Throwback Thursday!

Last week you guys got to see what my house looked like when I moved in in 2004.  This week I have one more old photo for you:

This was my very first apartment, in 1999.  Not the first I'd ever lived in, to be sure; but the first one I kept all to myself, without sharing with roomates or boyfriends or anybody at all, just me.

They told me I could paint, and so I did - two walls in the living room, and the entire bedroom.  I had begun gardening two years before in the old duplex I used to share with a group of friends; my "garden" in this apartment consisted of a dozen or so potted plants that I'd salvaged when I moved away from the duplex.

And yes, I had inflatable furniture, LOL.  I had almost no furniture (only a nightstand and a rocking chair) at this point in my life, and few posessions, and even less money; so the most expedient option when I got this place was a boxed set of three living room pieces  and a 99-c Barbie air pump, LOL.  The bookshelf in the picture I got for free from a department store that was throwing it away.

I even had a cat, for a while.  I left my sliding glass door open to the breeze most afternoons when I got home from work (I didn't drive back then, so my apartment was literally across the street from my office).  One day, a young black cat waltzed in like he owned the place.  He didn't stay inside with me, but he came over to hang out every day for a few months, until one day he passed my place by and didn't come inside.  Oh, well.

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I love living on my own.  I love it now, and I loved it in 1999, even though I only lived at this apartment for six months before moving in with a guy I was dating (sigh).  Is it scary sometimes?  Yes.  But I love it, I really do.

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Heehee. Like I said.

Insurance Adjustor:  "Yep.  I'd say that door is pretty well shot."  

Heh.  Yeah, I kinda knew that.  The whole door needs to be replaced, though thankfully the tracks are fine.   I should get an estimate sometime this week;  then I can start shopping around for overhead door companies - and probably also paints, just in case whomever replaces my door can't match the color exactly.

I had a dream about it, the morning the guy came out to scope out the damage.  In my dream, the guy was fantastic - a tall, flamboyant, lovely gay man, built like a wrestler and bedecked in all sorts of crystal jewelry, and pink Elton John sunglasses.  Except he got to work right away, instead of providing an estimate:  he started building a new door from all the scrap lumber in my garage, and messed up all my tools, and accidentally let my cats out and they got lost, and he built this GORGEOUS door but the HOA hated it and I got fined, and so on.  GACK.  Stress dreams are so annoying.

Is it silly that I'm excited about getting a new garage door that will look and function exactly like the old one?  Hehe.


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Ways In Which My House Is Pissing Me Off

A couple of years ago when the dishwasher quit, I didn't mind so much.  I prefer to do the dishes by hand anyway, and have basically been using my dishwasher as a giant drying rack.  (And fantasizing about removing it entirely and putting in an extra cabinet the dishwasher hole).

When when my new puppy chewed up what was left of the baseboards in the dining room - why the dining room, anyway? Shelly did the same thing! - I just gave them a new coat of paint to minimize the visual effect, and left it for some magical Someday when I can afford to replace them (preferably a Someday when I'm replacing the dining room and kitchen floor anyway and can do it all at the same time).

• But then the diverter in the shower in the master bath started sticking, and now my water pressure's all screwed up in there because the diverter valve won't close all the way.  
• And there's a cracked tile in the kitchen all of a sudden. 
• And the brand-new, piece-of-shit Ikea flooring in the craft room?  Is peeling and chipping.  After three months!  AUGH!  
• And the garbage disposal seals are shot and it's leaking water  - and corrosion, for apparently it's been f*d up for a while and I didn't notice - down through the motor and out the bottom of the unit
• And there are *three* cracked tiles in the master bathroom that just appeared in the past three days.  
• And I'm pretty sure the thermostat on the hot water heater is on the fritz - it's scalding people at random, even when the knob in the shower is set to cold!  The fu..?

WHAT IS GOING ON, HOUSE?!  All of a sudden!  All the last month!   And I really can't afford to do anything about any of it, right now.  This is how people end up living in totally trashed out houses.  :( 

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