A photo tour of our new apartment.

Welcome to our new apartment. If you've ever visited any of our previous apartments, please note that our (permanent) places of residence are getting progressively nicer. (Case in point: we've lived at this apartment for eight days and I have yet to see one police car in the community. Just sayin'.)

As you "walk" in, you'll see the living room to your immediate right and the kitchen and dining room straight ahead. You'll also notice my husband who is relishing in the unnatural relationship between a man and an ugly, leather recliner. This picture doesn't do it justice, but take my word for it... it has gold rivets... it's ugly. (But also free, so who's complaining?)

To your right is a sliding-glass door leading to the patio. I won't be showing a picture of that as it has vertical blinds and vertical blinds violate the very essence of my being.

Passing through the door on your right, we have the bedroom. Since we haven't added window treatments or pictures or anything remotely personal, really, it looks a little bare, but it works for the moment.

The one thing I do appreciate about this room (and the whole apartment, really) is the large window, which lets in a great deal of light. After living in our first apartment (which was located approximately three feet away from another building) we appreciate all the natural light we can get!

Next up is the master bath, which is probably the smallest master bath in the history of real estate, but, again, works for us.

There's not too much to say about this room, but enjoy looking at our Cities-of-the-World bathroom set, which we quite like.

(Oh, and another feature we enjoy is the curved shower curtain rod, which I'm pretty sure expands our showering space by several yards.)


Back through the living room, we make a stop at our beautiful, beautiful kitchen and dining room. There's not a ton of cabinet space (which makes for some interesting demonstrations in grocery organization), but we love the open space between the kitchen and living room, so we deal with it. We have pretty stainless steel and black appliances and nice granite (or granite-like, probably) countertops. I especially like our "bar" (which consists of a martini shaker and ice bucket next to our ultra-cool globe-shaped liquor dispenser) and our gas (yes, gas!) stove.
(By the way, for those of you who are trying to decide whether or not to visit our new apartment, the globe-shaped liquor dispenser will house a whole helluva lot of Captain just as soon as we have money to spend on liquor and not, say, fuel.)

Through the door in the kitchen is the laundry room which you won't see since I'm embarrassed to own a washer and dryer that are older than I am.

Heading right from the dining room (left from the front door) is a hall which leads to the guest bathroom. There's the sink area of the guest bath (with the cool bambooish bathroom set that we got for our wedding), to the left,
then there's the actual bathroom area of the guest bath (to the right), which includes another cool curved shower curtain rod (so, another pro on the "deciding whether or not to visit Bryan and Laura's apartment" tally.)

I'm not quite sure why I thought you needed to see so many pictures of our bathroom (and our guest bathroom at that), but you get them anyway.

Finally, just opposite the bathroom is the guest room/office/man-cave/Roomba's bedroom. (Roomba is our vacuum cleaner. Our relationship got off to a rocky start, so I tried giving it its own bedroom... it seems to be working, but that may be short-lived since we just bought a second cheap vacuum for quick clean-ups. I'm not sure he's noticed yet.)

We don't particularly use this room very often, but, again, I enjoy the large window and the VERY large closet which has allowed us to keep all of our belongings at our apartment and not in my sister's basement.

This concludes our home-tour for the day. I hope all of you will consider visiting us at some point. (Please note that there is a queen size bed in the guest room, as long as you're willing to share with Roomba. Or vice-versa.)


Happy Columbus Day!

So, it's been a while...

I apologize that it's been, like, 3 months since I last posted. I could argue that we've been pretty busy, but that's kind of a lousy excuse.

The upside of not posting for 3 months is that I get to share lots of good news at the same time. First of all, we BOTH have jobs now. Bryan is working at a local vending company and really enjoying his job. And, so far, his boss seems to be acknowledging his skills, so that's very good! I'm working at an integrated health clinic (i.e. medical doctors, chiropractors and physio therapists in the same clinic). I was a little unsure of the concept at first, but I really like the people I work with and I can definitely tell that we're helping patients feel better.

The other good news to share is that because of the aforementioned employment opportunities, we're now less than a week away from moving into an apartment! Yay! For the first time in SIX months, my husband and I will live alone! (I really loved living with both Bryan's family and my family, but it will still be nice to have some privacy!) We found an apartment complex that is less than ten minutes from my work, so we were able to work out our transportation situation without needing to buy a second car! Our apartment has two bedrooms and two baths, which means we can finally break out that second bathroom set we got for our wedding almost a year and a half ago!

Another great thing about our new apartment is its proximity to Trader Joe's. I might be borderline-obsessed with Trader Joe's. It has really great (and good-for-you) food that is actually cheap. (Particularly when compared to certain nameless overpriced grocery stores that specialize in selling "whole" foods, but I digress.)

I think that about sums up our good news for the time being. While it took us longer than we thought to get back on our feet after moving to Georgia, I think we're finally starting to feel like we're back on track again. Thanks to all of you for your thoughts/prayers/love/friendship/spare (or not so spare) rooms!

If someone could make a sacrifice to the god of good jobs...

By the way, the pictures has absolutely nothing to do with the post. The only other pictures I have are pictures of my nephew and I didn't want a picture of him under a title mentioning sacrifice.

Moving on.

Bryan and I are both needing good job chi. Bryan accepted a job almost a month ago and still has yet to hear from the company. We went through a lot of stress and money trying to get the necessary tools, Georgia drivers' license and motor vehicle report for the job and they've pretty much dropped the ball. Bryan has tried calling them on several occasions and they make excuses for why they haven't contacted their insurance company (the last step, according to the supervisor.) So, needless to say, Bryan's entering the job-market again, just in case. He heard from another vending company (which sounds like a better company AND a better job), but it's fairly far away from where we're living now and where I've been looking for jobs. It would be great as long as I get a job near there and we can move into an apartment fairly quickly, but it would be hard until then, since we only have one car at the moment.

I, on the other hand, have had little luck with the job-hunt. I did have an interview last week for an office management position that I would love and think I would be perfect for, so getting-the-job-vibes would be great!


In other news, Bryan made his grandma's reeeeally good rum cake tonight. As you can tell, it turned out really well and tasted even better!

Definitely adding this one to my ever-growing folder of yummy recipes!

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Things That Must Go.

This time I'm stealing from my favorite radio station in Salt Lake City. Also you don't get a picture, because I don't normally take pictures of my least favorite things.

1.) Boiled peanuts. Disgusting, vile little things. Peanuts were born crunchy and should stay that way.

2.) Movies with any of the following themes: inspirational sports movies, children's fantasy not involving wizards and/or wardrobes and anything involving Steven Seagal.

3.) Job scams. I will scream if I write one more resume/cover letter (that is specifically written for each job I apply for) that comes back with the reply, "make $10,000/month working from home!"

4.) Online Gamers. Specifically the ones who have nothing better to do than play online blackjack all day and yell at other players for not reading the computer's mind. Get a job, man. It's a game. A free one at that. You never run out of chips, so it DOESN'T MATTER.

5.) People who inappropriately show compassion. For example, using the word "bummer" when someone's grandmother dies, etc. My favorite example of this is someone who compared her friend's 1 year old son losing his hearing to Mitt Romney dropping out of the presidential race. You know, in terms of tragedies. Yeah, not even close to being the same.

Good Things

Yes, I'm blatantly stealing from Martha Stewart. I'm willing to live with that.

1.) Coffee. Specifically the uber-American, super-commercialized specialty coffee, like my favorite: a "double grande skinny vanilla." (It took me approximately 3 years to learn that. Prior to that I said something along the lines of "Medium latte. With vanilla. Oh, and two shots! And nonfat milk! Oh, and would it be too much to ask to use Fair Trade, Organic coffee?" And then I was sent to Starbucks prison.)

2.) Crossword puzzles. And not the crappy "3 letter word for 'frozen water' starting with 'I'" puzzles you might find in airport gift shops. The good ones.

3.) Farmers' markets. Specifically the fact that my one day of natural food makes up for my weekly menu of Diet Coke and M&Ms. Right?

4.) Dinner/pub movie theaters. What could be better than enjoying pizza and beer AND a movie on the big screen? Nothing.

5.) My nephew's white noise machine. Seriously, the kid could be crying so much the neighbors might consider calling CPS on me, but as soon as I put him next to the white noise machine I'm, like, the best aunt ever.

6.) Bodies of water. Oceans, lakes, rivers... even creeks (that's "kreek," by the way... not "krik," no matter what my husband says.) It's just so calming. It's probably my grown-up version of Jason's white noise machine.

7.) The production studio ads at the beginning of movies. You know, the Universal globe, the Paramount mountain and stars, etc. I think I like them because it signals my brain to relax for the next two hours. It's a little like Pavlov's Dog.

8.) The perfect, chewy brownie. It must never, ever be cakey. That is called cake. It is separate and should always be accompanied by frosting. This is a brownie. And it is delicious.

9.) Pilates. Normally I'd never include any type of exercise on my list of "Good Things," but looking at all the brownie/pizza/beer items, I figured I should include it. Anyway, it flattens your stomach and was created by a German, so it can't be all bad.

10.) Pancakes. Never has one word exemplified so much happiness.

The Tar Heel State...

We just got back from North Carolina which was so much fun. We went with my sister Amy, her husband Steve and their son Jason, and stayed at Steve's sister and brother-in-law's house near Brevard. The view was absolutely beautiful (as you can see!) We arrived on Friday, then after a quick stop at the house to drop off the bags, we got back in the car to drive to Asheville. We enjoyed a bit of window shopping, some really good Southern food and a seemingly city-wide drum concert. There are no pictures of that. I was entranced by the drumming. Or something. After we drove back to the house, we enjoyed some very distant, sort of cloudy fireworks.

On Saturday, we met up with Steve's parents, Roy and Carol. We ate at a very large Chinese buffet (which also included, among other things, pizza, hot wings and soft-serve ice cream... your guess is as good as mine), then headed home where we enjoyed relaxing next to the ultimate-sunset.

This morning, we got to have brunch at a restaurant called Hob Nob, which was really good. (On a side note: here's why I like brunch. I get to eat my favorite meal (breakfast) accompanied by alcohol (a bloody mary and/or mismosa), then it's acceptable to eat dessert! (In this case, we shared an apple and berry cobbler which was a little more cobblery than it was fruity.) All in all, a good meal.)

Jason did really well considering the fact that we dragged him around North Carolina all weekend. He got a little fussy when he was forced to sit in the "chair from hell" (AKA the carseat) for too long, but he was easily soothed by stepping outdoors.

On the way home, we stopped at the Feasting On Asphalt-famous Carolina Smokehouse BBQ. It was REALLY good. You'll notice that a lot of my posts focus on food. That's because it's very important to me. It lies somewhere between my husband and my favorite black and gray striped sweater on my list of favorite things. (For the record, my husband is at the top of that list... didn't want anyone getting the wrong impression.)

Since I only posted two of the two hundred pictures I took, you can catch a few others on our flickr site if you're interested.

Hope you all had a great weekend!

(P.S. You c an't see it in the picture, but my nephew is wearing a onesie that says "Chicks Dig Me." Such a stud...)

Jumping on the Blogwagon.

While browsing through my pictures trying to find something to post, I came across my pictures from Scotland. And... since my parents just returned from there, here you go. You'll get pictures that are more relevant to the subject of the actual post in the future. Fear not.

So, yes, we (rather, I) have jumped on the blog bandwagon and created one. I'm not entirely sure anyone will read it since we don't have kids, but I promise to fill it up with lots of pictures of my nieces and nephews to compensate.

We've been in Georgia for about a month. In some ways it seems like it hasn't been that long, and in some ways it feels like it's been much longer. Bryan has accepted a job with a vending company, but he's having to jump through a lot of hoops to actually get started. (Namely, getting a Georgia drivers license, for which he needs proof of residency, which he doesn't have until we rent an apartment, which we can't get until he gets a job, for which he needs a Georgia drivers license. It's a vicious vicious circle, really.) He managed to actually get a drivers license, thanks to my sister and brother-in-law who faked a rent receipt. Now we're just waiting to hear whether the company's insurance has approved him. Then he can get the drug test. Then he can start work 12-18 hours after that. Oy.

I, on the other hand, am not having so much luck with the job hunt. I went on an interview with the staffing-agency-that-shall-not-be-named earlier this week, where I was greeted with people who were fairly quick to demote me, then gave me a test where I answered questions like: "To reduce irritation from staring at a computer screen should you, a) sit as close to the screen as possible, b) cross your eyes, or c) turn away from the computer approximately every 15 minutes." (Any guesses? It's tricky, I know.) Anyway, I left feeling kind of discouraged. I felt better the next day when they emailed me a survey about my experience. I was honest.

We're going away to the mountains for the 4th of July this weekend, so I hope we can get our minds off of it all.

Happy 4th of July to all the Americans! (Not that I think any foreigners will ever read this.)