Top 10 things that will be awesome about our new house that are major annoyances in my life right now:
1. Central Air! These stupid window units don't do shit! Also Air conditioning in our bedroom! Right now we have a fan aimed at the bed. I can't sleep as well when something is blowing on me, but when it's not blowing directly on us, it's hot as balls. We can't have an AC in the bedroom cause there are bars on the window (although we can have AC in the living room and office cause we have those air conditioning bars on the windows in those rooms).
2. A washer and dryer without having to go outside! Right now we have to go outside to our backyard to get into the basement. When it snows we have to dig out the basement door to do laundry. Sometimes, if it snowed a few days ago, the door will be completely frozen over. Of course there is no back door to the house..we have to go out the front door and navigate the glass and trash filled alley to get there! And don't pay too close attention to what you're stepping on, cause you can easily bang your head on those air conditioning bars that stick out into the narrow alley!
3. Not having to dry my clothes 3x to get them dry! Not only do we have to go outside to do laundry, right now our bullshit washing machine doesn't actually spin during the spin cycle, so our clothes come out sopping wet and need to be dried 3x or else it stays damp forever and sometimes starts smelling like mildew. The landlord doesn't believe this happens cause once 2 years ago he did a cycle with 1 towel and "everything worked perfectly." So he basically refuses to replace it. I've been dealing with this bullshit for approximately 3 years, and it sucks. Especially since every time we want to put another dry cycle on, that's another trip down the alley to the backyard.
4. Not having to save up/go to the bank to get quarters for the washer and dryer! One wash cycle + 3 dry cycles @ 1.50 per cycle= $6 in quarters for every load of laundry. That's 24 goddamn quarters per load.
5. A dishwasher that actually washes the dishes! Ours can make them really hot, but won't clean anything. Also it occasionally leaks all over the kitchen floor for some mysterious reason.
6. A full sized modern refrigerator! Our is like 3/4th sized now and is really old so needs to be defrosted frequently or else the tiny freezer turns into a solid block of ice and paradoxically stops cooling all the rest of the food, which then spoils much quicker than is normal. This gets especially bad in the summers when the humidity in this city is unbearable.
7. Toilets that actually flush all the way the first time! Ours need to be flushed at least twice.
8. Not having to walk Barkley 6-9 times a day!! We will have a fenced in backyard so we can just let him out to pee! Is it weird that nearly every morning I day dream about being able to just get up to let Barkley out the back door? The back door which is (awesomely) right next to the master bedroom in our new house!
9. Being able to set up B's office right next to the living room! so we don't have to yell at each other back and forth all the time! Right now his office is all the way in the back of the house and the living room (where I hang out with my laptop) is all the way in the front of the house (There's a twisty hallway and a bedroom and bathroom in between), so we end up yelling back and forth and not hearing half the things we say. Which really annoys both of us. Especially B. :)
10. A driveway!!! Not having to wander around for half an hour looking for parking any time we come home after 8pm! Not having to wander around for at least 10 minutes the rest of the time! Being able to park right in front of our house all the time! Not having to move the car every 2 hours because of stupid parking rules!!
It's the little things, really...
Showing posts with label moving down south. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving down south. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
purging the clothing from my orthodox jewish life...
One of my favorite things about big moves is the chance to go through all your stuff, figure out what you want to get rid of, and then throwing out/donating all that stuff.
My favorite thing is the clothes. The past 2 days I've been going through all my clothes and separating it into 3 piles- donate, trash (for stuff horribly stained/torn) and keep. The donate pile is almost as big as the keep pile at this point.
When I first moved away to grad school I got rid of 22 years worth of junk/clothes that had been sitting around in a closet in my parent's house. During that move, 6 years ago, I was still in a pretty ambivalent place religious-wise. I was not keeping kosher/shabbas at all at that point, but was still occasionally attending some orthodox jewish events, like Friday night shabbas meals/onegs at my parent's shul. And I was moving from my parent's house, so I couldn't exactly just chuck out all my skirts without my parents being all weird about it. So I moved over a whole bunch of skirts. And suits. Skirt-suits to be exact. The type you wear to shul and not anywhere else.
When I teach I don't wear a suit (I usually wear a blazer and/or a nice shirt with some fancy pants). I have one nice pants suit for job interviews (even though I hope to never go on any of those again) and other fancier business-type occasions. I have my wedding dress to wear to fancier non-jewish occasions (one of the reasons I didn't get a traditional white poofy dress- so that I can wear it again!).
The only time I NEED to wear a skirt at all is at orthodox jewish events. The orthodox jewish events I go to nowadays are all weddings and funerals. At weddings over the past few years I've always worn the same blue skirt. At funerals I have a nice long black skirt.
Meanwhile I moved all these skirt-suits down here to grad school, and they've been sitting in the back of my closet the entire time I've been here, and I haven't worn them once. So those are all getting donated. Also going are nearly all of my skirts- lots of gothicy type skirts that I wore in high school when I was kinda goth-ish (as much as you can be in a high school that doesn't allow you to wear make up). Some hippie skirts that I don't wear anymore. And lots of a few-inches-below-the-knee and ankle-length skirts. Those are almost all black for some reason, so I basically have around 15 nearly-identical skirts. I almost wish I had some orthodox jewish friends in this city so that I could give them to someone who could use all this stuff.
The high heeled shoes I wore to shul with my skirt suits...those are also all going. I never wear heels at all nowadays, and if I do want to I think the one pair of nice black heels that I'm keeping and my navy blue heels (left over from my wedding) are enough for the amount of times I need to wear them (0-2x/year)
But yeah. This feels good. Especially getting rid of all those skirt-suits...it's been like weird baggage from my religious days taking up space in my closet. Before now I felt like I shouldn't get rid of them because they were expensive suits (although it was my parents who paid for them), so they have just sat in my closet, a reminder of my former life every time I got my clothes. And the skirts just sat there because I told myself that I might need to wear one at some point, and also I've been just too busy/lazy to go through them. But with the move, I finally have the excuse (and motivation) I need to donate it all.
It'll be really nice to not have that stuff around anymore.
My favorite thing is the clothes. The past 2 days I've been going through all my clothes and separating it into 3 piles- donate, trash (for stuff horribly stained/torn) and keep. The donate pile is almost as big as the keep pile at this point.
When I first moved away to grad school I got rid of 22 years worth of junk/clothes that had been sitting around in a closet in my parent's house. During that move, 6 years ago, I was still in a pretty ambivalent place religious-wise. I was not keeping kosher/shabbas at all at that point, but was still occasionally attending some orthodox jewish events, like Friday night shabbas meals/onegs at my parent's shul. And I was moving from my parent's house, so I couldn't exactly just chuck out all my skirts without my parents being all weird about it. So I moved over a whole bunch of skirts. And suits. Skirt-suits to be exact. The type you wear to shul and not anywhere else.
When I teach I don't wear a suit (I usually wear a blazer and/or a nice shirt with some fancy pants). I have one nice pants suit for job interviews (even though I hope to never go on any of those again) and other fancier business-type occasions. I have my wedding dress to wear to fancier non-jewish occasions (one of the reasons I didn't get a traditional white poofy dress- so that I can wear it again!).
The only time I NEED to wear a skirt at all is at orthodox jewish events. The orthodox jewish events I go to nowadays are all weddings and funerals. At weddings over the past few years I've always worn the same blue skirt. At funerals I have a nice long black skirt.
Meanwhile I moved all these skirt-suits down here to grad school, and they've been sitting in the back of my closet the entire time I've been here, and I haven't worn them once. So those are all getting donated. Also going are nearly all of my skirts- lots of gothicy type skirts that I wore in high school when I was kinda goth-ish (as much as you can be in a high school that doesn't allow you to wear make up). Some hippie skirts that I don't wear anymore. And lots of a few-inches-below-the-knee and ankle-length skirts. Those are almost all black for some reason, so I basically have around 15 nearly-identical skirts. I almost wish I had some orthodox jewish friends in this city so that I could give them to someone who could use all this stuff.
The high heeled shoes I wore to shul with my skirt suits...those are also all going. I never wear heels at all nowadays, and if I do want to I think the one pair of nice black heels that I'm keeping and my navy blue heels (left over from my wedding) are enough for the amount of times I need to wear them (0-2x/year)
But yeah. This feels good. Especially getting rid of all those skirt-suits...it's been like weird baggage from my religious days taking up space in my closet. Before now I felt like I shouldn't get rid of them because they were expensive suits (although it was my parents who paid for them), so they have just sat in my closet, a reminder of my former life every time I got my clothes. And the skirts just sat there because I told myself that I might need to wear one at some point, and also I've been just too busy/lazy to go through them. But with the move, I finally have the excuse (and motivation) I need to donate it all.
It'll be really nice to not have that stuff around anymore.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
We're buying a house!!
I've been down in *southern state we are moving to for my job* for the past week looking at houses, and I found a house that is AWESOME, and we are now under contract to buy this house!! We will be closing on July 15th!! This house is great- and here's some pictures of its awesomeness:
Master bedroom suite
The other side of that room
Master bathroom- Shower
Master bathroom- crazy awesome bubble bath
Kitchen
sunroom
another bedroom that will probably be an office for now
living room
It also has a pretty big backyard that is mostly fenced- just need to add a gate at one end and it'll be great for Barkley to run around in.
I AM SO FREAKIN EXCITED!!!! I can't believe I get to own a house as awesome as this one!!! And we can actually afford it too, yay the south!!!
Master bedroom suite
The other side of that room
Master bathroom- Shower
Master bathroom- crazy awesome bubble bath
Kitchen
sunroom
another bedroom that will probably be an office for now
living room
It also has a pretty big backyard that is mostly fenced- just need to add a gate at one end and it'll be great for Barkley to run around in.
I AM SO FREAKIN EXCITED!!!! I can't believe I get to own a house as awesome as this one!!! And we can actually afford it too, yay the south!!!
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Home Purchasing (City + Ok house vs. Sticks + awesome house?)
so...we are looking for a house, and I will probably be going down south in around 2 weeks to see a bunch of them in person. We contacted a realtor and a mortgage guy, and the realtor hooked us up with a listing website, and today we looked through a bunch of listings.
It seems our choices come down to:
1. fantastic large houses in far away 'out in the sticks' areas for low prices. These houses all are in good public school districts but although they are within city limits, they are more suburban/borderline rural areas. These houses feature large backyards, cool amenities (like 2 decks! 4 bedrooms! 2 car attached garages! newly remodeled kitchen!) plus all the basics we've decided on (which is a very long list, including fenced in yard, good school district, big kitchen with lots of storage, garage or carport, hardwood floors, 3+ bedrooms 2+ bathrooms). They are within our price range, and around the low-median end of our range. The commute to my job would be about 20 minutes each way.
2. Mediocre or more expensive smaller houses closer to the job. These are about a 5-10 minute commute, have smaller backyards, smaller houses, less nice houses, carports or detached garages instead of attached garage. They are more suburban/borderline urban and close to nice restaurants. They are at the higher end of our price range. They still have all the basics we want. Some do not come with appliances.
So far we've found 5 listings we like of the first kind of house and 3 of the second kind of house.
It seems our choices come down to:
1. fantastic large houses in far away 'out in the sticks' areas for low prices. These houses all are in good public school districts but although they are within city limits, they are more suburban/borderline rural areas. These houses feature large backyards, cool amenities (like 2 decks! 4 bedrooms! 2 car attached garages! newly remodeled kitchen!) plus all the basics we've decided on (which is a very long list, including fenced in yard, good school district, big kitchen with lots of storage, garage or carport, hardwood floors, 3+ bedrooms 2+ bathrooms). They are within our price range, and around the low-median end of our range. The commute to my job would be about 20 minutes each way.
2. Mediocre or more expensive smaller houses closer to the job. These are about a 5-10 minute commute, have smaller backyards, smaller houses, less nice houses, carports or detached garages instead of attached garage. They are more suburban/borderline urban and close to nice restaurants. They are at the higher end of our price range. They still have all the basics we want. Some do not come with appliances.
So far we've found 5 listings we like of the first kind of house and 3 of the second kind of house.
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