down the center of the streets and a town hall where neighbors still hold meetings and plan events. I have grand plans for this apartment. Life will be good. No, scratch that, life is good. Mmmm I like being able to say that, though now I’ve certainly jinxed myself.
The job is good. I’m learning a lot about the inner workings of a magazine while randomly floating around. A small sample of how we spend our days:


Those are my boss’s dogs, who accompany her to work every day, eating whipped cream from Starbucks. Other things that have been discussed include killer midget’s with boxcutters jumping out of the trees downtown to kill innocent bystanders, penis ties and pictures (this was in an art contest meeting for the children’s magazines), the fact that I got a doggy penis stuck in my face (the smallest one in the middle above) and facebook.
I leave you many (and by many I mean few) readers with an excerpt from a Jamie Cullum song that I feel is fitting to my mood these days.

It’s just another story caught up
In another photograph I found.
And it seems like another person lived that life a great many years ago from now,
When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life,
I see so much magic, though I missed it at the time.