two pumpkins, a dead poinsettia and a furnace

Hey...good news! I had another meeting yesterday and I didn’t spill anything on myself or the client…miracles still happen! Anyways...

About 6 months ago I moved into a rental house after living in an apartment for 5 years. I was super excited…NO MORE LOUD NEIGHBORS! Problem is, I didn’t realize there are actually more responsibilities that come with a rental house. Thank goodness they do the yard, but I didn’t quite consider all the other maintenance things. I was so used to calling the maintenance guy at the apartment anytime something broke or needed replacing, and they would be there within 24 hours. I knew him on a first name basis. Poor Derek, he had to leave a movie once to come help me. I can already hear you mumbling “high maintenance”…

Well when we moved into our rental house, I don’t think we quite realized what we were getting ourselves into…not to mention our house was built in 1993 and is…well…special. Let’s just say we keep pliers near our washer/dryer, a screw driver on the bathtub and our pantry door doesn’t have a handle. Needless to say, I’ve become quite handy with tools and made friends at Lowe’s. And did you know you can Google just about anything maintenance related and a video will pop up of how to fix it? True story. Try it. “We don’t need no stinkin’ man!” (joke)

In fact, it got so bad, about 2 months after moving in, our furnace decided to become a little finicky. And by finicky, I mean quit working. And by quit working, I mean no heat on one of the coldest nights of the year. And not just on one of the coldest nights of the year…but TWO of the coldest nights. I missed the first one because I was out of town (believe me I heard all about it from two very upset roomies), but I experienced the second one. It got down to 50 degrees…in our HOUSE! Did you know you can sleep in 3 sweatshirts, 2 pairs of pants, 2 pairs of socks, slippers, ear muffs and a beanie with two pillows over your head and survive? All I know is I felt like I was on Survivor, but I didn’t see any film crews and didn’t remember filling out the application.

In the mean time, we had also decorated our porch for Fall, which by then had moved in to the Christmas season. Finally our landlord came and didn’t just “fix” the furnace, but replaced the furnace. They’ve been so nice to leave it on our front porch for 6 months. Isn’t that sweet? So at one point (because we reached the “I don’t care stage”) we had 2 pumpkins, a dead poinsettia and a furnace on our front porch. I didn’t realize how easy it would be to make the transition to white trash. It’s been pretty much a smooth transition.

I miss Derek.

“she’s a pretty girl”