Something next to normal, that's the thing I'd like to try

Here it is! My (mostly) finished condo! Still a few things that need to be done, like grouting the tile in the kitchen and hanging all my pictures, but mostly, it's done!

( Read more... )

Last picspam of the condo renovations! The next time you see my place, I will be living in it!

( Read more... )

Howdy, kids. Hope all my fellow Americans had a nice 4th of July. Here in Condo World, long weekend means extra dose of parents! But we did get a lot of work done. Here is the list of accomplishments for this week:

1. Picked up my new kitchen cabinets at Lowe's. Also purchased a new bathroom light while we were there.
2. Went to a couple more stores and finally found tile that might work for the backsplash in the kitchen.
3. Installed the new pantry cabinet.
4. Finished installing the floor.
5. Installed new baseboards.
6. Built a cabinet for the bathroom.
8. Took down curtain rods in my apartment and brought them over to the condo.
9. Packed two boxes of kitchen stuff and a box of clothes/shoes/purses, and filled three trash bags with stuff I never wear/use.
10. Bought a new vacuum cleaner and hardware for the kitchen cabinets.
11. Cleaned up the enormous sawdusty mess in my bedroom where my dad had been doing the woodcutting.
12. Took down old bathroom light.
13. Cleaned medicine cabinet.
14. Installed new dining room light.

I also had hoped to have a 4th of July mini-barbecue, but unfortunately, I don't have a grill and we'd already packed the George Foreman. So my mom made fried chicken instead, along with her famous potato salad (famous because it is requested by all of her friends whenever they have barbecues). Then we went back over to the condo and sat out on my balcony to watch the fireworks. (I have a balcony, you guys! Where I can watch fireworks! This is SO COOL.) We weren't sure what we would see, but we had a pretty nice view of the ones at the Washington Monument, as well as a few others in northern Virginia. At one point, we were watching four simultaneous fireworks displays, lol.

Took lots more pictures of the condo, so expect a picspam sometime this week.

Ooh, and guess what I am doing tomorrow? NEXT TO NORMAL AT THE KENNEDY CENTER!!!!!! OMG SO EXCITED.

I'm way behind on responding to comments, and haven't posted in a while. And I have lots of homework to do. But SO TIRED. After settlement on the new condo, my parents and I:

1. Painted the kitchen
2. Removed all the old baseboards
3. Removed the tile in the foyer
4. Went to Lowe's to buy new baseboards and crown molding
5. Painted the new baseboards and crown molding
6. Cleaned the kitchen floor
7. Cleaned the bathtub/shower
8. Recaulked the bathtub
9. Bought new kitchen appliances
10. Picked out tile for the kitchen backsplash
11. Went to Bed Bath & Beyond to look at window treatments
12. Took lots of measurements for putting in the new floor and where the furniture might go
13. Watched way too many Frasier reruns

A while ago, before I got distracted by my NEW CONDO OMG, I asked for top five lists. Here's the first few, but if you have more ideas, leave a comment either here or in the original post.

( Read more... )

Hey hey hey! Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes (I think I got around to them all, but if I didn't, please let me know! I'm not hatin' - just overwhelmed, lol.)

As you may know, this week is Spring Break for me, so I took the opportunity to take a week off from work, since I had no classes. It was supposed to be relaxing yet productive, but if I wanted to relax, I probably shouldn't have bought a house, you know? I've just about got the mortgage stuff straightened out (after a minor "OMG this is so expensive, what was I THINKING???" freakout earlier today), and I'm having the home inspection done on Friday.

I did manage to have some fun this weekend, since the oh-so-Irish mcmegan came to visit and we went to the Shamrock Fest in DC. Lots of Irish bands, lots of people in crazy outfits, and a LOT of fried food (my stomach was not pleased), but the main attractions were Hotspur - Megan's like a superfan or something, they know her by name! - and Dropkick Murphys, both of which were great.

We also got our picture taken with a leprechaun:

( It's a different sort of awesome ladies picspam )

...but I put an offer in on a condo, the one that had been my first choice and fortunately was still available. The offer was pretty low, so we don't expect the seller to accept it, but hopefully she'll counteroffer and we'll agree on something I can afford. If not, I have a couple other options for similar places, but signing all the papers made it actually sink in. I AM BUYING A HOUSE OMG.

I've been getting more serious about the whole condo-buying thing this week. I started the process of getting approved for a mortgage and have been talking to a realtor. And I can feel it already starting to stress me out.

I think the trouble is that I feel pressured to buy something, no matter what it is or how much I like it (or don't). Because of course I can't afford the place I really want - something that's not closet-sized, walking distance to the Metro, in a nice neighborhood - which is not really that much to ask except that everything in this area is absurdly expensive. (There are condos that cost more than my parents' four-bedroom HOUSE.) But at the same time, I know that mortgage rates are really low and the market is already starting to recover and so now is the time to buy and I don't want to miss the opportunity. And then I've got my mother saying, "You're just throwing your money away on rent!" and I need to build equity and whatever.

But, you know, buying a condo is kind of a big commitment. I'd have to expect to live there for at least five years, and I don't want to be stuck living somewhere I'm not happy just to build equity. But it seems like I'm supposed to just buy something, anything, and suck it up until I can afford to buy something nicer.

Anyway. I feel like I have a lot of things to write about - the end of Lost season 2, Side Jobs, a couple movies I've seen - so I'll try to get to those sometime soon. If I can just tear myself away from browsing condo sites... (I keep checking the same sites, hoping for an open house to pop up that's in my price range, even though I know that nothing is going to have changed since the last time I checked. Yay for neuroses, right?)

Ack. I seem to have disappeared for several days again. Happy post-Halloween! What kind of costumes did everyone wear? I dressed up as a lame person who didn't do anything Halloweeny, though I did eat a jack-o-lantern cookie. My mom came to visit for the weekend (my dad was supposed to come, too, but he ended up having to work), so we were busy doing lots of other stuff.

On Friday, we went to the Newseum, which is a super-awesome museum about the history of journalism and news coverage of major events. It's HUGE, so they give you a two-day pass, though we managed to see just about everything we wanted to in one (very long) day, but we definitely skipped some things. Since the biggest news coverage tends to be about disasters and horrible things happening, it can be kinda depressing and possibly disturbing (they have exhibits on 9/11 and Katrina), but they also have stuff like the greatest moments in sports and interactive exhibits where you can be a reporter, in order to, as my mom said, "balance out the depressing with fun!" Also, they have one of the best museum food courts I've ever been to (second, perhaps, only to the American Indian museum, but I am biased toward any place where I can get buffalo burgers and fry bread). It's somehow connected to Wolfgang Puck, and so the food is really good, though obviously kinda pricey.

Saturday was the Jon Stewart rally, which I probably wouldn't have gone to if my mother hadn't been here. Nothing against Jon Stewart, but if you've seen one ridiculous mob scene on the Mall, you've seen them all, and getting into and out of the city is an absolute nightmare. (No matter how well-prepared Metro claims to be, they are always overwhelmed by the crowds.) But apparently, on the bus down here, some girl asked my mom if she was going to DC for the rally, and my mom was all flattered that she looked like someone who was a fan of Jon Stewart, lol. (She was expecting it to be all folks my age, but there turned out to be a lot of older people there, too.)

Anyway, the crowd was ridiculous, as predicted, so we missed the first hour of the rally, since it took us so long to get into the city. We never actually made it onto the Mall - we tried a few different spots before ending up on Independence Ave. directly to the side of the stage, which meant we could hear what was going on, but couldn't really see anything except the teleprompter. The best part of the rally was actually seeing all the clever and/or random signs people brought with them. (I think my favorite was the one that said, "The people behind me can't see." Of course, he was over on the side where we were, so there wasn't really anything to see.) There are pictures up on the website.

After the rally, we ended up using our Newseum tickets again (we figured it would be less crowded than the free museums) and had a late lunch at the food court, hoping the crowd would thin out in the meantime. But when we ventured back out, the Metro stations were still packed, and it took us about two hours to get home (it usually takes me 45 minutes during rush hour). I was surprised, though, that the crowd was generally well-behaved. I did not once have to use physical violence, lol, and I only had to yell a little bit when people wouldn't move so we could get off the packed train at our station.

Sunday was supposed to be a relaxing day, but somehow we ended up going to look at condos? I'm not sure how that happened. I mean, I am thinking about moving sometime in the future (no sense in paying all that money in rent if I know I want to stay here for a while, and it's the best market for a first-time buyer), but I've only just started seriously considering it, and probably wouldn't be moving for at least another six months or so. (My lease on my apartment is up August 1st.) Anyway, we started talking about it, and then I was looking at condos online, and we picked out four places with open houses. Except yesterday was the Marine Corps Marathon, so half of the streets in Arlington were closed, so we only managed to make it to two of them. It was a pretty dumb idea to go out while the marathon was going on, but we didn't realize quite how widespread it would be. Anyway, I will not be making any offers just yet, but I did meet a nice, friendly real estate agent who was willing to spend quite a bit of time giving me condo-hunting advice, even though I clearly could not afford the place she was showing. :)

Back at work today. :( Much less fun. How was your weekend?

Well, the move happened, and with very few hassles (yay for professional movers!). My poor kitty was traumatized, but she seems to have recovered after only one puking-in-the-corner incident. (Honey, I've felt like I was gonna throw up all week, so I'm right there with ya.)

My parents stayed for the weekend to help me get settled, and so I'm almost unpacked, except for my bedroom. We went to see fireworks for 4th of July at the Pointy Things (aka the Air Force Memorial), which, if you're not familiar with the area, is up on a hill in Arlington with an excellent view of the Washington Monument (where they set off the fireworks), as well as pretty much the whole city... which meant that we could see pretty much every fireworks display in the DC metro area, lol. I have never seen anything like it - about half an hour before the big fireworks started, we saw all these little ones popping up on the horizon. There must have been a hundred of them all over the place, and they continued on after the big show was over.

Anyway, we've been to DC a bunch of times, so our only sightseeing was the Pentagon 9/11 memorial, and other than that, we just drove around my neighborhood trying to figure out where things are. I have this week off, so I should have time to familiarize myself with the area, although I'm somewhat petrified to attempt to drive outside my immediate neighborhood. (GPS. Schizophrenic episodes. Not pretty.)

As I mentioned, I am currently internetless - the Comcast guy doesn't come until Saturday!! - so I've been using the business center in my building. I'm trying to keep up with my flist by opening tabs in Firefox, which I can read later without internet, but of course can't comment unless I save them for my next trip to the business center. So I've probably read your stuff, but if you think I've missed something that requires comment, let me know. I am also without cable during these dark ages, so I'll probably have a list of books and movies I've read/watched when I come back. :)

Box count as of 10am Saturday: 3 boxes and 1 suitcase packed.

Box count as of 10am Sunday: 21 boxes, 3 suitcases, and 2 plastic storage containers packed.

My parents are frighteningly efficient.