Update on the apartment decorating …
Well, with the water-heater alcove curtain and matching kitchen window scarf all nicely hemmed, I began to think what a shame it was that the living room and bedroom window scarves — again, long pieces of fabric were unhemmed at the ends. The scarves are long enough to puddle on the floor and hide their long ends, but these ends were becoming frayed and stringy. I LOVE Stitch Witchery fusible bonding tape! … I spent a recent Sunday afternoon using it to hem the ends. These ends, beside being frayed, had a ragged cut, so I folded them several times over, ironing the folds in place before using the tape. Because the milk-chocolate satin scarf on the triple living-room window would be too hard to rehang, I pulled the ironing board up and ironed the hems in while the scarf hung. I had my doubts about fusible bonding working as well with black sheer fabric, but work it did.
The sides of these scarves still bear their raw, but neat, unfraying, "fabric-store" edges. These I've opted to leave alone and tuck out of sight. Hemming the sides would be TOO much work.
I did indeed darken the bathroom storage unit and tissue-holder basket but not with oil-rubbed bronze paint. I did so with the mahogany stain I'd used to freshen up my other furniture pieces. I also used that stain to darken the gold window-scarf holders in the kitchen and bath; enhance a pair of fleur-de-lis wall hangings; and redo an over-the-door wreath holder I'm using as a robe hook in the bathroom. (I love the stuff, but it stinks to high heaven and can make you sick even through those cheap little white nose masks.)
Again, I'd decorated the bathroom around our brown/paprika/copper/tan/champagne shower curtain; most of the accents are oil-rubbed bronze and cast-iron pieces with bits of bronze, tan and copper. I "pimped out" the place so much, in fact, that the silver-framed mirror on our stuck-shut, unused medicine cabinet started to look really pitiful. But we're renting, so what to do? I measured the mirror; it was 14 by 20. I went BACK to Hobby Lobby, took advantage of its 50-percent discount on open frames and bought an elegant, lightweight, dark-brown14x18 frame whose edges are wide enough to cover the length of the mirror, and added hanging hardware. The top corners of the mirror frame were still exposed, so I also bought a 11x14 mat to fit a 16x20 frame, cut the outer edges to fit the 14x18 frame, inserted the mat, and now have the frame hanging over the mirror frame.
The biggest bathroom challenge: the ceramic tile. Its burnt-peach color with terra cotta trim was a challenge in itself. (The aforementioned shower curtain popped up in a Google search for curtains matching the tile.) But then, as is the case with a number of other bathrooms in our older apartment building, the tile on the outer bathroom wall is riddled with deep cracks … deep enough that some of the edges are raised. Our friend and next-door neighbor speculates that the walls were damaged when the bathroom fixtures were updated, and the powers-that-be simply opted not to fix them. We naively thought the tile would be addressed by the time we moved in. Nope. The tile trim also had deep cracks in spots. And, there is a crack running over the tub near its updated faucets, which would bear out our friend's speculation.
The property manager gave me the go-ahead to camouflage the cracks in whatever way I wished. I read online where one woman had bought paint to match the tile, then mixed the paint with "tile filler" to smoothly patch the cracks. This is what I would do, I thought, but put the plan on hold to concentrate on decorating with items we can take with us when we move.
Finally, I went hunting last weekend for paint to match the bathroom tile and of course, couldn't find an EXACT match. I also discovered that there seems to be no such thing as "tile filler" per se, so I'm wondering what product was used in the tip I read. I ended up with some crack repair stuff that's like caulking (comes in a similar tube) that was really too thick and tough to "mix" with anything. Long story short ... since the paint wasn't quite a match I did a rag-and-bag texture all along the tile wall with the cracks, then separated a cup of paint and mixed it with a little bit of brown hobby paint to try to repair cracks in the tile trim. That wasn't an exact match either, so I just did an intermittent two-tone-trim thing.
As for the main tile, I should have stopped at just ragging and bagging over it. I put some of that tough crack repair on top of the cracks to try to smooth them out, since some of the cracks have raised edges. It went on clumpy … and the stuff is not sand-able. So I just repainted over all that. The clumpy areas irritate me, but again, the wall looks better than it did.
Only "major" things left to do in the bathroom is:
1. Take white paint and a small brush to go back over some of spots above the tile trim, since I didn't have painters' tape (didn't think I'd need it, ha ha).
2. Wait for another 20-percent-off sale at Big Lots and buy a couple more of the large, decorative tin tile hanging on the wall over the tub. The one I bought hangs over the foot of the tub. I'd like two identical ones to hang over the side of the tub.
Of course I'll still be buying linens whenever I can. I have to start all over again with bath towels … the cheaper ones I got to match the decor when we first moved wasn't the best quality. I'd at least like them to be as nice as the upscale, dark brown tub mats I didn't think I'd ever find until I discovered them dirt-cheap in Tuesday Morning.
Future buys we need SOON: Storage bins for the closets — clothing, linen, kitchen pantry. I've put those purchases off for WAYY too long, telling myself we could at least close the door on those messes ...
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
The very thing I feared came upon me: Starting a new blog, and then failing to add an entry for months. Life happens. But to pick up where I left off ...
I've been thinking a lot about that scripture where Moses, in his first personal encounter with God how on earth he was going to get anybody to believe God sent him to do what God sent him to do — get His people out of Egypt, no less. God asked him, "What's that you have in your hand?" Moses said, "A rod" (Exodus 4:2) I've seen where this verse was used to show us that so many times we're waiting for God to send us the tools, literal or figurative, to do what He has assigned us to do or to meet a need we have.
Also, one of my favorite parables involves the stewards who made good of their talents (Matthew 25) who were told that since they'd been faithful over a few things, they'd be made ruler over many things.
In the months since my husband and I moved (November 2014), I've thought about this verse often as God has showen me how to repurpose things we already had in order to meet our needs. And these ideas have really led me to love being a DIY-er (do-it-yourself'er), a role I've taken on before but not to the extent to which I've taken it on lately.
Our last apartment had, unfortunately, devolved into a cluttered mess. Many things needed to be put into storage, given away, sold or retired altogether. Especially things I'd had since my first marriage ended in 1997 and which were too shabby to survive another move. I wanted this new space would have a fresh vibe.
• One of my biggest concerns when we moved was finding a dining table. Before, all we had was a large wooden circular tabletop that we'd perched on the base of a glass-brass-and-black-laquer dining set my folks had bought my former husband and me back in the 1990s (its original glass top was long broken; its chairs long gone). I'd tarted the "table" up for years with sheets and an animal-print table topper, and used two antique-mall armchairs as its seats. When we moved, I decided we needed to retire the makeshift table along with the topper. But not only did we not have new-dining-set money, we now had an apartment that lacked a dedicated dining area but did have a spacious living room that would have to be carved up for multipurpose use. I thought of a bistro set, but even that would cost money we'd had to give to movers and utility companies ... and I was concerned that the set would be TOO small.
As I wondered what to do, my eyes fell on the little mahogany-finish, leather-topped, Duncan Phyfe drum table we'd used for years as a living-room accent table and family-photo holder. It had its issues, including being quite wobbly. But it occurred to me that it would make a great little dining table for the two of us, as well as a guest or two if need be. Taking the suggestion of one of our movers, I used wood glue to steady the table's pedestal, reinvigorated it with mahogany stain, made a couple other minor repairs that could, ahem, stand to be redone at a later date, and finished it off with an elephant candleholder centerpiece and decorative placemats. The antique-mall chairs, whose seats are upholstered in a leopard print, were sponge-painted with the stain to darken their original shabby-chic finish. The table and chairs, along with a lamp on a pedestal, now sit right in front of our triple-wide, second-story living room window. We enjoy having meals and coffee/cocoa there while looking at dog walkers, joggers and strollers go by on our scenic street. My full-time freelance writer husband also uses the table as a writing and interviewing desk, since it's located conveniently next to the home-office area of the living room. (The one thing we miss is the fact that the bigger makeshift table also served as a food-prep table. Our kitchenette has no counter space, so we're hoping to be able to add one of those rolling kitchen carts.)
• Then there was the matter of a headboard for our bed. The inexpensive, powder-coated metal canopied bed I was so proud of in the mid-1990s seemed to be more difficult to put back together with each previous move, not to mention the fact that some of the special screws went missing. In our last apartment, whose bedroom was small, we got rid of the canopy poles and the footboard and left the headboard propped against the wall. When we moved, we decided it was time to retire this one last piece of a bygone era. I got a rude awakening when checking out headboard prices online. But then I realized that not only were people using some of ANY and EVERYTHING as wall-mount headboards, I realized we already had the perfect candidate — a lightweight, korhogo-print throw from the Ivory Coast, stretched out on a frame and the exact width of our queen-size bed. Its dark-brown designs on a natural background matched the color scheme we wanted for the bedroom. That took care of that.
• I'd originally thought I'd get rid of our massive coffee table from the '90s — since no one is doing "massive" anymore — and find a smaller replacement piece. We tried to sell it cheap at our pre-move garage sale but no one was in the market for it … and I realized I was glad. The table is a magnificent piece I'd found at Dillard's as part of a living room set called Renaissance (there was a matching console table I dearly wish I'd also purchased, as well as a side tables). The table features a subtle burled-wood surface, carved sides and legs, and and ball-and-claw feet. I'm embarrassed to say it's taken some abuse over the years, bearing scars it shouldn't (it's so NOT a piece on which to do any tasks involving nail polish remover), but it's still a "beaut." And again, the new living room is quite large, so the table fits in better here than it did in the other apartment. This table, too, received a new coat of stain. Draped with an animal-print runner, it bears photo books along with a 2006 Nigeria trip find ... busts of the Oba and Obi of Benin. At some point will be "updated" with decorative under-the-table wicker baskets.
• I began to wonder what I could do to cover up the floor-to-ceiling opening of the alcove, located off the kitchen, that houses our water heater. The idea came to me to use a floor-to-ceiling curtain on a tension rod. For a curtain that was at least 8 1/2 feet long, I figured the most economical thing to do would be to buy about four yards of cloth (brown to match the color scheme) and hem/rod-pocket the ends. I even knew what cloth I'd buy: The same chocolate-colored satiny cloth I'd bought at Hobby Lobby a couple years back with the original idea of having a seamstress friend make me a fancy cloth for the (now retired) makeshift dining table. Two super-long pieces of this fabric were now teamed up with black sheer fabric to serve as double window scarves in the living room and bedroom. The moneysaving solution here: Divest the bedroom scarf from its black partner, cut it in half, and use one of the halves as the curtain, using fusible bonding tape to form the rod pocket and hem. Next project: Use a piece of the remaining half of the fabric for a short matching scarf for the kitchen window.
• Our previous bathroom color scheme was black, with champagne and off-white. This bathroom features a color scheme centered on its Manor Hill Sierra Copper shower curtain, with its shades of brown, paprika, copper, tan, and champagne. We were stuck with a black metal, over-the-toilet storage-shelf unit. By necessity, the unit is now an over-the-laundry-hamper unit by the bathroom sink. And it's redone .. sponge-painted in brown and bronze. (I'm planning to add a few dabs of oil-rubbed bronze paint as a nod to the bathroom accessories. A metal-and-wicker basket that holds extra rolls of bathroom tissues has gotten, and will receive, the same treatment.
• And after years of saying I'd do so, I finally transformed a small, blond bookcase from Target into a mahogany masterpiece using that same stain. I've even used this stain on a couple of polyresin bathroom wall hangings as well as window-scarf holders.
Just about everything I HAVE bought, I've gotten through taking heavy advantage of off-price store chains like Big Lots and Stein Mart; Hobby Hobby's frequent half-off specials, and Bed Bath & Beyond discount coupons. The one big splurge so far: a nearly $50 wicker hamper from Target.
Yeah, it'd be nice if money were no object. But necessity is truly the mother of God-given creativity.
I've been thinking a lot about that scripture where Moses, in his first personal encounter with God how on earth he was going to get anybody to believe God sent him to do what God sent him to do — get His people out of Egypt, no less. God asked him, "What's that you have in your hand?" Moses said, "A rod" (Exodus 4:2) I've seen where this verse was used to show us that so many times we're waiting for God to send us the tools, literal or figurative, to do what He has assigned us to do or to meet a need we have.
Also, one of my favorite parables involves the stewards who made good of their talents (Matthew 25) who were told that since they'd been faithful over a few things, they'd be made ruler over many things.
In the months since my husband and I moved (November 2014), I've thought about this verse often as God has showen me how to repurpose things we already had in order to meet our needs. And these ideas have really led me to love being a DIY-er (do-it-yourself'er), a role I've taken on before but not to the extent to which I've taken it on lately.
Our last apartment had, unfortunately, devolved into a cluttered mess. Many things needed to be put into storage, given away, sold or retired altogether. Especially things I'd had since my first marriage ended in 1997 and which were too shabby to survive another move. I wanted this new space would have a fresh vibe.
• One of my biggest concerns when we moved was finding a dining table. Before, all we had was a large wooden circular tabletop that we'd perched on the base of a glass-brass-and-black-laquer dining set my folks had bought my former husband and me back in the 1990s (its original glass top was long broken; its chairs long gone). I'd tarted the "table" up for years with sheets and an animal-print table topper, and used two antique-mall armchairs as its seats. When we moved, I decided we needed to retire the makeshift table along with the topper. But not only did we not have new-dining-set money, we now had an apartment that lacked a dedicated dining area but did have a spacious living room that would have to be carved up for multipurpose use. I thought of a bistro set, but even that would cost money we'd had to give to movers and utility companies ... and I was concerned that the set would be TOO small.
As I wondered what to do, my eyes fell on the little mahogany-finish, leather-topped, Duncan Phyfe drum table we'd used for years as a living-room accent table and family-photo holder. It had its issues, including being quite wobbly. But it occurred to me that it would make a great little dining table for the two of us, as well as a guest or two if need be. Taking the suggestion of one of our movers, I used wood glue to steady the table's pedestal, reinvigorated it with mahogany stain, made a couple other minor repairs that could, ahem, stand to be redone at a later date, and finished it off with an elephant candleholder centerpiece and decorative placemats. The antique-mall chairs, whose seats are upholstered in a leopard print, were sponge-painted with the stain to darken their original shabby-chic finish. The table and chairs, along with a lamp on a pedestal, now sit right in front of our triple-wide, second-story living room window. We enjoy having meals and coffee/cocoa there while looking at dog walkers, joggers and strollers go by on our scenic street. My full-time freelance writer husband also uses the table as a writing and interviewing desk, since it's located conveniently next to the home-office area of the living room. (The one thing we miss is the fact that the bigger makeshift table also served as a food-prep table. Our kitchenette has no counter space, so we're hoping to be able to add one of those rolling kitchen carts.)
• Then there was the matter of a headboard for our bed. The inexpensive, powder-coated metal canopied bed I was so proud of in the mid-1990s seemed to be more difficult to put back together with each previous move, not to mention the fact that some of the special screws went missing. In our last apartment, whose bedroom was small, we got rid of the canopy poles and the footboard and left the headboard propped against the wall. When we moved, we decided it was time to retire this one last piece of a bygone era. I got a rude awakening when checking out headboard prices online. But then I realized that not only were people using some of ANY and EVERYTHING as wall-mount headboards, I realized we already had the perfect candidate — a lightweight, korhogo-print throw from the Ivory Coast, stretched out on a frame and the exact width of our queen-size bed. Its dark-brown designs on a natural background matched the color scheme we wanted for the bedroom. That took care of that.
• I'd originally thought I'd get rid of our massive coffee table from the '90s — since no one is doing "massive" anymore — and find a smaller replacement piece. We tried to sell it cheap at our pre-move garage sale but no one was in the market for it … and I realized I was glad. The table is a magnificent piece I'd found at Dillard's as part of a living room set called Renaissance (there was a matching console table I dearly wish I'd also purchased, as well as a side tables). The table features a subtle burled-wood surface, carved sides and legs, and and ball-and-claw feet. I'm embarrassed to say it's taken some abuse over the years, bearing scars it shouldn't (it's so NOT a piece on which to do any tasks involving nail polish remover), but it's still a "beaut." And again, the new living room is quite large, so the table fits in better here than it did in the other apartment. This table, too, received a new coat of stain. Draped with an animal-print runner, it bears photo books along with a 2006 Nigeria trip find ... busts of the Oba and Obi of Benin. At some point will be "updated" with decorative under-the-table wicker baskets.
• I began to wonder what I could do to cover up the floor-to-ceiling opening of the alcove, located off the kitchen, that houses our water heater. The idea came to me to use a floor-to-ceiling curtain on a tension rod. For a curtain that was at least 8 1/2 feet long, I figured the most economical thing to do would be to buy about four yards of cloth (brown to match the color scheme) and hem/rod-pocket the ends. I even knew what cloth I'd buy: The same chocolate-colored satiny cloth I'd bought at Hobby Lobby a couple years back with the original idea of having a seamstress friend make me a fancy cloth for the (now retired) makeshift dining table. Two super-long pieces of this fabric were now teamed up with black sheer fabric to serve as double window scarves in the living room and bedroom. The moneysaving solution here: Divest the bedroom scarf from its black partner, cut it in half, and use one of the halves as the curtain, using fusible bonding tape to form the rod pocket and hem. Next project: Use a piece of the remaining half of the fabric for a short matching scarf for the kitchen window.
• Our previous bathroom color scheme was black, with champagne and off-white. This bathroom features a color scheme centered on its Manor Hill Sierra Copper shower curtain, with its shades of brown, paprika, copper, tan, and champagne. We were stuck with a black metal, over-the-toilet storage-shelf unit. By necessity, the unit is now an over-the-laundry-hamper unit by the bathroom sink. And it's redone .. sponge-painted in brown and bronze. (I'm planning to add a few dabs of oil-rubbed bronze paint as a nod to the bathroom accessories. A metal-and-wicker basket that holds extra rolls of bathroom tissues has gotten, and will receive, the same treatment.
• And after years of saying I'd do so, I finally transformed a small, blond bookcase from Target into a mahogany masterpiece using that same stain. I've even used this stain on a couple of polyresin bathroom wall hangings as well as window-scarf holders.
Just about everything I HAVE bought, I've gotten through taking heavy advantage of off-price store chains like Big Lots and Stein Mart; Hobby Hobby's frequent half-off specials, and Bed Bath & Beyond discount coupons. The one big splurge so far: a nearly $50 wicker hamper from Target.
Yeah, it'd be nice if money were no object. But necessity is truly the mother of God-given creativity.
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Sometimes that chasm that lies between our hopes, and our reality, can be pretty wide. I have to confess I still have a ways to go on navigating that particular chasm, especially when it comes to something I so badly crave … travel.
Case in point: I wanted to get away for my birthday this year. You know, like people often do when they celebrate birthdays, especially milestone birthdays like 40, 50 or so. Feb. 17 marked my non-milestone 53rd birthday, but I wanted it to be more special than the non-events my 50th, 51st and 52nd birthdays had been. I KNEW I didn't want to spend it at work.
I thought maybe, just maybe, I could spend it away from home, too. Away from the city. Away from the state, as a matter of fact. I figured that such a trip would be the one stone with which I could kill two birds: (1) a desire to engage in fun, recreational birthday activities and (2) Dre's and my worsening case of general wanderlust, an itch we haven't been able to scratch much because of financial limitations … and, due to the society-reporter/photographer aspect of my newspaper job, time limitations.
Our last trips out of the state had both come in May of 2014: a ninth-anniversary Carnival cruise out of New Orleans (thanks, tax refund!) and a trip to Houston to my brother-in-law's annual Memorial Day Weekend house party. The year before that, we'd left the state only for an eighth-anniversary Carnival cruise, plus I attended a conference in San Diego. I know … these are far better opportunities than many people — especially, newspaper reporters married to full-time freelance writers — are afforded in this "recovering" economy.
BUT, argued my bratty side, those aren't not much to brag about when I have so many friends, coworkers, associates and acquaintances who seem to regularly travel the globe. And hey, it's February 2015. Those May '14 trips had long worn off, darn it.
For a while, a 53rd-birthday trip looked promising. We have a friend whose birthday is Feb. 11 and who — despite her own financial limitations — has managed to do a bit of traveling thanks to some good connections and some moxie. She'd paid a timeshare company a dirt-cheap price for seven nights' accommodation, during a week of her choice, at either its Orlando or Daytona Beach, Fla., property. In return for a stay with four other friends, she'd have to attend a 90-minute presentation. She and I discussed the possibility of celebrating our birthdays together in one of the Florida cities along with Dre, perhaps her sister, and whomever else we could throw in. We just needed to buy airline tickets, which, would be only a tantalizing $125 per person, round-trip, if we chose to fly out of Bentonville, Ark. (We'd also discussed the possibility of going with her to Los Angeles to visit and board with a friend of hers a couple of days, then Megabus-ing it to Las Vegas or some such itinerary. But the airline tickets were higher.)
Excited, I put in for eight days of vacation time at work. Unfortunately, that $250 in plane ticket money didn't leap out at us, especially as we were still suffering the effects of moving-related expenses. Also, Dre began to be concerned that once the timeshare sharks in Florida had us in their grip, they'd try to pressure us all into attending their presentation rather than requiring only our friend to go.
By the end of January, the trip was off the table anyway. The friend had taken two weeks unpaid leave from work and didn't have the plane-ticket money herself. And, it turned out, she needed to have an outpatient medical procedure … on my birthday. Florida was out.
Hubby and I tried to plan an alternative trip, an overnighter in Memphis with a male buddy and his new lady friend, to whom we'd helped introduce him. The game plan here: Reserve a two-bedroom suite at a hotel we found through Booking.com. (We were going to do things proper-like — Dre and me in one bedroom, the lady friend in the other, and our buddy taking the living-room sleeper sofa). We'd drive to Memphis on Monday the 16th and come back late the following evening. I whittled down my vacation-time request accordingly.
After we booked the hotel, the lady friend found out she would not be able to get off work. The buddy asked if we could switch the trip to Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 14-15, instead. We couldn't. I had to cover an event for the newspaper, and besides, I WAS DETERMINED TO BE GONE ON MY BIRTHDAY!!! Dre and I would just go it alone, we decided. I tried to downgrade us to a one-bedroom suite at the same hotel. These were all taken, so I canceled the reservation altogether. After some discussion, we decided Memphis might be a bit too expensive without our companions, and not so exciting on a couple of weekdays. Once again, the 53rd birthday celebration was downgraded — this time to a day trip to our own lovely-but-done-to-death Hot Springs. The Good Times Hurricane had shrunk to a tropical depression, and was not helped by a cold Dre had caught the week before.
It was weather that sounded the death knell on those final birthday plans. Sleet was heading our way, the weatherman announced. I did some work at the office the evening of the 15th. By the time I got off, sleet had started to fall. The streets weren't slick yet, but the car was iced over. It took a while to thaw it out to go home. By Monday morning, I was finally forced to face facts: The birthday that I'd once hoped to spend in Florida had dwindled down to a yet another non-event. I'd be spending my two days off iced in with a husband who was battling a stubborn cold. (Our timeshare-trip buying friend didn't her surgery. The clinic was closed on the 17th due to the ice, and she wasn't going out in it anyway.)
Consolation came in the form of myriad birthday greetings from Facebook friends; a card with a movie-treat IOU from my next-door-neighbor gal pal, and a salmon dinner my sweet husband fixed for me despite his own troubles.
It certainly wasn't the first time weather had messed up my birthday plans. It's a threat for any winter babies out there. Heck, Mother Nature still owes me for a canceled elementary-school birthday party. But you know how it goes: The grass always seems to be greener in the yards of friends and acquaintances. A number of mine have enjoyed birthday trips to various far-flung locales … a Facebook pal, also born in February, got to celebrate in Cancun just last week.
Don't get me wrong; I'm usually good at putting my Big Girl Britches on and shaking disappointments off. But this disappointment has lingered … and our general wanderlust continues to worsen. By the way, I also battle envy of married couples who have close "couple-friends" to travel with. For whatever reason, Dre and I have had no success cultivating such friendships.
Guess it's time to parlay those Notes to Self into Books to Self, complete with inspirational quips ("Count those blessings. Cultivate a state of gratefulness.") and stern self-lectures ("Stop sniveling and do some real planning for that 54th birthday." )
In the meantime, we'd better start seriously thinking about our 10th wedding anniversary — whose travel plans are still in the air, but for which hope at least still springs.
Case in point: I wanted to get away for my birthday this year. You know, like people often do when they celebrate birthdays, especially milestone birthdays like 40, 50 or so. Feb. 17 marked my non-milestone 53rd birthday, but I wanted it to be more special than the non-events my 50th, 51st and 52nd birthdays had been. I KNEW I didn't want to spend it at work.
I thought maybe, just maybe, I could spend it away from home, too. Away from the city. Away from the state, as a matter of fact. I figured that such a trip would be the one stone with which I could kill two birds: (1) a desire to engage in fun, recreational birthday activities and (2) Dre's and my worsening case of general wanderlust, an itch we haven't been able to scratch much because of financial limitations … and, due to the society-reporter/photographer aspect of my newspaper job, time limitations.
Our last trips out of the state had both come in May of 2014: a ninth-anniversary Carnival cruise out of New Orleans (thanks, tax refund!) and a trip to Houston to my brother-in-law's annual Memorial Day Weekend house party. The year before that, we'd left the state only for an eighth-anniversary Carnival cruise, plus I attended a conference in San Diego. I know … these are far better opportunities than many people — especially, newspaper reporters married to full-time freelance writers — are afforded in this "recovering" economy.
BUT, argued my bratty side, those aren't not much to brag about when I have so many friends, coworkers, associates and acquaintances who seem to regularly travel the globe. And hey, it's February 2015. Those May '14 trips had long worn off, darn it.
For a while, a 53rd-birthday trip looked promising. We have a friend whose birthday is Feb. 11 and who — despite her own financial limitations — has managed to do a bit of traveling thanks to some good connections and some moxie. She'd paid a timeshare company a dirt-cheap price for seven nights' accommodation, during a week of her choice, at either its Orlando or Daytona Beach, Fla., property. In return for a stay with four other friends, she'd have to attend a 90-minute presentation. She and I discussed the possibility of celebrating our birthdays together in one of the Florida cities along with Dre, perhaps her sister, and whomever else we could throw in. We just needed to buy airline tickets, which, would be only a tantalizing $125 per person, round-trip, if we chose to fly out of Bentonville, Ark. (We'd also discussed the possibility of going with her to Los Angeles to visit and board with a friend of hers a couple of days, then Megabus-ing it to Las Vegas or some such itinerary. But the airline tickets were higher.)
Excited, I put in for eight days of vacation time at work. Unfortunately, that $250 in plane ticket money didn't leap out at us, especially as we were still suffering the effects of moving-related expenses. Also, Dre began to be concerned that once the timeshare sharks in Florida had us in their grip, they'd try to pressure us all into attending their presentation rather than requiring only our friend to go.
By the end of January, the trip was off the table anyway. The friend had taken two weeks unpaid leave from work and didn't have the plane-ticket money herself. And, it turned out, she needed to have an outpatient medical procedure … on my birthday. Florida was out.
Hubby and I tried to plan an alternative trip, an overnighter in Memphis with a male buddy and his new lady friend, to whom we'd helped introduce him. The game plan here: Reserve a two-bedroom suite at a hotel we found through Booking.com. (We were going to do things proper-like — Dre and me in one bedroom, the lady friend in the other, and our buddy taking the living-room sleeper sofa). We'd drive to Memphis on Monday the 16th and come back late the following evening. I whittled down my vacation-time request accordingly.
After we booked the hotel, the lady friend found out she would not be able to get off work. The buddy asked if we could switch the trip to Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 14-15, instead. We couldn't. I had to cover an event for the newspaper, and besides, I WAS DETERMINED TO BE GONE ON MY BIRTHDAY!!! Dre and I would just go it alone, we decided. I tried to downgrade us to a one-bedroom suite at the same hotel. These were all taken, so I canceled the reservation altogether. After some discussion, we decided Memphis might be a bit too expensive without our companions, and not so exciting on a couple of weekdays. Once again, the 53rd birthday celebration was downgraded — this time to a day trip to our own lovely-but-done-to-death Hot Springs. The Good Times Hurricane had shrunk to a tropical depression, and was not helped by a cold Dre had caught the week before.
It was weather that sounded the death knell on those final birthday plans. Sleet was heading our way, the weatherman announced. I did some work at the office the evening of the 15th. By the time I got off, sleet had started to fall. The streets weren't slick yet, but the car was iced over. It took a while to thaw it out to go home. By Monday morning, I was finally forced to face facts: The birthday that I'd once hoped to spend in Florida had dwindled down to a yet another non-event. I'd be spending my two days off iced in with a husband who was battling a stubborn cold. (Our timeshare-trip buying friend didn't her surgery. The clinic was closed on the 17th due to the ice, and she wasn't going out in it anyway.)
Consolation came in the form of myriad birthday greetings from Facebook friends; a card with a movie-treat IOU from my next-door-neighbor gal pal, and a salmon dinner my sweet husband fixed for me despite his own troubles.
It certainly wasn't the first time weather had messed up my birthday plans. It's a threat for any winter babies out there. Heck, Mother Nature still owes me for a canceled elementary-school birthday party. But you know how it goes: The grass always seems to be greener in the yards of friends and acquaintances. A number of mine have enjoyed birthday trips to various far-flung locales … a Facebook pal, also born in February, got to celebrate in Cancun just last week.
Don't get me wrong; I'm usually good at putting my Big Girl Britches on and shaking disappointments off. But this disappointment has lingered … and our general wanderlust continues to worsen. By the way, I also battle envy of married couples who have close "couple-friends" to travel with. For whatever reason, Dre and I have had no success cultivating such friendships.
Guess it's time to parlay those Notes to Self into Books to Self, complete with inspirational quips ("Count those blessings. Cultivate a state of gratefulness.") and stern self-lectures ("Stop sniveling and do some real planning for that 54th birthday." )
In the meantime, we'd better start seriously thinking about our 10th wedding anniversary — whose travel plans are still in the air, but for which hope at least still springs.
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Now, for that entry on moving that I promised.
I thought back to all the moves I made in my adulthood and divided them up into "had to" and "want to" moves.
The "want to" moves include my 1986, all-too-belated move from my mother's and stepfather's home in Woodson, Ark., to a one-bed, one-bath apartment in downtown Little Rock, within walking distance to work. And although I wasn't by any means crazy about the small ex-rent house my ex-husband and I purchased in southwest Little Rock in 1991, I'll go ahead and count that as a "want to" move. A DEFINITE "want to" move came six years later; I relocated from the ex-rent house to my new bachelorettehood-revisited pad — another one-bed, one-bath, low-rent unit in downtown Little Rock. I lived on the top floor of this 12-unit, three-story, walk-up complex only two blocks from the office. I called my place the Penthouse.
My "dream" want-to move happened in 2002. I abandoned downtown Little Rock for a recently built home in North Little Rock's Lakewood Valley neighborhood. It marked my first time "owning" a number of the modern home amenities: a two-car garage with remote-controlled door. A master bedroom with a tray ceiling. Two — not one, but two — bathrooms, including a master bath with a jetted tub and twin walk-in closets and which was big enough for me to jump rope in it. A dishwasher. My own top-of-the-line washer and dryer, thrown in by the seller. A greatroom with a cathedral ceiling. Enough electrical outlets, doggone it. No signs of age or decay anywhere, although the home was built on the worst lot in the neighborhood … a lot featuring a crumbling, 20-foot cliff in the backyard and an unsodded, unstable, weed-dominated lawn. But I grew up poor and "wudn't used to nothin'."
I definitely wasn't used to the house payment I'd gotten myself into. I stayed house-poor and in trouble with the mortgage company the whole four years I lived in the place … Then came the first, and most devastating, of my "had to" moves. I lost the place. By that time I'd remarried, but my new husband, Dre, was getting his start as a full-time, self-employed writer. He couldn't help, and I was (and am) far more concerned about his character than what the man could do for me financially.
This "had to move" was to two destinations. For much of our stuff, a fancy midtown storage unit on whose rent I'd gotten a deal. For Hubby and me, another downtown apartment. This was a two-bedroom, one-postage-stamp-sized-bathroom unit in a five-unit complex recommended by my hairdresser, who'd been a tenant there. It was a cute place, with character, in a nice, quiet neighborhood. But the rent was only $300 less than the house payment had been. And the landlord had basically given up on keeping the place from falling to dilapidation and bugs. There was no pest control, and the big"water bug" roaches got so bad we were paying THEM rent. But hey, we still had a working dishwasher. And a balcony.
We managed to make the rent with the help of Hubby's freelance income, which had increased nicely and was steady for a time; two clients of his in particular were local magazine publishers who paid pretty decently. And then, the economy tanked and the Great Recession began. One of the aforementioned editors ceased publication. The other went through some personal issues and struggled to stay afloat. She couldn't pay what she used to. Other freelance income dried up. I found myself under a pay freeze at work, one that continues to this day. The rent was even harder to make, even in parts. We'd tried to get a discount by offering to keep up the grounds … something else that the landlord had let go by the wayside. But he'd only knock off $50 a month, and after a particularly grueling leaf-raking-and-gathering incident, we knew we were too old, and $50 wasn't enough.
The place continued to go to pot. Near the end, the roof not only begun leaking, it committed the cardinal sin (in Dre's eyes) of leaking way too close to our home computer.
Meanwhile, our rent at the fancy storage place was increased, so we moved to a smaller unit and got rid of some of our stuff. When the rent for the smaller unit was later raised, we were forced to move out of it and cram what we could into our apartment. I hate clutter, but it seemed to have become my lot of life.
The end of 2010 brought what I'll call our "had to, but also wanted to" move. I talked my husband into moving back with me to the downtown Little Rock apartment complex in which I'd moved when my first marriage tanked ... the place where my Penthouse had been located. Dre hadn't wanted to downgrade to one bedroom, but the rent here was still low — $325 lower than the leaky Water Bug Haven, and I wouldn't need to buy a monthly parking permit for work. This time around, home was on the first floor. Since we were losing a bedroom, we shunted some of our stuff to a very cheap ministorage unit in North Little Rock.
When I'd stayed in this building before, the place had been much better cared for, and living there had been fun. At that time, my coworkers and I occupied half the building. We were a family. In fact, every Christmas we all opened up our apartments for one big holiday party. Guests could wander up and down the stairs, poking their heads in one apartment or the other, munching and chatting. This time around was nothing like those good old days. I had a good friend on the third floor, and Dre and I became amiable acquaintances with several other tenants. But there were no coworker-neighbors. They'd all gone on to bigger and better things while "loser me" had to move back there (so the devil was hissing in my ear). And this place, too, was crumbling, not as well kept as in previous years. As was the case at the previous place, the landlord jerry-rigged things rather than fixing them. Our motel-style heating and air unit had to be replaced three times.
But at least here, the lawn was kept mowed. We also had pest control, although it didn't stop the pests; luckily we saw a water bug only a couple of times a year. The huge, flimsy windows failed to keep out the dirt and dust and at times, they let rain in too. They definitely didn't keep out the sounds … everything from traffic to drunken revelers after the bars closed to various "characters" who seemed to wait until they were right outside our window before cursing each other out. (Among the more interesting things we overheard: a guy preaching a profanity-laced sermon to no one in particular, and on another occasion, drunken hymn-singing.)
Many of our neighbors struggled — or seemed to — with their finances, job losses, shaky family relationships, health issues, and other aspects of their lives. Overall, the place had taken on a bit of a depressing air. And I became gradually more frustrated with our unit. The one thing I always wanted was a beautiful home, but we were stuck in a still-cluttered apartment with hardwood floors that desperately needed sanding/buffing and which we couldn't keep clean for love or money. Kitchen-floor linoleum we couldn't keep clean for love or money. An everything-in-general we couldn't keep clean for love or money. Not with all that dirt and dust and. Not with furniture that hadn't held up very well after all the moves. And not with the invasions of midsize roaches, then ants, ants, and more dratted ants.
But there were "big doin's" in the surrounding area. The River Market District, the downtown tourist district whose hub was directly four blocks north of us, had crept farther and farther south. The old gas-company building, which had taken up a city block across the street from us, had been demolished. A new Homewood Suites hotel was being built on half of the block, and a hot new apartment complex, MacArthur Commons, would soon get underway on the other half.
It was in January 2014 that we began to notice The Visitors … strange people touring the place, chatting with our landlord. The landlord sent out a notice saying there would be "apartment inspections," which had never been done before. We soon realized who The Visitors were: representatives of the city's leading real-estate development and management company. Eventually my third-floor friend, who'd lived in the building for 20-plus years and whose biggest concern was that the building would be sold out from under us someday, asked the landlord flat-out if he was going to sell. He simply said that no offer had been made yet.
Several weeks went by in silence. On March 26, just as we were about to relax again, it was announced online that the Leading Real-Estate Development and Management Company had bought the building, which would be renamed (it was my first time finding out it had an OLD name) and undergo a $1 million renovation. The new rents would be far more than what we were paying.
The times they were a-changin'. The day after the announcement, workmen showed up to start renovating the empty first-floor apartment. We all received reassuring notes shoved under our doors by the Leading Real-Estate Development and Management Company: "We're your new landlords. Bear with us, we'll be fixing up apartments and common areas. Please pardon our noise," blah blah blah.
"What are you going to DO?" I'd been asked by the panicked co-worker who'd brought the announcement of the sale to my attention. What Dre and I did was make an appointment to meet with our new property manager. She was quite nice, telling us that the company had no plans to make big changes anytime soon and that for the time being, we'd still be paying the same rent and operating under the same rules laid by our previous landlord.
Several of our neighbors immediately hightailed it out of the place, having already made plans to go. Gradually, others began to leave. Renovations would begin on each apartment that was vacated. The minute each renovation was completed, a new, upscale tenant would arrive. When I found out the new neighbor living above us was an airline pilot, I KNEW the times had "a-changed."
Finally, there were only five old-schoolers, including Dre and me, left in four apartments. Two other unrenovated apartments bore tenants who'd moved in under the New Regime. Dre and I were move-weary and, perhaps naively, thought that maybe the New Regime would work something out with us since they hadn't kicked us out yet. As the months passed, we frequently discussed the situation with current and former neighbors. We found out the new rents, instead of being the high three-figure rents that had been previously announced, had been bumped up to an even, four-figure sum.
I flashed back to my first time living in that building in the mid-to-late 1990s. A friend of mine predicted then that gentrification would come to the area, that the landlord would sell, that the new owners would fix up the place, and that the rents would go up. He even predicted, down to the dollar amount, what would eventually be charged for our apartments.
But nobody was kicking us out. We began to relax again.
Then came mid-October … and the email from our property manager to us and the other old-schoolers. She lauded us as being good tenants, but told us that the investors wanted the building renovation to be complete in early 2015, and that she'd have to ask us to relocate. The note didn't end there: The company had taken over management of a building that, as it happened, was located in our dream neighborhood, the Quapaw Quarter Governor's Mansion District. We were offered the option to move there without being required to go through a new application process or put down a new deposit.
This was another "had to" move, which we completed Nov. 15 of last year. To say we had mixed feelings would be an understatement. We felt the sting of gentrification, which Google defines as "a general term for the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban district, a related increase in rents and property values, and changes in the district's character and culture. The term is often used negatively, suggesting the displacement of poor communities by rich outsiders." But we also felt grateful to be given an option, especially an option in the neighborhood in which we hope to someday own a home again.
Our new home is located in an old girl that was built circa the 1950s (or at least, had its bathroom tile done then); it had been empty 12 years and was being gradually fixed up. Here, we could have a new beginning, we decided when we saw the second-floor, one-bedroom unit that we came to choose. The tan walls with white trim, the walnut-stained hardwood floors, the huge, made-for-multipurpose living room, the quietness of the beautiful neighborhood, the nice second-floor view … it was attractive enough for us to resolve to store, throw or give away everything necessary to have an abode that wouldn't end up looking like a city dump. The rent would be only $130 more than the low rent we'd been paying. And yay, our third-floor neighbor at the old place would become our next-door neighbor at the new place.
The downside: This was by far the toughest move Dre and I have ever gone through, together or separately.
Move before last, we paid a stepfather and stepson $200 to move us. Last move was a five-block undertaking we handled gradually by car, then with two volunteers and my brother's truck on a rainy Moving Day. This time around, being a couple of 50-somethings, we knew we needed professional help. We paid College Hunks Movers the equivalent of a months' rent at the new place. And we still had to rub each other down with fake Icy Hot nightly due to all the packing and lifting we did ourselves, especially Dre's efforts to move what is basically an entire library of books. Not to mention the energy we expended on all that stuff we gave away, sold, took to storage or tossed.
Annnnd the building wasn't quite ready for prime time. We walked into a number of cosmetic and "working order" issues, thanks to the obvious haste with which our apartment was prepared; a couple of the cosmetic issues still await resolution. We were forced to cancel our AT&T home phone and Internet services because there was no AT&T wiring whatsoever in the apartment ... a fact of which we weren't made aware beforehand. Even after we resigned ourselves to going without a home phone and using Comcast for Internet, we were offline for month, partially because our Comcast wiring had to be redone. The wires in the attic were old, plus they had been cut by the heating/air installers. (Not good for Dre, who couldn't work. Not good for our AT&T cell-phone bill, which went up $30 due to extra data we burned, having no wifi.) And then there was Mrs. C. (See previous post.) To say we stayed tense and upset in varying degrees from October through the New Year would be an understatement.
The complex continues to manifest maddeningly bizarre issues I won't go into here, for maddeningly bizarre reasons I won't go into here. (I will mention, however, that our levelized electric bill shot up at winter's end because the rocket-scientist HVAC installers had not hooked up our heat pump. The unit, which blew hot and cold air and kept Dre sick, borrowed from its emergency heating strips and ran our electric meter nuts. We didn't realize this until spring, when we discovered the air conditioning hadn't been hooked up either, and called Maintenance.) Despite the remaining issues, we're grateful to at least have updated kitchen and bathroom fixtures; pests that, for the most part have been tiny and manifest infrequently (one water bug and no ants so far), windows that at least keep out dirt and rain, and a living room that has supported my efforts to make it beautiful. Best of all … no more Mrs. C.
Our next move? We hope it will be our happiest "want to" move yet: one to a renovated historic house in this neighborhood, via movers we'll be able to pay to pack and unpack for us.
I thought back to all the moves I made in my adulthood and divided them up into "had to" and "want to" moves.
The "want to" moves include my 1986, all-too-belated move from my mother's and stepfather's home in Woodson, Ark., to a one-bed, one-bath apartment in downtown Little Rock, within walking distance to work. And although I wasn't by any means crazy about the small ex-rent house my ex-husband and I purchased in southwest Little Rock in 1991, I'll go ahead and count that as a "want to" move. A DEFINITE "want to" move came six years later; I relocated from the ex-rent house to my new bachelorettehood-revisited pad — another one-bed, one-bath, low-rent unit in downtown Little Rock. I lived on the top floor of this 12-unit, three-story, walk-up complex only two blocks from the office. I called my place the Penthouse.
My "dream" want-to move happened in 2002. I abandoned downtown Little Rock for a recently built home in North Little Rock's Lakewood Valley neighborhood. It marked my first time "owning" a number of the modern home amenities: a two-car garage with remote-controlled door. A master bedroom with a tray ceiling. Two — not one, but two — bathrooms, including a master bath with a jetted tub and twin walk-in closets and which was big enough for me to jump rope in it. A dishwasher. My own top-of-the-line washer and dryer, thrown in by the seller. A greatroom with a cathedral ceiling. Enough electrical outlets, doggone it. No signs of age or decay anywhere, although the home was built on the worst lot in the neighborhood … a lot featuring a crumbling, 20-foot cliff in the backyard and an unsodded, unstable, weed-dominated lawn. But I grew up poor and "wudn't used to nothin'."
I definitely wasn't used to the house payment I'd gotten myself into. I stayed house-poor and in trouble with the mortgage company the whole four years I lived in the place … Then came the first, and most devastating, of my "had to" moves. I lost the place. By that time I'd remarried, but my new husband, Dre, was getting his start as a full-time, self-employed writer. He couldn't help, and I was (and am) far more concerned about his character than what the man could do for me financially.
This "had to move" was to two destinations. For much of our stuff, a fancy midtown storage unit on whose rent I'd gotten a deal. For Hubby and me, another downtown apartment. This was a two-bedroom, one-postage-stamp-sized-bathroom unit in a five-unit complex recommended by my hairdresser, who'd been a tenant there. It was a cute place, with character, in a nice, quiet neighborhood. But the rent was only $300 less than the house payment had been. And the landlord had basically given up on keeping the place from falling to dilapidation and bugs. There was no pest control, and the big"water bug" roaches got so bad we were paying THEM rent. But hey, we still had a working dishwasher. And a balcony.
We managed to make the rent with the help of Hubby's freelance income, which had increased nicely and was steady for a time; two clients of his in particular were local magazine publishers who paid pretty decently. And then, the economy tanked and the Great Recession began. One of the aforementioned editors ceased publication. The other went through some personal issues and struggled to stay afloat. She couldn't pay what she used to. Other freelance income dried up. I found myself under a pay freeze at work, one that continues to this day. The rent was even harder to make, even in parts. We'd tried to get a discount by offering to keep up the grounds … something else that the landlord had let go by the wayside. But he'd only knock off $50 a month, and after a particularly grueling leaf-raking-and-gathering incident, we knew we were too old, and $50 wasn't enough.
The place continued to go to pot. Near the end, the roof not only begun leaking, it committed the cardinal sin (in Dre's eyes) of leaking way too close to our home computer.
Meanwhile, our rent at the fancy storage place was increased, so we moved to a smaller unit and got rid of some of our stuff. When the rent for the smaller unit was later raised, we were forced to move out of it and cram what we could into our apartment. I hate clutter, but it seemed to have become my lot of life.
The end of 2010 brought what I'll call our "had to, but also wanted to" move. I talked my husband into moving back with me to the downtown Little Rock apartment complex in which I'd moved when my first marriage tanked ... the place where my Penthouse had been located. Dre hadn't wanted to downgrade to one bedroom, but the rent here was still low — $325 lower than the leaky Water Bug Haven, and I wouldn't need to buy a monthly parking permit for work. This time around, home was on the first floor. Since we were losing a bedroom, we shunted some of our stuff to a very cheap ministorage unit in North Little Rock.
When I'd stayed in this building before, the place had been much better cared for, and living there had been fun. At that time, my coworkers and I occupied half the building. We were a family. In fact, every Christmas we all opened up our apartments for one big holiday party. Guests could wander up and down the stairs, poking their heads in one apartment or the other, munching and chatting. This time around was nothing like those good old days. I had a good friend on the third floor, and Dre and I became amiable acquaintances with several other tenants. But there were no coworker-neighbors. They'd all gone on to bigger and better things while "loser me" had to move back there (so the devil was hissing in my ear). And this place, too, was crumbling, not as well kept as in previous years. As was the case at the previous place, the landlord jerry-rigged things rather than fixing them. Our motel-style heating and air unit had to be replaced three times.
But at least here, the lawn was kept mowed. We also had pest control, although it didn't stop the pests; luckily we saw a water bug only a couple of times a year. The huge, flimsy windows failed to keep out the dirt and dust and at times, they let rain in too. They definitely didn't keep out the sounds … everything from traffic to drunken revelers after the bars closed to various "characters" who seemed to wait until they were right outside our window before cursing each other out. (Among the more interesting things we overheard: a guy preaching a profanity-laced sermon to no one in particular, and on another occasion, drunken hymn-singing.)
Many of our neighbors struggled — or seemed to — with their finances, job losses, shaky family relationships, health issues, and other aspects of their lives. Overall, the place had taken on a bit of a depressing air. And I became gradually more frustrated with our unit. The one thing I always wanted was a beautiful home, but we were stuck in a still-cluttered apartment with hardwood floors that desperately needed sanding/buffing and which we couldn't keep clean for love or money. Kitchen-floor linoleum we couldn't keep clean for love or money. An everything-in-general we couldn't keep clean for love or money. Not with all that dirt and dust and. Not with furniture that hadn't held up very well after all the moves. And not with the invasions of midsize roaches, then ants, ants, and more dratted ants.
But there were "big doin's" in the surrounding area. The River Market District, the downtown tourist district whose hub was directly four blocks north of us, had crept farther and farther south. The old gas-company building, which had taken up a city block across the street from us, had been demolished. A new Homewood Suites hotel was being built on half of the block, and a hot new apartment complex, MacArthur Commons, would soon get underway on the other half.
It was in January 2014 that we began to notice The Visitors … strange people touring the place, chatting with our landlord. The landlord sent out a notice saying there would be "apartment inspections," which had never been done before. We soon realized who The Visitors were: representatives of the city's leading real-estate development and management company. Eventually my third-floor friend, who'd lived in the building for 20-plus years and whose biggest concern was that the building would be sold out from under us someday, asked the landlord flat-out if he was going to sell. He simply said that no offer had been made yet.
Several weeks went by in silence. On March 26, just as we were about to relax again, it was announced online that the Leading Real-Estate Development and Management Company had bought the building, which would be renamed (it was my first time finding out it had an OLD name) and undergo a $1 million renovation. The new rents would be far more than what we were paying.
The times they were a-changin'. The day after the announcement, workmen showed up to start renovating the empty first-floor apartment. We all received reassuring notes shoved under our doors by the Leading Real-Estate Development and Management Company: "We're your new landlords. Bear with us, we'll be fixing up apartments and common areas. Please pardon our noise," blah blah blah.
"What are you going to DO?" I'd been asked by the panicked co-worker who'd brought the announcement of the sale to my attention. What Dre and I did was make an appointment to meet with our new property manager. She was quite nice, telling us that the company had no plans to make big changes anytime soon and that for the time being, we'd still be paying the same rent and operating under the same rules laid by our previous landlord.
Several of our neighbors immediately hightailed it out of the place, having already made plans to go. Gradually, others began to leave. Renovations would begin on each apartment that was vacated. The minute each renovation was completed, a new, upscale tenant would arrive. When I found out the new neighbor living above us was an airline pilot, I KNEW the times had "a-changed."
Finally, there were only five old-schoolers, including Dre and me, left in four apartments. Two other unrenovated apartments bore tenants who'd moved in under the New Regime. Dre and I were move-weary and, perhaps naively, thought that maybe the New Regime would work something out with us since they hadn't kicked us out yet. As the months passed, we frequently discussed the situation with current and former neighbors. We found out the new rents, instead of being the high three-figure rents that had been previously announced, had been bumped up to an even, four-figure sum.
I flashed back to my first time living in that building in the mid-to-late 1990s. A friend of mine predicted then that gentrification would come to the area, that the landlord would sell, that the new owners would fix up the place, and that the rents would go up. He even predicted, down to the dollar amount, what would eventually be charged for our apartments.
But nobody was kicking us out. We began to relax again.
Then came mid-October … and the email from our property manager to us and the other old-schoolers. She lauded us as being good tenants, but told us that the investors wanted the building renovation to be complete in early 2015, and that she'd have to ask us to relocate. The note didn't end there: The company had taken over management of a building that, as it happened, was located in our dream neighborhood, the Quapaw Quarter Governor's Mansion District. We were offered the option to move there without being required to go through a new application process or put down a new deposit.
This was another "had to" move, which we completed Nov. 15 of last year. To say we had mixed feelings would be an understatement. We felt the sting of gentrification, which Google defines as "a general term for the arrival of wealthier people in an existing urban district, a related increase in rents and property values, and changes in the district's character and culture. The term is often used negatively, suggesting the displacement of poor communities by rich outsiders." But we also felt grateful to be given an option, especially an option in the neighborhood in which we hope to someday own a home again.
Our new home is located in an old girl that was built circa the 1950s (or at least, had its bathroom tile done then); it had been empty 12 years and was being gradually fixed up. Here, we could have a new beginning, we decided when we saw the second-floor, one-bedroom unit that we came to choose. The tan walls with white trim, the walnut-stained hardwood floors, the huge, made-for-multipurpose living room, the quietness of the beautiful neighborhood, the nice second-floor view … it was attractive enough for us to resolve to store, throw or give away everything necessary to have an abode that wouldn't end up looking like a city dump. The rent would be only $130 more than the low rent we'd been paying. And yay, our third-floor neighbor at the old place would become our next-door neighbor at the new place.
The downside: This was by far the toughest move Dre and I have ever gone through, together or separately.
Move before last, we paid a stepfather and stepson $200 to move us. Last move was a five-block undertaking we handled gradually by car, then with two volunteers and my brother's truck on a rainy Moving Day. This time around, being a couple of 50-somethings, we knew we needed professional help. We paid College Hunks Movers the equivalent of a months' rent at the new place. And we still had to rub each other down with fake Icy Hot nightly due to all the packing and lifting we did ourselves, especially Dre's efforts to move what is basically an entire library of books. Not to mention the energy we expended on all that stuff we gave away, sold, took to storage or tossed.
Annnnd the building wasn't quite ready for prime time. We walked into a number of cosmetic and "working order" issues, thanks to the obvious haste with which our apartment was prepared; a couple of the cosmetic issues still await resolution. We were forced to cancel our AT&T home phone and Internet services because there was no AT&T wiring whatsoever in the apartment ... a fact of which we weren't made aware beforehand. Even after we resigned ourselves to going without a home phone and using Comcast for Internet, we were offline for month, partially because our Comcast wiring had to be redone. The wires in the attic were old, plus they had been cut by the heating/air installers. (Not good for Dre, who couldn't work. Not good for our AT&T cell-phone bill, which went up $30 due to extra data we burned, having no wifi.) And then there was Mrs. C. (See previous post.) To say we stayed tense and upset in varying degrees from October through the New Year would be an understatement.
The complex continues to manifest maddeningly bizarre issues I won't go into here, for maddeningly bizarre reasons I won't go into here. (I will mention, however, that our levelized electric bill shot up at winter's end because the rocket-scientist HVAC installers had not hooked up our heat pump. The unit, which blew hot and cold air and kept Dre sick, borrowed from its emergency heating strips and ran our electric meter nuts. We didn't realize this until spring, when we discovered the air conditioning hadn't been hooked up either, and called Maintenance.) Despite the remaining issues, we're grateful to at least have updated kitchen and bathroom fixtures; pests that, for the most part have been tiny and manifest infrequently (one water bug and no ants so far), windows that at least keep out dirt and rain, and a living room that has supported my efforts to make it beautiful. Best of all … no more Mrs. C.
Our next move? We hope it will be our happiest "want to" move yet: one to a renovated historic house in this neighborhood, via movers we'll be able to pay to pack and unpack for us.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
So why did I choose "The day before payday" as a blog name?
For many years I'd said that whenever I wrote my autobiography, The Day Before Payday would be the title. I haven't gotten around to that autobiography yet, so I thought it would be as good a blog name as any.
The phrase has its rather unglamorous birth in my struggle to handle my finances. A regular indicator of said struggle: the utility shut-off notices that came in the mail. Back in the day, it always seemed to me that the "last day to pay" on the shutoff notices fell on … you guessed it … the day before payday. That was a major source of frustration to me — until I saw the humor in it.
"The day before payday" also represents, in the "concrete," or natural, a day of what I'll call desperate anticipation. It's akin to the feeling we harbored as children when it seemed that Christmas Day was taking its sweet time to arrive and deliver us our cool presents. The day before payday is the day before the weekend (for many in the workforce); the day before we can finally pay our bills or afford to have that lunch date or go to that movie or go shopping. In the "abstract," or spiritual, it represents the Christian's hope of the eternal reward that awaits the end of our journey as strangers and pilgrims on earth (Hebrews 11:15), and, for those of us who keep up with Bible prophecy, Christ's imminent return to earth.
As I've matured, I realize that we can't spend the day before payday merely sitting around and pining for payday. In the natural and in the spiritual, we'd best be making the most of our wait. To borrow from Jesus' parable, God gave us however many minas/pounds He chose to give us, and said, "Occupy till I come." (Luke 19:13). But there's nothing wrong with looking forward to the coming. It motivates us in our occupation!
For many years I'd said that whenever I wrote my autobiography, The Day Before Payday would be the title. I haven't gotten around to that autobiography yet, so I thought it would be as good a blog name as any.
The phrase has its rather unglamorous birth in my struggle to handle my finances. A regular indicator of said struggle: the utility shut-off notices that came in the mail. Back in the day, it always seemed to me that the "last day to pay" on the shutoff notices fell on … you guessed it … the day before payday. That was a major source of frustration to me — until I saw the humor in it.
"The day before payday" also represents, in the "concrete," or natural, a day of what I'll call desperate anticipation. It's akin to the feeling we harbored as children when it seemed that Christmas Day was taking its sweet time to arrive and deliver us our cool presents. The day before payday is the day before the weekend (for many in the workforce); the day before we can finally pay our bills or afford to have that lunch date or go to that movie or go shopping. In the "abstract," or spiritual, it represents the Christian's hope of the eternal reward that awaits the end of our journey as strangers and pilgrims on earth (Hebrews 11:15), and, for those of us who keep up with Bible prophecy, Christ's imminent return to earth.
As I've matured, I realize that we can't spend the day before payday merely sitting around and pining for payday. In the natural and in the spiritual, we'd best be making the most of our wait. To borrow from Jesus' parable, God gave us however many minas/pounds He chose to give us, and said, "Occupy till I come." (Luke 19:13). But there's nothing wrong with looking forward to the coming. It motivates us in our occupation!
Thursday, January 29, 2015
You never know how you might someday be led to stop taking the "little things" for granted and fully appreciate them instead. Right now, Hubby and I continue to appreciate not having the police called on us every three-four days.
I wrote about our recent move several times in my Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper column, Let's Talk. But except for an initial post on Facebook, I didn't share the story about Mrs. C, whose apartment was directly below our new one. Our mid-month move took place Nov. 15, 2014. From Dec. 6 to Jan. 1, Mrs. C. called police on us about 10 times — that we know of, and that's nearly how many times the police showed up at our door.
According to what we were told, she began complaining about us — not just to police but also to city officials, along with our property manager — before we ever saw her or knew anything about her. One of her three gripes was the noise we made. We made noise, but they were regular "moving in" and "moving around" noises made by upstairs neighbors in an older building with squeaky hardwood floors. On Dec. 6, two officers came to the door. At that time we were only told that "we wanted to make you aware that you have a neighbor who calls us when there's noise." We had been hammering earlier, but were not making any noise at the time those officers came. They acknowledged that they'd stood and listened outside and that it was quiet. We assumed they'd knocked on other doors, telling our neighbors the same thing.
The second visit, from a single female officer, came late the afternoon of Monday, Dec. 8. The officer was very apologetic but said she had to come up and talk to us. Mrs. C had accused us not only of making noise late at night (which we did during the process of unpacking and placing furniture), but of being dope smokers whom she suspected were trying to break into her truck. We told the officers who we were; we also gave the officer our contact information. Again the officer (who has read my column) apologized, and went downstairs to tell Ms. C that we were harmless.
We determined who Mrs. C was and on Dec. 13, when I saw her returning to the building from somewhere, I went outside to talk with her. She started right in with her accusations about the noise and also said that ever since we'd moved in, she'd been suffering from some caustic chemical smell coming through her air vents. I told her who we were, that we meant her no harm; that yes, we were still getting settled but would try to do better regarding the noise. I told her the only chemicals we'd used were nail polish and remover as well as some occasional spritzes of bathroom cleaner, but she didn't seem to think it was that. At any rate I calmed her down enough to where she apologized for calling police and we even shook on it. She said she had health issues and had a hard time each December because that's when she lost her husband. She even said SHE read my column. I told her I would be putting up more wall art later, and she was OK with that.
My relief was short-lived. Two days later, she was angry at us again because of noise we made trying to fix our bed frame, which our movers had put together incorrectly. When we went outside, we encountered Mrs. C, waiting on police ... whom she'd called on us once again. She accused me of being "unfaithful" per my promises. That upset my husband, who exchanged a few words with her. We ended up waiting outside for the police too, but they didn't come ... that day.
I also notified the property manager, with whom I'd already discussed Mrs. C ... and whom Mrs. C called multiple times a day to complain about us and other residents. The PM said she was going to give Mrs. C the option of moving to another unit. Meanwhile, we began going out of our way to be as quiet as possible. I was literally tiptoeing, putting on heeled shoes and boots right before leaving the apartment and removing them when I returned. During my conversation with Mrs. C, she'd complained about hearing a "dragging" sound. We thought that sound might originate from our use of our rolling office chair, so we placed our Greek flokati rug under it.
However — at 11 p.m. on Dec. 17 — there was another knock on the door as we watched TV in bed. It was the police ... again. They were apologetic … again. Mrs. C was still accusing us of causing the caustic smell in her apartment.
I wrote a long email that morning to the property manager AND her boss, who called a meeting with Mrs. C the next day. She agreed to move, but at that time, didn't say when. Meanwhile she was told she'd be evicted if she continued to complain. Well, the cops kept coming, and she became increasingly angry at them for not dragging us off in handcuffs. We even told the police chief — whom my husband had previously interviewed for a freelance story — about the situation. He replied that, unfortunately, the police have to come when called. The police and the prosecuting attorney's office told us this was a civil matter and that outside of complaining to our PM, the only recourse we had was to sic a lawyer on Mrs. C.
The PM was ready to start eviction proceedings, but Mrs. C. found a place to move. Even during her moving process, she continued to call the cops on us. (Luckily, there were no more 11 p.m. visits, but the cops always seemed to catch me at one sartorial disadvantage or another.) One pair of cops told us she had threatened to go to their supervisor on them for not doing anything to us. This was a "smell complaint" night, not a "noise complaint" or "attempted vehicle break-in complaint" night, so the men checked around our place and told us they'd call their sergeant out to try to settle the matter. We assume they did; when we left for an event a bit later, we saw two police cars.
It got to where we could tell the seasoned officers from the newer ones. The rookies would always say they could tell that Mrs. C suffered from some type of mental instability, but they were hoping that coming and talking to us could "calm her down." The seasoned cops, who included the ones who'd lamented about having to call their sergeant, displayed a bit of exasperation at the record of all the calls that had been made to our address. One of the seasoned officers, who visited toward the end of our ordeal, told Dre he regularly patrolled the area. The officers even began complimenting us on our apartment decor.
The officer summoned on New Year's Day didn't bother to come up to see us. A friend and neighbor, who lived in our last building and moved at the same time, came back from walking a dog she was sitting ... and saw Mrs. C screaming at him. He apparently was one of the cops who'd come before; we think he may have been the one who told us he regularly patrols the area. That day, Mrs. C. switched to her attempted-truck break-in accusation, claiming she SAW us making the effort. The officer wasn't buying it; he tried to tell her she needed to leave us alone. She went ballistic on him. The friend's canine charge became so agitated, it was all the friend could do to keep the dog from charging Mrs. C.
We were battle-weary, but had begun to gradually cheer up because Mrs. C had begun to stay gone a few hours each day. We figured she was doing the moving process back-and-forth between her old and new apartments. And on the morning of January 5, we saw her U-Haul. That had to be one of the happiest days of our lives. Had we been in the money, we might have thrown a party ... one with a loud performance of Riverdance, or Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance, as the featured entertainment.
Thus went the end of an interesting 2014. The story of our move — a result of downtown gentrification, of which we became casualties — is a whole other blog post.
Having never had the police called on us in our lives prior to this, we never thought that being able to move freely around our apartment — without feeling jittery or jumpy — would feel this good. However, we continue to shake our heads over the apparent fact that anyone who's mentally challenged or spiteful enough can basically use the police as a tool of terrorism against a neighbor. Before it was over with, we felt sorry for the police. And they aren't the only city employees who have been used in this manner. A Facebook friend, who lives in a house, said her across-the-street neighbor called city code enforcement officers on her 10 times over trivial matters. "She is well known by the city because of it, and even though she gets on THEIR nerves, they have to respond," says the friend, who eventually found relief after she joined the neighborhood association and became, as she puts it, "president of the Welcome Wagon Committee."
As I did during the ordeal, I pray that Mrs. C is delivered of whatever demons were driving her. I definitely pray for her new neighbors. And although I know it's dangerous to treat anyone like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, I'd like to see the city come up with some type of policy — better yet, a fine — to deal with people who repeatedly file complaints that prove to be unfounded or frivolous.
I wrote about our recent move several times in my Arkansas Democrat-Gazette newspaper column, Let's Talk. But except for an initial post on Facebook, I didn't share the story about Mrs. C, whose apartment was directly below our new one. Our mid-month move took place Nov. 15, 2014. From Dec. 6 to Jan. 1, Mrs. C. called police on us about 10 times — that we know of, and that's nearly how many times the police showed up at our door.
According to what we were told, she began complaining about us — not just to police but also to city officials, along with our property manager — before we ever saw her or knew anything about her. One of her three gripes was the noise we made. We made noise, but they were regular "moving in" and "moving around" noises made by upstairs neighbors in an older building with squeaky hardwood floors. On Dec. 6, two officers came to the door. At that time we were only told that "we wanted to make you aware that you have a neighbor who calls us when there's noise." We had been hammering earlier, but were not making any noise at the time those officers came. They acknowledged that they'd stood and listened outside and that it was quiet. We assumed they'd knocked on other doors, telling our neighbors the same thing.
The second visit, from a single female officer, came late the afternoon of Monday, Dec. 8. The officer was very apologetic but said she had to come up and talk to us. Mrs. C had accused us not only of making noise late at night (which we did during the process of unpacking and placing furniture), but of being dope smokers whom she suspected were trying to break into her truck. We told the officers who we were; we also gave the officer our contact information. Again the officer (who has read my column) apologized, and went downstairs to tell Ms. C that we were harmless.
We determined who Mrs. C was and on Dec. 13, when I saw her returning to the building from somewhere, I went outside to talk with her. She started right in with her accusations about the noise and also said that ever since we'd moved in, she'd been suffering from some caustic chemical smell coming through her air vents. I told her who we were, that we meant her no harm; that yes, we were still getting settled but would try to do better regarding the noise. I told her the only chemicals we'd used were nail polish and remover as well as some occasional spritzes of bathroom cleaner, but she didn't seem to think it was that. At any rate I calmed her down enough to where she apologized for calling police and we even shook on it. She said she had health issues and had a hard time each December because that's when she lost her husband. She even said SHE read my column. I told her I would be putting up more wall art later, and she was OK with that.
My relief was short-lived. Two days later, she was angry at us again because of noise we made trying to fix our bed frame, which our movers had put together incorrectly. When we went outside, we encountered Mrs. C, waiting on police ... whom she'd called on us once again. She accused me of being "unfaithful" per my promises. That upset my husband, who exchanged a few words with her. We ended up waiting outside for the police too, but they didn't come ... that day.
I also notified the property manager, with whom I'd already discussed Mrs. C ... and whom Mrs. C called multiple times a day to complain about us and other residents. The PM said she was going to give Mrs. C the option of moving to another unit. Meanwhile, we began going out of our way to be as quiet as possible. I was literally tiptoeing, putting on heeled shoes and boots right before leaving the apartment and removing them when I returned. During my conversation with Mrs. C, she'd complained about hearing a "dragging" sound. We thought that sound might originate from our use of our rolling office chair, so we placed our Greek flokati rug under it.
However — at 11 p.m. on Dec. 17 — there was another knock on the door as we watched TV in bed. It was the police ... again. They were apologetic … again. Mrs. C was still accusing us of causing the caustic smell in her apartment.
I wrote a long email that morning to the property manager AND her boss, who called a meeting with Mrs. C the next day. She agreed to move, but at that time, didn't say when. Meanwhile she was told she'd be evicted if she continued to complain. Well, the cops kept coming, and she became increasingly angry at them for not dragging us off in handcuffs. We even told the police chief — whom my husband had previously interviewed for a freelance story — about the situation. He replied that, unfortunately, the police have to come when called. The police and the prosecuting attorney's office told us this was a civil matter and that outside of complaining to our PM, the only recourse we had was to sic a lawyer on Mrs. C.
The PM was ready to start eviction proceedings, but Mrs. C. found a place to move. Even during her moving process, she continued to call the cops on us. (Luckily, there were no more 11 p.m. visits, but the cops always seemed to catch me at one sartorial disadvantage or another.) One pair of cops told us she had threatened to go to their supervisor on them for not doing anything to us. This was a "smell complaint" night, not a "noise complaint" or "attempted vehicle break-in complaint" night, so the men checked around our place and told us they'd call their sergeant out to try to settle the matter. We assume they did; when we left for an event a bit later, we saw two police cars.
It got to where we could tell the seasoned officers from the newer ones. The rookies would always say they could tell that Mrs. C suffered from some type of mental instability, but they were hoping that coming and talking to us could "calm her down." The seasoned cops, who included the ones who'd lamented about having to call their sergeant, displayed a bit of exasperation at the record of all the calls that had been made to our address. One of the seasoned officers, who visited toward the end of our ordeal, told Dre he regularly patrolled the area. The officers even began complimenting us on our apartment decor.
The officer summoned on New Year's Day didn't bother to come up to see us. A friend and neighbor, who lived in our last building and moved at the same time, came back from walking a dog she was sitting ... and saw Mrs. C screaming at him. He apparently was one of the cops who'd come before; we think he may have been the one who told us he regularly patrols the area. That day, Mrs. C. switched to her attempted-truck break-in accusation, claiming she SAW us making the effort. The officer wasn't buying it; he tried to tell her she needed to leave us alone. She went ballistic on him. The friend's canine charge became so agitated, it was all the friend could do to keep the dog from charging Mrs. C.
We were battle-weary, but had begun to gradually cheer up because Mrs. C had begun to stay gone a few hours each day. We figured she was doing the moving process back-and-forth between her old and new apartments. And on the morning of January 5, we saw her U-Haul. That had to be one of the happiest days of our lives. Had we been in the money, we might have thrown a party ... one with a loud performance of Riverdance, or Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance, as the featured entertainment.
Thus went the end of an interesting 2014. The story of our move — a result of downtown gentrification, of which we became casualties — is a whole other blog post.
Having never had the police called on us in our lives prior to this, we never thought that being able to move freely around our apartment — without feeling jittery or jumpy — would feel this good. However, we continue to shake our heads over the apparent fact that anyone who's mentally challenged or spiteful enough can basically use the police as a tool of terrorism against a neighbor. Before it was over with, we felt sorry for the police. And they aren't the only city employees who have been used in this manner. A Facebook friend, who lives in a house, said her across-the-street neighbor called city code enforcement officers on her 10 times over trivial matters. "She is well known by the city because of it, and even though she gets on THEIR nerves, they have to respond," says the friend, who eventually found relief after she joined the neighborhood association and became, as she puts it, "president of the Welcome Wagon Committee."
As I did during the ordeal, I pray that Mrs. C is delivered of whatever demons were driving her. I definitely pray for her new neighbors. And although I know it's dangerous to treat anyone like the Boy Who Cried Wolf, I'd like to see the city come up with some type of policy — better yet, a fine — to deal with people who repeatedly file complaints that prove to be unfounded or frivolous.
Friday, January 16, 2015
Testing ...
So I just started this thing and it already says I have 25 followers and a four-figure number of viewers. Oooookay.
At any rate I'm about a zillion light years behind on starting a blog. Let's see how this goes.
At any rate I'm about a zillion light years behind on starting a blog. Let's see how this goes.
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