FlashbackS Friday

When Michael and I first got married we lived in a little 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment in Tempe. I think it was 650 square feet. When we moved to Colorado, so I could attend graduate school, we moved into a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment. It was over 1,000 square feet. It was definitely my favorite apartment of the three we lived in. There was a huge walk in closet in the entry hallway (yes, it had a real entry hallway!), 2 closets in the master bedroom and almost floor to ceiling cabinets dividing the dining room from the kitchen. The cabinets are those white doors below. They opened from both sides. There were such amazing storage options in that place. The apartment had a huge patio off the kitchen and the complex had a game room and indoor pool. We even had our own fireplace. I think our rent was around $700 a month, with all utilities included. And this wasn't that long ago. We lived there in 2002 and 2003.

This was early September 2003 when I decorated for fall

It must have been really early September (like, the 1st) because those photos appear in my album before my 24th birthday pictures on the 5th. We went to Ft. Collins and ate at Red Robin. The next day we drove up to Cheyenne, Wy. Cheyenne was only 45 minutes away, but we only went that one time. My school schedule (and no money!) kept us from doing as much traveling as I wish we had.
This is why it was appropriate to decorate for fall in September. This was October 30th. Not even Halloween and it was already winter.
I can't remember now if it was 2002 or 2003 that I fell on the ice walking to class and was mortified. Both years there was a big snow storm right at Halloween.

These were some of my little Halloween decorations, placed in a timly fashion in October. Seeing this picture really pisses me off. There I said it. It PISSES me off. When we moved back to Arizona our storage unit was burglarized and some real JERKS stole a bunch of my decorations. Those cute little Halloween characters on the little shelf were part of their loot. #1) Who steals some, but not all, of the decorations in a storage unit? What? Were they all not good enough for you? #2) For that matter, who steals decorations at all? They're cheap and mostly from Target. Go buy your own for the low price of $3.99. #3) I actually filed a police report. Those bastards stole close to $500 worth of stuff. At least 2-3 things from every holiday. Sadly, nothing was ever recovered.

I started snoring during my second year of grad school. I had never snored before. I went to an ENT. He told me my tonsils had grown to the size of tractor trailers in my throat. Tonsils are graded by numbers. 0 would be normal. 3 would be "getting pretty big". 4+ is usually regarded as the largest tonsil ever. Mine were 5+. They actually crossed midline. The ENT recommended immediate removal. Aparrently my tonsils had been infected for years, without me ever once having strep throat. Who knew such a thing could happen? This is a few days after the surgery in mid-October. Let me make a suggestion to my readers- Never have your tonsils taken out as an adult. It just sucks.
One last story. Up until we bought our house we had been using my childhood dresser for Michael. It looked like a kid's dresser. I got the idea that we should strip it an repaint it. This is a before (right) and after (left) shot.

We decided to do this project inside of the apartment because it was cold and windy on the patio. I gave Michael this big, long lecture about being careful and not dripping paint and not carrying the brushes over the carpet. We laid down all the drip cloths and I reminded him again that paint safety was of the utmost importance. Then, 30 seconds into the project, I kicked over the FULL bucket of ruby red paint onto the pale green carpet. We used 2 bottles of carpet cleaner and about 6 rolls of paper towels to do the initial clean-up. Then we rented one of those carpet steamers/shampooers that we ran over the paint spill about 48 times.. We actually got it to the point where it looked like carpet in a high traffic area. When we moved out we got our entire deposit back. Our landlords even made a note about how clean we left the place. I'm sure, though, that they eventually pulled up that carpet and it looked like a murder scene.