Apartment Project 1: Composting

This weekend, J and I started our compost bucket. Sometime in April I will go down to the Somerville DPW and pick up an Earth Machine compost bin, but for now we are planning on taking the compost we accumulate to Whole Foods. Friends of ours do this already and they say it is pretty easy and convenient, but I also want to use the compost for gardening, so I am curious to see how many of the scraps we end up using when we have our own machine, and whether we will still need to make trips to Whole Foods after we get a compost bin in the back yard.

Our bucket is a white, 5 gallon bucket that we picked up at Home Depot. We already had an orange 5 gallon bucket, but the designer in me cringed at drawing that much attention to a waste receptacle, and if this is going to be a permanent lifestyle change and not just an experiment, I need the bucket to blend. Given a choice of two lids (screw top and traditional), we went with the screw top lid, which seals in the smell and makes the bin easier to access than a traditional paint bucket lid—how easily the food will be dumped out is TBD. When we got home we lined the bin with this year's tax literature, and went to town cleaning out the fridge. I think this project will only get easier as time goes on, and I am psyched to produce less garbage, and I can easily see this fundamentally changing everything about how I operate in my kitchen. I even had pangs when I composted my juice extracts this morning because I know I can consume them in some way instead of composting them, but I contented myself with the knowledge that baby steps make for better permanent habit changes.

I have a personal challenge with myself to reduce our landfill-bound waste to one garbage bag a month or less. Dare I dream of being a zero waste household? For now, we've had fun researching what we can and cannot compost (spoiler alert: you can compost many, many things you might have thought you couldn't), but we're doing what we can, and I am so excited to start this journey.

Throw Out Fifty Things: Day Four

This week was great because I placed these ten items outside for the taking, and a lot of them got taken!

31. Method dish soap that smelled terrible. TAKEN
32. Success Rice that we didn't use for three years.
33. Prototype mittens that I've made but don't wear.
34. Shampoo. TAKEN
35. Frank Lloyd Wright coffee table book. TAKEN
36. Sticky notes from Target that were too sticky when stuck together, but not sticky enough when I wanted to stick them to anything else! TAKEN
37. My old bike bell, which I removed when my mom bought me a bigger louder one. TAKEN
38. Placemats that have seen their day. J will thank me some day.
39. See-through bag that I got when employed with that big retail store at the mall. It was to prevent staff-shoplifting.
40. More yarn, and there will probably be another round of yarn before we move!

Greening Our Apartment

J and I will be moving over the next few weeks , and I want to get more plants into our living space. I managed to kill many of the plants we had here, but mostly because...okay, I confess that there is probably nothing wrong with the sunlight, the placement or the hardiness of the plants I choose. I just forget to water them! But I want to resolve to be better about this in the new place. Things that might help are a balcony. And my being more responsible (ha!)

In addition to more greenery, I would like to have fresh cut flowers in the apartment more often, and I think there's a perfect spot for them, too, because there is a cutout between our kitchen and living room that has a groove where I would hope we can fit one of these planters from Urban Outfitters:



I also think that a hanging planter would be pretty great in the space next to the sliding glass door to the balcony:


I decided to take advantage of Amazon's universal wish list and set up my own New Apartment wish list. I hope this will help me budget for the new place, and maybe we can eventually get everything we need for our new space without breaking the bank.

Throw Out Fifty Things: Day Three

This week's things came from all over, again.

21. Florals from inside the centerpiece at a reception I went to.
22. The placeholder from another wedding J and I attended last summer.
23. A tank top that has always been too baggy for me
24. A shirt that is sadly a little bit too young on me
25. Some nail polish that I haven't really worn. These purchases can seem like such a good idea until I get them home!
26. Some computer mice that I don't use since I got my Mac, plus they are both missing the USB keys that make them work.
27. Sequined suspenders I bought for St. Paddy's day, then I didn't wear them PLUS I didn't make any money to pay for them. Fail, all around.
28. My old point and shoot which is outdated, cracked, and pretty much useless now that we have two other digital cameras and a bajillion analog cameras.
29. A candle holder that I've had for years, loved, and used, but it is now time to let it go, as it's been half hidden in the bathroom for two years, not doing much of anything—not even really being decor.
30. Scraps from the mesh earring hanger I made last year.
    

Throw out Fifty Things: Day Two

My next ten items came from all over the apartment. I was spot cleaning the apartment because we've been having prospective tenants come by to look around.

11. Books—I have a lot of books that I need to weed through, but these two aren't going to sell on half.com or swaptree.com, and they weren't even on the bookshelf. I have two or three cookbooks that I do use, but for the most part, I use allrecipes.com or google. I also don't have the same interest in architecture that I used to, and while I want to keep a few of my old textbooks, I see no reason to have multiple books on the subject.
12. AIA conference bag. There was a point in my life when I didn't think I could have enough bags. It turns out you can, and I do.
13. J's sister found a Kodak Pleaser Instant camera at a thrift store, complete in it's original packaging. I kept it because it was kind of cool, but then I realized that since the camera is for display, I would have already thrown away the box if it were new, so there's really no reason to keep a musty old box...
14. Yarn, and this is only the tip of the iceberg, because this was drifter yarn that had found its way into my closet. I actually have to tackle the collection of yarn at some point to see what I can do with it. Maybe some of it is sellable, but mostly it will probably go to goodwill (or knitting friends).
15. Some Old Spice body wash that was left when J's brother visited our apartment.
16. Old plastic pots that I picked up at the recycling center to plant some seeds last summer. Yeah, that never happened.
17. Big Black Notebook, because like bags, I have lots and lots of notebooks, and this one has been hanging out since college.
18. Some glittery eyeshadow that I have not worn since I bought it, in high school.
19. A paper take-out box that was handmade by a student in my typography class as her final project. We each got one that had candies and a little handmade paper fortune cookie inside. Each fortune was an inspirational quote by a designer/typographer. A cute idea, but also not something I need to hang onto forever and ever.
20. Old catalogs, one of them is the 2009 IKEA catalog, some of the Urban Outfitters catalogs were from around that time, too. Let it go, woman!
    

Throw out Fifty Things: Day One

I need to get motivated to clean out the apartment for a few reasons. It started because some people came over to view the apartment—we're moving this summer. I feel way more comfortable when the apartment is presentable, and it also makes everything easier, like working, and finding things.

I also want to take some clothes to Poor Little Rich Girl or The Garment District, something I've been talking about since last summer, but have yet to do. I'm amassing quite the collection, which is why I thought I'd go to PLRG, instead. I think I might get more value for some of my nicer clothes there. The rest are just going to Goodwill.

So to get the ball rolling, I started the Throw Out Fifty Things challenge that I saw on Make Under My Life.

Here's what I've "thrown out" so far:

1. White House | Black Market pants (bought on sale, never really wore)
2. J. Crew jeans (don't fit, not my style)
3. Bakers silver sandals (that I never wear)
4. Lacy tube top from The Limited (worn and loved through college)
5. Black slacks from Forever 21 (these have seen better days. Ick.)
6. Some old Mudd jeans (never wear them anymore)
7. Pink picture frame (haven't used since college)
   
8. Vitamin E oil (I bought a new Sally Hansen cuticle pen which works much better)
   
9. Old phone charger (I guess I should find that old phone)
   
10. Masking tape (is old, is kind of gross, and doesn't stick to things anymore)
    

I'm going to be taking the first four items to Poor Little Rich Girl, the next two to Goodwill, and the last four to the recycling center (well...I might just throw out the masking tape, actually)

Earplugs and Vodka

Today has been a test of my patience. Like, the SATs of patience. Upstairs neighbor walked around in his shoes for about 20 minutes this morning, then when he was taking a shower, stompy tried on some stiletto heels.

Then, the construction workers who are working on the house kitty-corner to our apartment building joined the chorus with their drilling and sledgehammering. That was fun.

So I came to the front of the house. And DPW started jack-hammering in the streets. Yey.

There was some peace for about two hours, but then stompy dragged a dead body down the stairwell did something so noisy in their stairwell (which is adjacent to the length of our apartment), I couldn't even imagine what was going on. Turns out she was sweeping. SWEEPING!

I know this post is going to come off as typical angry me, but the reason I even felt the need to write it down is that I think that today wasn't actually so bad. These things happened, almost consecutively, and for long enough to cause disruption in my work flow, but I got through them. If I'm not going to have a heart attack at 26, then I should probably learn how to let these things happen without my anger, because they're going to happen, anyway.

Every day is a new day. I would go upstairs and reintroduce myself to stompy, apologize and gift them a bottle of wine (and maybe some slippers), but that would require I be a bigger, better person. I'm not quite there, yet. For now I'll stick to earplugs.

Dear Upstairs Neighbor

Why has your stomping gotten worse?! For all the complaining I do on the Internet, I am wholly certain you have no idea that this blog exists, much less that I'm your irritated downstairs neighbor, and therefore your elephantine stomping can't possibly be retaliatory.

The only explanation I can venture is that you went away on spring break (which was sweet heavenly silence, you should go out of town more often. Like, permanently), where you spent the week eating cheeseburgers and small children.

And now you're eating trails of Cheetos that have been laid across your apartment (J's contribution to the theory) for exercise, since you clearly weigh 350 lbs, but I have to say - you would benefit more from a stationary bike, and so would my sanity.

Signed,
Please Sweet Jesus do not renew your lease.

Spring Cure 2009

I'm participating in Apartment Therapy's Spring Cure for a second, hopefully more successful time.

Our apartment has been lived in for over eight months, and some things have just now started to come together, like our kitchen and my workspace, and if we're going to be here another year, I don't mind pouring more of myself into this place to make it feel like home, even if I'm not in the position to pour more money into it at the time.

The living room probably needs the least amount of work. It's where we keep our bikes, the couch and the TV, and our record player. J's workstation takes up one of the front window bays, and because our front door opens into the center of the living room, there isn't a lot to do in terms of rearranging. I think the coffee table could use a makeover, and if we ever found a new console that didn't break the bank, but still fit in the small space we have leftover, I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.

Plans for the living room: coffee table makeover, hang the ikea pendant light over J's desk, sew throw pillows using orange Marimekko fabric. Block windows using contact paper; take down blinds.

We moved my desk into the kitchen, which has been freeing and has relieved the aggravation of listening to the neighbors slam the door and do their laundry at the back of the house at all hours during the day. We hung a ledge over my desk where I'm displaying my camera collection, and I hung a rail above my computer to hold my colored pencils and inks. The second rail went above the stove, holding our measuring cups and a bag of onions, right now. I found an Orla Kiley stoneware canister, which now holds our coffee, and a gorgeous blue peppermill from Anthropologie, which could very well be the centerpiece of the whole kitchen, I'm that in love. The kitchen still needs a lot of work, though.

Plans for the kitchen: One more trip to IKEA to buy a spice rack for our grundtal rail, maybe buy a grundtal shelf, buy more hooks. Move asker pot to my desk, maybe use it for a potted plant. Hang "Now Panic and Freak Out" print somewhere near workspace or kitchen table. Finish block printing napkins, embroider rest. Sew curtains for kitchen window. Find new drawer pulls for desk.

That's all for now, I guess. The bedroom still needs a ton of work, and I could probably refinish that chest of drawers we pulled in from the street. I'm going to be pulling inspiration photos this week, and planning my attack. The goal is not to spend any money, with the exception of completing the grundtal solution and buying thread to sew my curtains and pillowcases.

You're on, Spring Cure 2009.

I'm So Glad I Put On Pants

I locked myself out of the apartment yesterday.

I had gone out back to check for our recycling toters, and after giving the door handle an assuring jiggle, closed it and went outside. Apparently the door didn't understand "assuring jiggle," because it was locked when I came back to it. Don't ask me to explain the hows or whys. Maybe I jiggled the inside handle, which turns regardless of whether it's locked or not. Maybe I didn't turn the lock 90 degrees and it was jostled when I closed the door, locking me out from the inside.

Regardless, I was so happy that I had put pants on to go outside. And shoes. I so rarely get dressed to peep out onto the backyard.

Other things I could have taken outside: keys, a cell phone, my wallet.

I walked down to MIT, because what other choice did I have? I could have hung out in our laundry area until J came home six hours later. Or the backyard. Those were my choices, and it was cold. Once I went outside the apartment building, I was out, so I had to make the decision quickly. Was there anywhere I could go without money or ID? Not really. So I walked down to MIT, hoping to find J in his lab before his class started, knowing it could be a shot in the dark. At least he wasn't out in Lexington!

I met J's office mate, who told me a story about the time his wife was locked out of their apartment and he found her curled up, asleep, on their landing. I was again reminded of how very glad I was that I had put on pants.

I played spider solitaire on J's computer.

Then, I got lucky. He came back to his desk before his class started. I got the keys and came home. Will this make me more careful in the future? Probably not. I swear I checked that door before I went outside. Which is why I'm never leaving the apartment again. Without pants.

Taco Flavored Fishes

I believe that I am getting a fish this weekend. I haven't done ridiculous amounts of research about this, but I've done enough to decide that we will be getting an Anabantid or Gourami of some sort. Anabantids and Gouramis, or "Labyrinth fish" have a labyrinth organ, which a) allows them to live in water with less oxygen support than other fish, and b) Labyrinth is a movie featuring David Bowie.

They are hardy fish, and while most of them are somewhat aggressive and are not community fish, we are going to be an only fish couple for a while, anyway. If we want to introduce small freshwater schools, we will be able to do that if and when we upgrade our tank.

I won't be able to come home and cuddle with my fish, but we know we won't be getting a puppy for a while, and this seemed like a fair compromise. I hope to be working less hours, preferably from home, when we do get a dog (I say puppy all the time, but most greyhounds come into your heart and home as adults). We already have a name picked out, and a title. Now we just need to find the right fishy for our home.

In other words, things are going well

Last night, J got me an air conditioner. He may as well have given me a ring.

This morning, I told him that I was thinking about getting table runners for the kitchen table instead of place mats. He looked at me and said, "okay."

Yes, there has been a period of adjustment, and yes, there have been a few incidents over some things like closet space and beds and my pile of clothes...but how can I not be totally head over heels for this guy?

We're slowly making it a home.

A Day of Chairs

Since I'm moving out of my old apartment, I've started assessing my needs versus my wants in terms of...erm, shall we say, crap I own. Some of the crap is very very necessary - I need it to live. Things like my CD collection or my box of matches, or a rather large accumulation of pens.

J is, in contrast, a minimalist. He's coming into this apartment with what I consider the bare necessities (and believe me, he's going to act all aghast by how much stuff he has, you wait and see). Furniture. Clothes. A computer. The bare minimum.

Lately, mostly to avoid going through my matchbook collection, I've been complaining about my honking big leather office chair. It's comfortable, and at $30 second-hand, it gets the job done. Or it used to. This chair has served me well for over 4 years now, but the time came to finally get rid of it - partially because there's barely enough space for it in my room now, and the new space is going to be exponentially smaller. Mostly because I found this chair on sale at Target:

Today, I convinced J to go to a yard sale with me, and along with a muffin pan, for a grand total of $5, we picked up these:

So many chairs. So much awesome.

Minutiae Mashup

Things that have happened this week that were probably blog-worthy, but I didn't blog about:

Sunday I rode my bike for the first time this season (to work...and then back home...seven hours later). There are so many muscles I use to ride my bike and, let me tell you, most of them aren't anywhere near my legs! Ouch. Riding has improved vastly since then - the two other times, I mean.

On Tuesday, I had dinner with my friend, Matt. Matt is going to Northeastern, he works at the Boston Globe, and he "freelances" at Tomb. In short, he is an interesting guy. He was supposed to go to a Tokyo Police Club show with me this week, but in an unsurprising display of stupidity I have him the wrong date (Tuesday), so we had dinner, instead. I heart Border Cafe.

Wednesday morning, there were cops outside of my windows. So, there is a set of condos that went up next door to us recently. They've been done with construction for about seven months now, and already the yuppie couple in the top unit has moved out. We assumed that this had something to do with some neighborhood gossip about the husband in one of the couples being wasted out of his mind at the end of our block one night. Another neighbor found him and walked him (more like dragged him) home. But three cop cars? Either both of those completely normal looking yuppie couples were crazy or the other couple moved out because of the crazy in the lower unit. There's also some Rock Band going on over there. I know. I've heard it. To further confuse us, my roommate attests to witnessing some naked peeing off the balcony, but that was the top unit - so see what I mean?

I decided to sell the tickets to that TPC show on Craigslist. Then I decided to go. Then I decided to sell only one ticket. This all worked out, but from point a to point b was kind of stressful and crazy. However, it all worked out - the end.

J has been out of town for essentially two weeks now. He flew to New Mexico last week on Tuesday morning (5AM - who drove him to the airport thank you very much?) then came back in on Friday night. We celebrated one of my friends' birthdays on Saturday, then he flew out to Arizona early on Sunday morning. I should be glad I got to see him on Saturday, but two weeks is a seriously long time. I might be complaining, but that would be unbecoming, so let's just say I'm stating...

...In the meantime, I have watched a lot of bad TV that he won't typically put up with and I have started "packing," which means that I have taken stuff out of places and am trying to decide whether or not to keep it. "Packing" looks a whole lot like "dumping out every single one of my drawers and then not cleaning up."

I should be better about updating this thing.

Apartment Hunting

Did you know that the average person will live in ten places over the course of their lifetime? I believe it - this new apartment will be my fifth, and three out of those five times I have had to deal with Craigslist. Craigslist and realtors.

I'm moving on June 1st. And so is J. We found the new place fairly quickly - with relatively low stress. And yeah, that freaked us the hell out, because we expected to have to jump through more hoops. To be honest, I've always been lucky enough when it comes to apartments, but not without hard work, and this time there was hard work, but it was concentrated, and we got it over with kind of quickly. I'm kind of sad to be moving, but I'm also so ready for the next stage in my life.

After seeing quite a few places that were really sub-par, J and I found a total hipster apartment with hardwood floors and a newly updated kitchen in one of the trendier, younger neighborhoods in Cambridge. The second bedroom is really small, but who cares?! We just need the one, anyway. The thing is, we walked away excited, but not sure. There were two places we could manage to live in out of six that we'd seen that day, but neither of us had that feeling in the bottom of our gut.

We ended up taking the apartment after deliberating for an entire night. We decided because we both felt that our previous apartments were miracles from heaven that we were probably putting them on a pedestal, and we were probably never going to have that feeling at our navels. Nowhere was going to be as cheap as either of our places and still have the same standard of living - but neither of us was willing to be "the roommate" that said "get out of here" to our roommates, and also, J was unwilling to live in the 'ville. Do you know how much of his life he owes me for making me move back to Cambridge? A lot.

We are going to make this place look so boss. I'm excited. About everything but the Cambridge thing.

Now You're Lying on a Hard Wood FloorThink you're alive, but you can't be sure

Alisa and I found a new humble abode! A new flat! With shiny new hardwood floors! And a china cabinet! There's more to tell, but that will have to wait until our friends are in town, because we want to show them first, and I don't want my big blogging mouth to get in the way of Alisa's joy.

So, did anyone else see the Cha-Cha last night? If you know any better, you know I'm referring to the Cha-Cha that Benji and Donyelle did at the end of So You Think You Can Dance, which, dare I say, was better than the Hip-Hop routine they did last week (that captured oh so many hearts). There are many blogs out there that analyze the dances and many forums out there that discuss the contestants, so I won't do that here.

That aside, did anyone else come to the conclusion that Natalie and Musa are totally sleeping with each other?! Because I did. And Alisa did. And Phil, and Reagan....and probably 98% of America. I can't judge too much, because I like Natalie and Musa, but still. Whoa. However, I'm a "Benji Fangirl," through and through, as you can see from the button on the sidebar down there.



I had a discussion about this with Reagan, and she and I admitted that the "problem" with shows like this is that they're not characters; they're normal people with normal lives and it's so easy to imagine that you could be friends with them. By "problem," I mean that they're highly addictive and fun to watch, of course.

I'm thisclose to buying myself a DS Lite. I think I'll wait until Christmas, like Peter suggested, but every time I see a commercial...I want one so bad.

Now Listening: The Honeydogs - Rumor Has It

God, How You'd Like it...You'd Like it to Fade

Here is all the crap I haven't written about since I disappeared off the face of the earth. Each blurb should be its own several paragraph entry, but since it's too late for that, you get sloppily written blurbs. Because blurb is fun to say, and this way, I don't have to think about what I'm writing. Which is why I've avoided writing, anyway:
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Alisa bought a DVD player. Now I can watch Grey's Anatomy on the TV! I'm very excited about this, and have already used the DVD player to watch The Village sans commercials (it's been on TV lately, but with commercials and without some scenes...bleh). This is fantastic.
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I'm working on the second pomatomus army sock. I really messed up the heel, and had knit the whole heel flap and turned half the heel before I realized I'd done it backwards. Since I'd already messed up, I decided to rip the whole thing out and do a "mirrored" version, instead of two matching socks. We'll see how it turns out. The army socks have sort of been my prototypes and the purple sock yarn is my "now I'm an expert" version. This won't be any exception, I suppose. This is slightly less fantastic, but will be fantastic when I have two completed pairs of pomatomuses. Pomatomi?
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I went to two graduation dinners last week. One in the North End with Ben's family and Taz, and one at an Afghan restaurant with Jessica's family and Alisa. Really, it's enough to move me to tears that I was invited. I...there are no words. I immensely enjoyed both dinners and it's really fantastic meeting families. It's one of those things I always realized I took for granted in high school -- that I knew all of my friend's families just because of house visits, and how it's sort of a big deal to meet people's parents now because we all live in different cities.
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Jessica's gone. I suppose I didn't post when Ben left, either. They're both gone. I'm a little sad. A little out of sorts. I miss them, but I still can't really believe that this is it. That it's time to move on. Because it doesn't seem different. I just know it is.

Jessica's sisters went out with us on Friday night, and we had a blast. There was dancing, which means that Alisa and I have put in our dancing time for the next six months...but it was fun. I always enjoy the Phoenix when they play '80s and top 40. And while there's some unwanted flirting, the guys there aren't nearly as aggressive as they are everywhere else.
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I have an interview next week. I'm excited about that. Really, I am. It's a big company, so maybe I can finally have friends. We'll see, but either way, it's just a placeholder until grad school, so it doesn't have to be the superfantasticdreamjobi'vealwayswanted.
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Alisa and I have to move. Because our landlord is an idiot. And kind of a jerk. And unreasonable. And we hope he has so much trouble renting out this space after we move, since he thinks he's giving us a "deal," when in reality, we've already seen some places on craigslist that are less expensive than ours now, and maybe nicer. Maybe not -- but we have more space than we need, anyway. And nicer doesn't always mean bigger.

I hate moving. But maybe this time I'll be able to paint my walls.

Now Listening: Franz Ferdinand - Fade Together