My (Mostly) Decorated Apartment

It’s mostly decorated now. Mostly. I’ve got some to do here and there as I’m still figuring out what works best for me/us. Anyway on to the pictures!

One corner of my kitchen. Those are my regular cookbooks on the bookcase and my most used pots and pans are on the bottom shelf with the most used ones hanging from s hooks on the end.

Male Inequality by Samantha Bee

I admit it. I love Jon Stewart. Love The Daily Show. And love Samantha Bee. Yes this video was very funny!!

Introducing the Nook

I caved. Totally and completely caved. I bought a Nook.

My income tax refund was slightly larger than I expected so I had the money. Besides that I had been considering buying an e-reader for some time. I think it will save me a bunch of money in the long run. I currently spend upwards of $100 on books a month. Sometimes more. And I get the luxury of not having to haul around a stack of books (I read more than one at a time). I also picked it because it was in color, has a touch screen, has a micro SD slot (more memory yeah!) and is NOT back-lit (the reason I didn’t wait for the iPad – back-lighting gives me headaches when used too long).

Its not going to ship until Feb 12 but I will let y’all know what I think after I have some time to play with it. I’m super excited for my super expensive “book”.

Link: Recipes for Two

So I was just clicking here there, everywhere today and what do I come upon? Pillsbury’s page for Recipes for Two. Appetizers, Breakfast, Dessert, Dinner and Salads. Oy vey. I wish I had known that this page existed before today! My boyfriend is one lucky dude now!

Motivational Speech

This is actually pretty inspiring!

Good-bye Iowa

Well the move is now officially complete. As of midnight tonight I no longer have an address in Iowa.

Sigh.

I liked being an Iowegian. Granted I tried to vote out my Senator – Tom Harkin – while I was addressed there; the man sends condescending letters stating basically he appreciates your opinion but doesn’t care. Anyhow I liked my government (exception being the last couple of years). I liked that Iowa agrees with gay marriage – it really is a very progressive state in general. Some of the best people in the world are Iowegians. No really, they are. I really liked living in Iowa. The exception being paying state taxes in 2 states (this is my last year filing for all that mess yeah!).

Now I live in Nebraska. So besides the fact that I was born here in Omaha, graduated high school here, I am not sure I like being a Nebraskan. Nothing wrong with it of course. But this state seriously has some messed up issues.

For starters the Senators and Representatives are very conservative, even the Democrats (here’s looking at you Ben Nelson). Just like the people. But they also have a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage – something I am very much against. I figure that marriage should ONLY be a civil contract with the government – you wanna get married in a church? Great. Not legal in my opinion. Give everyone the right to get married, gay, heterosexual or whatever.

Anyway I digress. Nebraska also uses a one house government system – which I honestly thinks prevents a lot of issues from getting presented and passed into law. And since I now live in Omaha I also have a wheel tax ($25) to pay on my vehicle besides registering my car (more expensive) and getting a new (more expensive again) driver’s license.

While Omaha will always remain home (most of my family lives here besides) I dunno if I love it as much as I loved living in Iowa.

This is a whole new game for me.

Beautiful Vintage Photos

Birds & Keys

Originally uploaded by Heather Bullard

I found this stream while flipping though Flickr. Such beautiful vintage pieces. Beautiful photography. Just amazing! Click on the stream to view all of the wonderfulness that it is!

New Apartment Photos

I took a bunch of photos of the new place – mostly for record purposes. But within all that I did snap a couple just to show off the space – “before” pictures if you will.

At this point we had only brought over 2 cars/1 trip worth of stuff. Not much in other words. And I should note that there are almost no overhead lights in this place. A ceiling fan/light combo thing in the dining room, an overhead in the kitchen, a light over the sink in the kitchen, a hall light and the bathroom light. That’s it. I don’t have enough lamps for this!

My lovely new kitchen with tons of room – well compared to my old place anyway. Happy with it so far.

My New Apartment

Well we applied for, were  approved for, have filled out all the paperwork for and accepted the keys for our new apartment on the other side of town. We are going to start moving stuff tonight but the bulk of the furniture probably on Saturday or Sunday. Pretty spiffy layout eh?

The top bedroom on the left is our new “office” and the bottom is our bedroom. No balcony though as its a “garden level” aka basement apartment. However, we are right near the laundry area! As a girl that has been DRIVING 10 minutes or so to the laundromat (which means I NEVER do laundry as I have to haul clothes all over the place) I am VERY happy to have a washer and dryer so close. Now to start a quarter collection.

I also can’t wait to cook in this place. Besides getting a feel for the stove/burners/oven there’s all the lovely counter space! About 2 or 3 times more than what I have now. AND we have the space for my dining table. Yeah! The table that currently resides in my closet with its legs off, and the chairs in a pile next to it, as I have no room in my current place. Nice to be able to use it finally.

I’ve been packing like a mad woman (and donating bunches too) the last few weeks…and there is still so much more to do! This is not going to be fun. It is not going to be as cheap. But it is going to be nice living with the boyfriend in a place close to work, close to the places we go and the stores I shop at regularly with lots of room to boot!

I keep wondering where things should go though and since I don’t have any actual measurements I have no idea where to place furniture. Sigh. And the cable outlets/hook-ups are placed very awkwardly – half way up the wall near windows – which is not very practical for where I want to place things. It might be fun though…trying whatever I can to get it all in (and neither the boyfriend nor I own that much).

I’ll take “before” pictures tonight!

Vintage Video of What to wear in year 2000

Amazingly they did get a few things right! When was the last time you wore a skirt really?! And we do have phones/radios on us now!

Sorry about the Posts lately

Really I am. I just noticed there are next to no pictures on the front page. I guess the last several weeks haven’t produced much for me to post pictures of. I haven’t been doing much beyond packing. I certainly haven’t been buying much considering I had a flat tire – and new tires were not in the budget at this time – which left me carless for a week. That damn snow.

At any rate I should have pictures and more information about my new apartment tomorrow! Can’t wait for this new decorating pallet! Woe to the boyfriend for having to put up with my decorating bug, OCD tendencies – clean freaky nature as well as matchy matchy – and in general me being a girl. He doesn’t think decorative pillows are useful after all. But I don’t care. My apartment.

All this Cold and Snow!

Oy vey. Up until this last week it was seriously only cold and snow, cold and snow. There was a blizzard every week since Thanksgiving. It had to stop! Besides being at or below zero for weeks it also snowed somewhere over 3 feet. I had drifts (that have now melted quite a lot) that topped 5 to 6 feet in front of my apartment building!

Oh and pictures for those that would like to see. Not any of mine, just the local news.

At any rate as a result I’ve been living in sweaters, thigh high socks and snow boots. I’ve been able to get rid of the socks and sweaters, mostly, but the boots stay. I hate having cold feet.

I just wanted to say thank you Mother Nature! But please don’t snow too much this week – I need good weather to move! As it is moving the furniture is going to suck…have to walk around several snow banks in order to put any of it on a truck. Sigh.

*Please bring good weather!*

The Lovely Winter Weather

This morning it was absolutely beautiful out! The frost had frozen all over the trees and grasses. I wanted to take pictures, but I was exhausted and just wanted to go home to bed. However, one of my favorite bloggers managed to take some and posted them on her blog {My MiNuTia} – check them out here.

What I will miss…

I live directly next to the Missouri River. I hear steamboats at night. Nothing sounds like them! I shall miss hearing them.

I will not, however, miss the sounds of fire trucks and motorcyles racing down my busy street to somewhere else. Wakes me up!

I shall also miss being able to see the downtown fireworks from my back deck. Oh what a sight!

More Goofy YouTube video

My boyfriend went to play in a Tekken 6 video game tournament this last weekend. His goofy friend was along on the trip and took video of my boyfriend being nothing but himself!

Them talking about their chances the night before leaving:

Him at the tournament: