How to Make Time

At the beginning of July, I looked at my calendar and counted 6 days of the entire month that I didn't have a scheduled activity outside of work. By the end of the month, it was probably more like 3, if that. I was also out of town for at least parts of 5 out of 6 weekends. I started to become a little worried about Dan coming home and having enough (if any) time to spend with him.

Then August rolls around, and to the best of my ability, I blocked off my calendar for two weeks during the Olympics. It didn't work out perfectly, but I spent significantly more time in my new apartment during those first 2 weeks than I did in the entire previous month. Even once I started spending time with people outside of office hours, my schedule was  a lot quieter than it had been for awhile. Dan and I had dinner together most nights, did errands together, spent time with our families, and enjoyed our first few weeks as a couple in the same city.

During this time, I decided that I got pretty bored in the evenings when I had nothing going on-especially those nights when I was home from work by 5 or 5:30 and had maybe worked out in the morning. Dan doesn't get home until at least 7, frequently after 7:30 and I rarely spend an hour making dinner or something like that during the week. Laura and I went on some walks trying to figure out what to do with our time/as an excuse to get out of our apartments while it's still nice out (its so nice to live only a 15 minute walk away!) We both wished we had hobbies of some sort. That's the reason I started blogging in the first place, and during the Olympics I starting working on this craft project for my brother than I originally began my senior year in high school and never finished. It wasn't enough to really hold my attention for long though.

Thankfully, September arrived, everyone came home from their end-of-summer vacations, and life picked up again. After a quiet Labor Day weekend where I miraculously had 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon to dedicate to getting Piper, life started getting busy again. Although I was desperately looking for more things to fill my 7 non-working hours every day, I am a little bit overwhelmed when I look at my calendar hanging in my cubicle and there's something written on nearly every day.

The past couple of weeks and the next few are filled with evening activities. Some of them are just briefly after work but many others will last into the evening. With Dan's 10:30/11pm bedtime (although he frequently passes out on the couch before this), we have pretty limited time together if I'm not home by the time he is. Thankfully long-distance prepared us for this and even if we only have 3 hours a day for 6 days of the week plus Sundays together, it's still better than what we've had for the majority of our relationship. We're also trying to work out strategies for Dan to move faster in the mornings (somehow I take 30 minutes to get ready and he takes an hour…) so hopefully if he can sleep in until 5:50/6 then he'll make it up until 11 without falling asleep. My first suggestion was not spending 15 minutes eating breakfast, his was to shower at night. He's remarkably slow at that too. 

This weekend is actually worse than most, he had a late soccer game last night and didn't get home until 11:30. Thankfully he didn't have to be at work until 1 today, but he also agreed to do a night flight with one of his students so he still isn't home. Normally we're able to spend Sundays together, but I decided to go to six flags with my family tomorrow and he opted out. Great way to prepare for my week of activities every evening! Doesn't look like things will slow down for either of us any time soon...but I'm grateful for every moment we spend together regardless of how few there seem to be. As we were falling asleep last night (neither of us passed out on the couch, even though I tried to and he yelled at me), I told him how sometimes I couldn't believe we actually made it. After so many years of struggling through the distance and thinking these days would never come, we're finally here!

Doing Everything Wrong

In an earlier post I mentioned all my research on cohabitation. I think I read four different books on the topic which equates to literally hours upon hours of reading, taking notes, etc. Despite my anxiety about living together, it has been relatively easy so far, which is probably why I keep breaking all the rules. Will I regret this in another couple of months, when the "honeymoon" period ends? Quite possibly, guess I'll have to deal with the consequences then though. I'll just have to be conscious of the fact that numerous authors and contributors "told me so" and it's no one's fault but my own.

So let's see...top 4 rules we've broken so far:

1. Not signing a cohabitation agreement. This is essentially a less-sophisticated prenup and more sophisticated roommate agreement like you might have in college. Granted, with my family's wonderful history of lasting marriages, perhaps I should have been more insistent about signing one. My mom already told me to do a prenup before I get married. Glad she has so much confidence in our relationship. Anyways, a cohabitation agreement essentially outlines who is paying for what, what will happen if we break up, and any other rules we decide to include. Whether its legally enforceable depends on the state and I haven't gone so far as to research it in Illinois. I did download a template though and filled in most of it, until it got to the parts about dividing specific spending categories because we hadn't talked about it at the time...and of course I haven't looked at it since.

2. Not following the chore chart. This was, when we moved in together, something I obsessed over. I made a nice excel chart, color-coded it, hung it on the fridge, everything. Dan thought it was ridiculous. After living with roommates for the past couple of years though, I recognized that there's always an uneven split of chores, no matter how hard you try to divide things evenly. In the hopes of avoiding arguments and being on the same page about how frequently things should be cleaned, etc, I created this chart way before Dan even came home. And of course, we're not following it at all. For the most part, we've been good about splitting chores. Dan loads the dishwasher, I unload it. He's in charge of taking the garbage and recycling out, I pay the bills. I do more of the cooking and kitchen cleaning, he does the dishes that need to be handwashed (mostly his stuff...I put everything in the dishwasher). So far so good, but we'll have to see what happens in the next few days since its his turn to clean the bathroom!

3. Sharing credit cards. I tried to come up with both simple and safe ideas about sharing expenses. Obviously for financial safety concerns (especially between couples with unequal salaries like us) you're not supposed to combine bank accounts, credit cards, or allow access to each other's money in any way, shape for form. This leads to an awful lot of work at the end of the week, month, whenever to reconcile who paid for what and such. We also do finances differently. Minus my monthly bills, I put almost everything on my credit card that I can. It provides the financial benefit of getting points and improving my credit score because I'm good at paying it off every month. This is what my parents have always done, and I therefore took after their example. Dan's not a credit card user at all and prefers to just use debit card for everything. Since I'm managing all of our shared expenses, I determined it was easier to just order copies of my credit cards for Dan as well and we figure everything out at the end of the month. This way if he goes to the grocery store for both of us, or uses a card at a shared dinner, I only have to add up costs in two places that I have access to, instead of 3 or more.  Thanks to Chase Quickpay, its pretty easy to get money as needed at the end of the month. I just feel like I've gotten comfortable managing my own finances in the past few months, so its certainly been an adventure to complicate everything again.

4. Our new resident in our apartment

Pets are a definite no-no for two reasons. One, its just one more thing to argue over once the honeymoon period is over. A pet inevitably requires additional work around the house, just something else to add to the chore chart that's not being followed as is. Two, if we were to break up, a pet ends up in a custody battle, which sounds ridiculous to me now, but I guess I can see how that might happen. Although I'm definitely a dog person, after having my dog here for just a week, its impossible for me to have a dog in the city at this time in my life. I felt awful leaving Patches in a small space all day, there's very little grass around me, and I'm never home to take him out. I had to come home right after work and cut short my lunches to make sure he was alone for the minimal amount of time possible. So, a cat it was. Now, I'm technically allergic to cats, but it hasn't been a major issue for me in the past. We intended to borrow Dan's brother's cat to make sure I'd be okay, but time didn't really allow for that. Its kitten season right now, so there is a better selection of cats at shelters than at any other time of the year. In my mind, that's the only reason we didn't wait. Well that and Dan begs as well as anyone I know. I feel more than a little guilty that we're living in the city for me so that I'm close to work and friends and he has the commute from hell-about an hour drive in the morning and more than that coming home at night. I knew that coming home to a cat would make him happy. So Piper (named for the airplane company) joined us yesterday after over 3 hours at PAWS. She's not quite a kitten, but at a year and a half she seems like the perfect age for us. She's very well trained-uses her litter box, doesn't jump on anything, and hasn't tried to use our couch as a scratching post. She's also a lot more mellow than some of the other cats we saw and hasn't shown a lot of interest in any toys besides a shoe lace. She spends most of her time under our dining room table (For reasons unknown, the carpet is not comfortable) or sniffing around all the closed doors to try to discover what's behind them. Certainly a curious one!

Stay tuned for more rule-breaking...it's going to be a busy September so we'll see how all of our social events turn out!

Early Wake Up Calls

After living together for a whopping 10 days, I'm already predicting what our two main points of contention will be:

1. doing dishes

2. hitting the snooze button

Dan and I have different philosophies when it comes to doing dishes. Thanks to my mother, I insist on putting dishes in the dishwasher as soon as I'm done eating (at least when I'm not living alone). With pots/other things that need to be hand washed (which in my book is only pots, and only if they don't fit in the dishwasher…), I fill them with water and soap and leave them, but always wash before I go to bed. 

Dan puts dishes somewhere in the vicinity of the sink...and normally washes everything within 24 hours. He doesn't like hand washing anything until he's got enough to make it worth filling up the sink with soap and water and doing some intense washing. I'm more of a squirt some dish soap on the sponge and scrub clean kind of person.

I think I'll just have to become more relaxed about dishes going in the dishwasher right away...as long as Dan doesn't expect me to be all super-dishwasher for the hand wash stuff. A sponge works just fine as far as I'm concerned.

The snooze button is another story. Dan is not a morning person, in any stretch of the imagination. If given his way, he'd probably sleep from like 2am-noon every day. That obviously doesn't work with real life, especially with his job. His regular hours at Lewis are from 7:30am-5:30pm Monday through Saturday. And he has to commute an hour to get there. That means leaving the apartment between 6:15 and 6:30 depending on his first launch time. As I observed this morning, part of his morning routine involves sitting down for a couple of bowls of cereal while reading Time Magazine, which takes as long as it takes me to shower, if not longer.

I've managed to master getting out of the apartment in about 30 minutes in the morning. It involves not doing my hair whenever possible, picking out clothes the night before, packing my lunch the night before, and basically just having everything ready to go in the morning. I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually eaten breakfast at home, oatmeal in a coffee mug at work has totally replaced that. I don't have to be at work (at least during this rotation) really until 8:30 but I try to get in around 8 so I can leave closer to 4:30 than 5. That means I get up around 7-a full 1.5 hours after Dan's phone doesn't just ring, but blares poor quality, very loud music at least three times over-and that's just the individual alarms, not counting the snooze buttons!

Since he's on summer hours now, it’s not quite as bad, but at some point we'll have to figure out a routine. He'll start his regular schedule next week, and I just can't deal with the early wake-up call, especially since I won't always be going to bed with him at 10:30 or 11. Dan is also allergic to the word routine, whereas I would marry my combined outlook-google calendar if I could figure out a way.

As much as I don't want to admit it, I think the best solution is me getting up at 5:30 with him. This would be great if I were still working out in the mornings (for awhile I was hooked on a 6am workout class twice a week and would run another two weekday mornings), but this is a little more complicated because I have every intention of getting rid of my car so that will increase the amount of time required to get to the gym in the mornings (running takes 15 minutes aka leaving about 5:40 and I really don't want to do that in the dark). I could potentially go to a 5:30am class and take Dan's car...but that involves getting up a full 2 hours earlier than I really need to for work, not sure I can handle that. Clearly this will take a little more brainstorming...and I definitely have the incentive to figure it out quickly since I have zero desire to listen to his alarms go off every morning! Although, I may just start kicking him out of bed at the first alarm. I'll certainly be interested to see how often he's late for work though...my guess is it won't be a rare occurrence.

Pinky Pillow

Dan did manage to pass his final flight test at UND, but it certainly came down to the wire! Fortunately he finished it up Friday morning, just before leaving to head home. He decided that seeing Coldplay in Minneapolis was more important than coming home to me, so I took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy my last night without someone wondering when I’d be home by going on a boat cruise with the Union League Club. The water was too choppy so the cruise part lasted a total of 5 minutes but even that amount of time required Dramamine and caused more than a few falls. Regardless, the boat was fun; open bar was even more fun. I could tell I was out with the ULC crew when our next stop was a sushi restaurant in River North (as opposed to something more along the lines of John Barleycorn in Wrigleyville) and I surprised myself by enjoying the one piece of sushi I sampled! Thanks to Leia, Colleen, Wayne, and Catherine for making it a wonderfully enjoyable night!

I had my first adventure to the Green City Market in Lincoln Park on Saturday morning. It’s a huge
farmer’s market and I was thrilled to realize that I could buy lots of different things because I finally had someone else to share them with. No more freezing or throwing away perishables! I told Dan that I was most excited for him to come home so I didn’t have to throw any more food away and so I didn’t have to take the garbage out any more (this qualifies as a disgusting chore and therefore one that I don’t do). Speaking of chores, I also edited and put our chore chart on the fridge, no comments from the roommate about that one yet.

My schedule on Saturday didn’t quite line up so that I was home exactly when Dan got there, but
fortunately I was still able to help unload the car. Even after his long drive, he still humored me and went to the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra Concert in Millennium Park. I also bought some of his favorite foods (pretzel rolls, really yummy cheddar cheese, and cantaloupe) to bribe him to come. We didn’t stay for the whole concert but I was glad to get to one finally!

Sunday brought on our first major battle. On Saturday my mom called asking me to dinner on Sunday
and I told her that I was going to a young adult event at church the next evening so I turned her down.
Dan informed me that we were going to his dad’s for dinner on Sunday night. My first issue was that he agreed to this without checking with me about my plans. It would have been fine for him to agree to go, but it’s a totally different thing to say I’ll be there too. As it happened, even if I hadn’t been planning to go to church and the YAC get together, I still wouldn’t have felt right going since my mom offered first. In the end he just ended up going out there and I went with my original plans, which turned out just fine.

It’s going to be pretty difficult to balance the demands of 4 separate parental entities, and I think my
mom is mad/jealous because I stayed at my dad’s last weekend and had lunch with him last week so
was trying to get to spend time with me. Seems like we’ll have to plan to have a meal or spend time with one parent every week. Or maybe we’ll just make them all come over for dinner once a month and call it a day. Fortunately, with both my parents working within a mile of me, I can take care of them during the workday. And ¾ of our parents live within a couple mile radius in Oak Park. I think what will end up working best is trying to have dinner out in the suburbs during the week, or maybe on Fridays. It’s easy enough for me to take the green line out and since Dan will be driving anyways, we could easily be back in the city by 9 or so since his commute out there will be better/shorter than the one back to the city. I really dislike heading out there on Sunday nights because of church as well as just mentally preparing myself for the week ahead, it’s nice to be in the city. Dan’s playing soccer in Elmhurst (suburb just a bit west of where we grew up) on Friday nights through Thanksgiving, so that will be weird to still have those evenings to myself. Probably a good thing though, since he’ll be working on Saturdays he wouldn’t want to go out anyways and it’ll probably be better commute out there than coming into the city on Friday nights. I’ll probably be a good girlfriend and take the metra or green line out to watch some games, but not all of them for sure.

Our other battles have been smaller, but not surprising at least:

Money-I’m trying to plan things out already and he isn't working yet. We’ve already discussed that I’m in charge of finances, and remembering how tough it was for me starting out last year, I just
want to be aware of what we’re facing salary and expense wise.

Schedule-I live and breathe by my combined google/outlook calendars…Dan doesn’t operate with a
calendar at all. I think the compromise here is just me printing out a calendar and hanging it on the
fridge for each week. We’ll see how that works. At least he’ll know where I am even if I don’t know
where he is. Granted he now thinks he has to ask my permission for everything he does. Totally
unnecessary, as long as we haven’t already discussed doing something together at the same time. To
make things worse, I’m in a really bad mood when schedules change, which is a lifelong battle with
myself. I’m working on it, but very far from perfect.

Decorations-I refrained from hanging up anything on the walls or placing any frames/decorations
around the apartment until Dan got home so we could make joint decisions. Now, I have lego and model airplanes decorating at least half of the visible surfaces in the apartment. At least the UND model planes match the green in our bedspread, but we’ll have to make some compromises on everything else. I refuse to hang up anything on the wall that doesn’t have a frame (i.e. posters), hard limit for me. Dan doesn’t want pictures of friends, just us. We’ll have to see about that one.

Cleanliness-we have different standards for cleaning. After living with 2 other 22/23 year old guys, this doesn’t come as a surprise to me except that Dan insists he’s cleaner than them. TBD.

Clothes-I take up too much closet space for him to hang his tshirts, sorted by color. He doesn’t like that I leave my pajamas on the bed. I finally got around to taking clothes to the dry cleaners yesterday and discovered he had thrown a bunch of other stuff on the dry cleaning laundry basket. I attempted to ask him what he wanted me to take, but apparently didn’t communicate clearly enough since I got yelled at for leaving behind a pair of pants he wanted me to take in. I told him to take them himself, he’s not working today. And to stop putting clothes over there that don’t need dry cleaned.

Pinky pillow-this was a short-lived battle, as I understand where Dan comes from. But as I was reading in bed last night, Dan grabs the pillow where it happened to be near my elbow and says “Sarah, do you think it’s time to give up the pillow you’ve been sleeping with since you were in your crib?” There’s really no other way to answer that besides yes. So for anyone who has lived with me and/or had a sleepover with me since about the age of 2….pinky pillow is now going to find a place of honor that is somewhere other than my bed. Probably in a box in my dad’s storage area with my blankie. I’ve officially traded a teddy bear and a pillow for a Dan, I guess it’s worth it.

There are definitely some distinct advantages to my “new roommate” as my mother refers to him as. As mentioned before, I no longer have to take out trash or recycling. He’s in charge of cleaning the kitchen surfaces even when I’m the one making a huge mess. I have someone to share meals with-like actually cooked together and sat down and prayed and had a dinner conversation last night. My bed is always made when I come home which never happened when I lived on my own. I can now watch Netflix on the TV through an XBOX 360 that I questionably know how to work. There’s also boy clothes to wear all the time, which I know Melissa will be jealous of (we may or may not have dressed up as boys for Alpha Chi’s Halloween chapter…basically our excuse to walk around in large pj pants, boxers, and an oversized sweatshirt). Plus there’s that whole fact that I love him and I’m sooooooooo excited to not be in a long-distance relationship anymore. And no one will have to listen to my rants about certain things anymore, sorry to disappoint, Mike.

So that pretty much sums up the first few days, 72 hours and we’re surviving! I’m still dreading the
major blow up that I’ve been told is inevitable when moving in together. Once that happens I will finally give into his demands to get a cat. Dan just can’t let me go to the animal shelter alone because I will almost certainly come out with a dog.

Living Alone

June and July were crazy busy for me. I literally had 6 free evenings in July to start the month (and have had less now that I'm almost done), and June wasn't much better especially when I factored in moving. In fact, I purposely brought my dog into the city in June for a week so I'd have to keep my evenings free to come take care of him and pack.

Why did I have to do this you ask? Well, I discovered during my times of periodically absent roommates that I really truly don't like living alone. This feeling was reaffirmed last night as I had my first free night in I have no idea how long. I came home from work, went to the gym and ran a couple of errands, but from 8:30 on it was just me, myself, and I. I was already getting antsy just in my three waking hours on my own last night, and I've got pretty empty evenings for the next two weeks. Now, this is partially on purpose/I'm kind of looking forward to it because I want to watch the Olympics, but I'm not particularly looking forward to doing it on my own.

Now, fingers crossed, Dan will hear on Monday that he got the job at Lewis and will hopefully be home next weekend. Then my empty schedule will be great because it'll give us time to finish settling in together and spend time actually figuring out how to be a real couple. Until then..we'll see.

Its not that I dislike independent activities. I like looking at random things online, enjoy watching my own choice of tv shows on the rare occasion, and adore reading. But for some reason, I just kind of wish there were someone else here doing these things with me. Or not even doing them with me, just here in general.

I talked to Allison about my dislike for living alone today, and she almost wished she were in my shoes. Although she's looking forward to continuing her relationship with Brian (assuming they actually get an apartment in the next few days!!!), she does wish she had the opportunity to live on her own. I really have absolutely zero desire to have that opportunity any more than I've already had it. Granted, if I hadn't had it already to some extent, maybe I would wish I had that experience?

I think maybe part of the reason I don't care to live alone is because I grew up in such a loud and crazy household that I was never alone. I remember in high school wishing I had more time to myself occasionally, but I think what I really wanted was privacy, not an empty house. I don't even remember being annoyed with having roommates in college (with maybe 1 or 2 exceptions). In fact, I really miss having someone around all the time, or at least most of the time.

The funny thing is, I'm the only person I know who has lived alone (to some extent) who hasn't liked it. So that makes me wonder if there's something inherently wrong with me that I dislike my own company, being alone with my own thoughts. I don't think that's true, but who knows. I considered this while running tonight. Although I like the idea of running with other people, I can't run as far while I'm talking so I also appreciate running alone. I keep telling Dan I want to run with him once he moves back, but I think I just really want to feel safe running at night again and I will if he comes with me. So I don't mind my own company in my own head while I'm running, but I wish there were someone to come home to. I've certainly thought about getting a pet, because that would fulfill some of that gap I feel on my own. I think there's something about the idea that no one depends on me, no one is excited to see me, no one knows where I am at any given time that makes me a little uncomfortable.

I'd have to agree with Margaret Mead on this one: "One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are, when you don't come home at night".

New vs. Old

I've been planning this post out in my head for about the last two months....and actually it was originally going to be 2 separate posts but since I've been so flaky about writing on here I figured I'd make the most of wedding Friday with Erica in Canada and just do a nice big post instead!! Missing Dan right now seeing as we're staying in a room clearly meant for couples (there's a bathtub in the bedroom, for example) but I'll get to see him on Monday when he comes back for the interview! Keep sending those prayers, good vibes, crossed fingers, etc our way...this could finally be the actual end of long distance for us!

Anyways, back to the point of the post. It was certainly a bittersweet moment to say goodbye to my first apartment on June 30th, but considering I had been imagining myself getting off at the Fullerton stop ever since I signed my new lease at the end of March so its been a long time coming. For those of you who didn't know of all of my adventures from my apartment this past year, I spent the first six months living with my best friend's boyfriend and the second six months living with my ex-boyfriends best friend. To say the least, it was certainly an adventure. But, as I was advised while seeing The Matchmaker tonight, it is important "to have just the right amount of adventure". Not quite sure if I achieved that, but oh well.

Dan and I are planning to have a housewarming/graduation party for him sometime in August, but until that happens/if it doesn't/if you live halfway across the country and can't make it, please enjoy the tour through pictures below! If you do happen to be in the Chicago area, please feel free to stop by anytime. We, well I at least, love entertaining and I have a shockingly empty social calendar in August so I should actually have the opportunity to get everything all put together!

P.S. Putting this many pictures on this blog was a freaking disaster and took several hours so don't expect too many posts like this!

The fairly large kitchen with three different types/colors of cabinets, uneven floors, and a leaking ceiling. However, it did have my very first tea kettle (my lease-signing present to myself) and I started making pinterest recipes here so there are some good memories!

My smaller, but much better matching kitchen! There's still more cabinet room than I'll ever use (mainly because I can't reach some of it...) which is wonderful since Dan and I have at least 3 kitchens worth of stuff combined! I also love that its open to the rest of the apartment so it'll be easier to cook and carry on a conversation with other people. Its definitely smaller, but Dan and I will just have to learn how to cook in close proximity! And the breakfast bar is actually the right height for the stools this time. 

My old panty was probably the best part of the kitchen! At the very least it all matched and it provided some much needed drawer space that we were lacking in the main kitchen!

My new spare closet turned into a pantry. Buying the shelving unit at BBB was definitely a good investment. If only I remembered to use the $65+ in gift cards I had in my purse...And yes, we have every single random kitchen appliance known to mankind-including duplicates of some of them! So if/when we ever tie the knot, don't expect to find an ice cream maker, electric griddle, crock pot, fondue kit, panini maker, or waffle iron on our registry! But do feel free to come over for breakfast/lunch/dinner/dessert many times

Was so excited to find these chairs for $12 each at Divine Consign last summer. This picture was taken long before my (aka the Magner's) matching china cabinet got put into place along the opposite wall. Although this room was more or less transformed into roommate #2's office, my favorite times in there were our somewhat weekly family dinners starting on October 10th :)
No separate dining area anymore, but this is more than adequate for my still-not-stained dining room table. It will be perfect for dinners for two or more! We even have a spare folding table to throw on the end if there's a big group.

This was an early picture of the old living room so those boxes did eventually disappear as did my scrapbooking stuff, but we never did really make use of the "awkward alcove" as we so fondly called it except for my Christmas tree. Surprisingly the red-yellow-blue color scheme worked out well and it was a great space to entertain in with all the seating-2 couches and 2 chairs at its peak!

Still boxes in this picture too so at least that's even! Far fewer windows in this new living room which is a little bit of a downside (although the old ones were so dirty that I never opened them anyways...) but I'm really excited to have the L shaped couch which fits wonderfully in the room. You can't really sit it well in this picture but we even managed to get a desk in too. I love that this room is open to the kitchen/dining area-I could even watch tv while I cook if I wanted to. 

Despite it being a little on the small side, I absolutely ADORED my old bedroom. I was told on multiple occasions that it looks like something out of a bed, bath, and beyond ad (the bedspread is from there, so that helps!) I was thrilled with how the black, white, and green color scheme came together throughout the room as well. Good thing too since I spent so much time in this room!

It's definitely still weird for me to think that never again will I have my own room, this is now our room. The comforter is a little girly, yes, but I did make Dan pick it out with my last summer (the bedframe, dresser, nightstand, and mirror as well!) so he can't complain too much! There's still a lot of decorating-and book unpacking-to be done here before I love it as much as my old room but it's definitely getting there! I've also reserved a whole 1/3 of the closet for Dan-be very impressed! Although his dresser is also about 1/3 of the size of mine so we may have to work on that one he's actually back for good with all his clothes. Everything doesn't match quite as well now, but we do have light wood on both sides of the bed (Dan's dresser and nightstand) so it kind of balances out. Not as many visible green accents [yet] but we'll see if I can make it look like something out of a BBB ad again!

new bathroom, not too exciting but the old one was such an eye sore that I never took a picture of it so I'm pretty excited to put this up!

view of the new apartment from the living room 

Finally!

I've been letting my readers down, I know. Only 2 posts the entire month of June! In all fairness, changing positions at work and moving/moving in with Dan all in the span of a week was VERY poor planning on my part and I feel like I've barely had a moment to catch my breath. July doesn't look much better in the time department (6 free evenings the whole month? Bring it on!) Hopefully in the next few days I'll have enough time to update you all on the moving out, living in the suburbs, and moving back in ordeal. But for now, two exciting things to share!

1. Dan and I have officially survived 30 hours living together!! There's been a lot of stress and some yelling, but the only major incident was me getting impaled by a dresser, which was kinda Dan's fault, obviously. Only evidence is some bruises on my hips though, so could have been worse. We even hosted our first guest (his mom) for dinner (Chinese takeout) last night. And yes, I'm already sensing my diet slipping seeing as my last few meals consisted of Sonic, pizza, Chinese, bagels, and now leftovers. I did make Dan buy fruit last night though, so we're making progress. I'm certainly dreading the inevitably large shopping trip I have to make either today or tomorrow though. At least we're going to Sam's (Tim's girlfriend) for dinner tonight. Whatever Tim cooks will certainly be better than what we're been eating!

2. Dan got an email from Lewis University's Chief Flight Instructor on Friday asking him to come in for an interview. Even though Lewis is 40 miles southwest of Chicago, this is the closest 4-year university with a flight program and therefore has been his dream job ever since I moved back to Chicago last year. It finally seems like we're thisclose to having the last 5+ years of long distance pay off so we'd really appreciate good vibes, prayers, crossed fingers, whatever you can/want to do to send good luck our way!