It's December and I bought a 15 ft garland.

It's real and it gave my hands a stingy rash.

But I like it because it's pretty and I put a sparkly strand of ornaments in it. Now we are going to pretend it's our Christmas tree, turn on our string of lights around our curtains and soak up some happy Christmas spirit.

Happy December 1—go put up that tree!!!!

Required listening: Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Jack Johnson

new diggs: the kitchen/dining rooms

please note:

Our microwave from 1982 (must hit door after you push start to make it go).

The equally old gas stove/oven (I feel like I have finally figured out the way my oven thinks. it took a few burned batches of cookies and one near-fire with the lasagna, but I think we now have an understanding).

All Out Of pad (the best grocery store list EVER!) and if you're in my family you might be getting  yourself one for your birthday coming up..... what can I say? I like to share.

The beautiful bouquet of dumdums

Our pretty rad silverware storage situation. This kitchen has NO drawers for silverware (that makes a girl think hard about how/where to put her spoons and forks). Thanks Ikea (we're tight. like BFFs or something).

My hooks!!! I've worked up quite the hook collection over the years and I had a vision of all the hooks on some thick, dark brown boards so we slipped our handy-dandy bro in law some $$ and he put those suckers on there for us! Now they're up and being all useful and stuff (thanks a mil Ty).

new diggs: the living room

new diggs: the pool

To start off our little tour, I thought I'd start with the pool.

Because, well, it's beautiful, and because I need to do a bit of

cleaning before I show you the living room or kitchen or whatever.

We've been going down at night to swim laps and then a quick dip

in the hot tub, naturally. And Jason studied down there last night

because he didn't want to go to the school and because I was in the

mood to tell a lot of stories and I guess it's hard to study when someone

is talking to you. Who knew?

Anyway, post one of the tour! Enjoy:

house keeping

the other night a little after 9 o'clock jason

decided to vacuum (i know, great, right!)

a little after that we got a knock on the door.

it was the neighbor below. i guess his beautiful bride

is preggo "and moody". we need to keep it down past 8:30–9.

woah.

i think we should soften our steps.

and no more vacuuming after 8.

i hope we can handle that.

maybe i should take them some cookies? lighten the mood a bit.

enough of this "merry little" stuff

have yourself a freakin awesome huge christmas!

ok. that was corny. but you still like us. i think.

 p.s. this is our charlie brown christmas tree.

we're pretty proud.

today i learned how to use draino.

we've been struggling in the drainage department

lately. like bad. (water would be up to the ankles

in the shower. kinda creepy actually.) so today

was the day. i refused to take another shower w/o

getting that fixed. (no worries. it's totally fixed

now = i really did shower today. promise.)

jason did some magic with a wire hanger. he also

may or may not have pulled out a thick chunk of

long dark hair, slightly resembling a ferret, from

the drain. i'm blonde. not my hair. oh the joys of

apartment living. (jason still can't talk about

it. i'm just happy he did the duty. he says he

needs a new duty.)

p.s. i'm so into summer right now. 

it's my most favorite thing ever.

excuse me. we have a bit of an H2O crisis.

our faucet won't turn off in the kitchen.

water is running (full power).

is something bad happening?

* ok. update.

maintenance guy is coming right over.

(translation - could be hours. maybe a day.)

we turned the little knobs under the sink to off.

we can't do the dishes in the kitchen = we have

to go to the bathtub to do such things??

(not certain how i feel about this.)

moral to the story: when turning on the sink to the very hottest side try not to turn the lever too far to the left. (or right.) because it may get stuck there. (much like the naughty faces we all made when we were little. sometimes things stick.)

**ok. another update.

maintenance guy came.

not sure what he did.

(i was at class. don't worry, we managed to

turn the little knob under the sink before we left.)

but situation resolved.

just a lot of over-due dishes.

(at least i won't be doing them in the bathtub.)

i hate fruity gum

ok. we are moved in and settled (this happened a few days ago) and we love the extra space.

there is one slight snag, saddly. (well. two. you have to open the fridge to access the knife drawer. it's kinda wedged in there a bit. slight draw-back, nothing to complain about. much.)

the real snag is the mystery smell that kills me every time i walk in the door. naturally.

let me try to explain what this smell is like.

in high school it seemed like Trident fruity gum was pretty much the thing. especially the Tropical Twist flavor. i was never real big on the fruity flavors (the fruit/mint thing freaks my mouth out and i can't get past that. fruity sweetness just wasn't meant to be minty fresh. cool cucumber? no thanks. if we're going to go sweet just give me straight up candy.) 

but all my pals (well, some of my pals) thought this gum was the bomb.

here was the real twist to this particular trident gum: the after-breath is murder. (if you do not believe me i dare you to try it out. after lunch give some one a slice and once they have chewed it and finished ask them a question and breath in deeply. you'll see.)

well. that's it. that's what our apartment smells like. that and a little musk and you have it! 

i put in some wallflowers. not happenin. i keep the windows open until my teeth are chattering at night. (too cold = not happenin either.) i keep the garbage out and lysol it. (to make it un-stinky.) and i have checked all cleaning supplies to be sure i have not stepped into an unknown trap like becca who ran into that snag twice. (i'm pretty sure that's not the case. unless my lysol is leaving a fruity-stinky-you-know-what-after-smell. in that case. gross.)

i am a little bit obsessed about apartment smells. (as in i don't want it to smell. unless it smells good. in that case - ok.) this is killing me.

someone put me out of my misery. what, oh what, do i spray/plug/set off to get this place neutralized? (and i'm not real sure i should be "setting off" anything. but hey, i might give it a whirl.)

p.s. not real sure if i should include this little tid-bit. but.... well. anyway - we might have watched Slumdog Millionaire. and we maybe really really liked it.

p.p.s. another aftereffect of the move is that i have totally misplaced every single nail file (well. i i guess i only had two.) and every freakin single nail clippers (jason had about ninety-nine of those.) what the?

jingle balls (oops, bells.)

no room around the apartment .... so we put it right on the table.

(that's what i call improvisation!)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

our Christmas decor courtesy of Mini Beeeezaar.

(p.s. it seems like all the spideys have frozen up or something. our traps are all empty so feel free to come for a visit w/o any fear of friendly little creepers comin out to play.)

Would You Mind Stepping Into the Bathroom With Me?

Our facilities are struggling.














We're not making a statement with the splash of green peaking over the lidless toilet top.
No.
In the Egbert household we flush with a twisty-tie.
The handle dangles there serving no purpose whatsoever.















So, instead of dunking our hand into the dirty toilet water Jason decided to twisty-tie the broken white thing and make a hook to hang over the top. What a thinker! No more will my little fingers need to take a swim in the nasty deep of the toilet. (He really loves me!)

Have a fantastic twisty-tie-toilet-water-free day!

(I will be waiting for a maintenance man. and taking my car to get the breaks checked. I think I might exercise too. just got a cute swimming suit in the mail, now I think I wanna look cute in it. anyone tried Turbo Jam? it's the greatest!-thanks Mard)