My Crazy Bathroom

Be kind to me as I'm about to show you the awkwardness that is our 1 3/4 bathroom.  I took the pictures before I had organized it better.

I am standing in our son's bathtub to take this picture.  His bathroom has two doors, a sink and bathtub/shower and mirrors.  The bathroom through the door has two doors, a sink, a bathtub/shower, a tri-fold mirror and the toilet.  It's just awkward.

Here's a nice shot of the three bathroom doors.  IV will come and knock on one of the doors and then run to the other one and knock on that too.  It's pretty cute.

Our Place

So far I've only taken pictures of the kitchen, dining room and front room.  Pictures of the bedrooms/office/craft room will come later (once they've been more unpacked and organized).  Pictures of the bathrooms will come now when I figure out the best angle to capture the awkwardness.   

Just imagine... One Toilet, two sinks, two tubs/showers, three doors.  Awkward.

But for now here's the kitchen.  We have a brand spankin' new dishwasher and a new oven as well.  Not pictured is the faucet filter once we realized how stinky the water is here. Seriously, my sponge that I use to wash dishes lasts a maximum of five days before it REEKS and has to be tossed.  I've never gone through sponges that fast...and I totally let it dry out before I use it again.  It's gross and if you have any suggestions I'm all ears!

Oh yes, these pictures were taken after Stephen installed door knobs and handles on the cabinetry.  It looks soo good.  The apartment had been so heavily painted that all the cabinets are sticky.  You would open the cabinet and stick to it.  We have also lined the drawers and need to line the shelves as well.

Here's the front room.  To the right is the door and a fireplace on the wall.  I doubt we'll ever use the fireplace, but it's fun to have nonetheless.  I told Stephen we need a shelf across the fireplace so I can hang our stockings on it for Christmas.  

You are seeing our brand new couch. This is the FIRST couch we have bought in our marriage...all three years of it!  We used to only have the love sac which isn't the most comfortable thing ever.  In Texas we borrowed a couch and love seat from the ward.  It needed some fixing up and I sewed all the zippers on the cushions for it.  We LOVED those pieces.  My pregnant self especially loved them.  Then we moved back to Arizona and gave them back to the ward for someone else to use who needs them.

Wanna know the great things about the couch?  It cost $350.  For the couch and the ottoman.  What a deal!  And it's not microsuede which we HATE.  AND I can lay out on the chaise part, Stephen take the main part, the Kid takes the ottoman and we all fit comfortably.  It's great.

Next is the dining room, which leads to the kitchen.  We bought the table from IKEA and it has a nice big leaf so we can fit all 6 kids around it.  Someday.  Like in a million years.  The front room is to the left of the dining room.

And there you have it.  Our main living area.  I LOVE this apartment.  We have brand new carpeting which IV has already spilled milk and poop on so I'd say we're really living it up.

3 reasons...

...That I'm Apprehensive To Open Our Door.

*Now mind you that this list has just been composed while in Texas and at our rental house. And these are all true events.*

1.) The Sheriff. I had the opportunity to open our door and to find the Sheriff standing there with an arrest warrant!! Thankfully it was for the guy who lived in the apartment out back and not for either of us. Or maybe I shouldn't be so thankful that the Sheriff was on the lookout for the man who lived just feet away from us.

2.) An FBI Agent. He actually flashed his badge at me! Although really I would have had no idea if it were a fake. So what do I do? I invite this man into my house while I'm home alone. Not my brightest moment. Thankfully he declined and stayed outside while I gathered the necessary information. Turns out he was looking for the previous renters, neither us nor the landlord knows what happened to them.

3.) The Crazy Lady. Or I should say the Crazy Couple. This one happened much more recently.

No one is currently living in the back apartment and so we have a For Rent sign in our front lawn. People are supposed to call the number to get in touch with our landlady but of course no one does that, instead they come to the door looking for information. Unfortunately for them I have no information to give; I don't know the rental amount of the apartment, nor have I been inside to see what it looks like. Until recently I didn't even know how many bedrooms it had. And I don't even know how to get in contact with our landlords because Stephen takes care of all of that for me.

Anyway last Tuesday I was busy getting ready for my appointment and Stephen was supposed to be home any minute in order to take me. I heard the doorbell ring like a million times in two seconds (as if by a young child who likes to push buttons) and figured it was Stephen being silly. Then he knocked on the door rapidly and so I rushed to get it before he woke the baby. Much to my surprise an elderly white woman in her pajamas combing her hair greeted me at the door.

She stuck her comb in her hair and then proceeded to talk to me. Apparently she lives down the street and is having issues with their rental house. I told her to call the number on the sign because I really couldn't help her as we are not the landlords. Instead of taking my advice she asked if she could come inside to see what our house looked like. Ummm, no. Here's a little snippet of our conversation.

Crazy Lady:"You know down by where the prison is?"

Me: "Umm, nope I don't"

CL: "Well the prison is named after my great-great-great-daddy."

Me: "Umm, ok."

CL: "Can I use you as a reference?"

Me: "Umm, no."

It was at this point that my child starts crying and I had to close the door and leave.

Later on her husband came and spoke to Stephen. I have no idea what was said but he knew from their conversation that he was married to the afore-mentioned Crazy Lady.

Saturday rolls around and after answering the door multiple times to possible renters (thank goodness we won't be around for that long) Stephen came hurrying to the bedroom to tell me that the Crazy Couple was coming to our door. After a quick assessment we deemed it best to not answer the door again. Again they rang the doorbell and knocked on the door repeatedly. Honestly, that is not the best way to get someone to open their door. When we didn't come to the door they continued to knock and ring for quite some time.

Finally they stopped and we went to the window to see them standing in our front yard plotting their next move. Again they came to knock and ring and when that proved unfruitful they decided to go around our house tapping on the windows!!! I was certainly creeped out and it didn't help that the lady was drinking her beer the whole time.

They soon left and came back to mow our lawn. As he was mowing the lawn she proceeded to knock on the windows and doors.

Later we heard a man near our door say, "No, I'm not going to do that." And we witnessed the mail man walk to the next house. From what we gathered she asked him to knock on our door! When he refused to do that she decided to knock on the door herself yelling, "Mails here, come open your door!"

They finally left and needless to say I was glad we have a storage of food to outlast the crazies who come to the door.

Our House

I figured it was about time that I should lead the rest of the world through a tour of our house. Maybe one day our internet friends will be able to see the outside of our house as well. Maybe.

After much deliberation it has been decided upon that the captions will go BELOW each picture. Enjoy the tour!

This is our front room (the door is just to the left), and the massive entertainment set that Stephen bought from Ikea. When we first moved into our apartment this set took up the majority of the front room, in fact there really wasn't room for much else but after MUCH finagling we kinda got it to work. Even in our rental home it is still ginormous! Hopefully one day our home will be big enough to comfortably home the entertainment center.
Now we are moving right into more of the front room. This is the view we are lucky enough to see every day. Even though we live in the city, our view is of pretty greenness! You can also see the ceiling beams which I really like. Yes it is true, we only have a love sac in our front room. This always makes for great awkwardness when the visiting teachers come.

Continue moving right and you will see our fireplace!!! LOVE IT! We will actually get to use it in the winter-time, hooray! I do love the mantle and can't wait to hang our stockings from it!
Now onto the formal dining room/our offices. Of course I had to take a shot of my side which is always a complete disaster. I still have boxes full of craft items that need to go somewhere. You can also see through into our kitchen which is where we will be headed next.
This is our kitchen as viewed from the front room/formal dining room/offices/visitor's entrance/passersby. There is sooo much cabinet space! I really would have liked more counter space but the cabinets make up for it. The big black object is OUR refrigerator. Shopping for them was quite the experience but I love our refrigerator! Of course I didn't get a good picture of the cabinets, but to the right of the picture both in front of the frig (towards the camera) and also near the door are two built-in cabinet units where I store everything! I love having the extra cabinet space because then I don't have to use any of the uppermost shelves which I can't reach anyway. It does drive Stephen a little nuts, but he doesn't like seeing the alternative which is me climbing on top of the counters to reach the top shelves. Notice the ugly green paint/the border around the ceiling. Yuck!
We have now moved through the kitchen towards the back door and are looking back at our little kitchen table. This thing was perfect in our tiny apartment, but now seems a little dwarfed in our house. I guess it is to offset the entertainment center! We decided to repaint this area (it was the same yucky green and while Stephen was terrified of going too dark, in retrospect we wish the color was a few shades darker. Next we will se the interesting situation that is our house. This is the kitchen back door which opens up to a small room and the laundry room to the right. The screen door does not lock, only the door that is open does which kinda worries me because essentially our laundry is out in the open for anyone to take! Not that it has happened, but because it COULD happen I worry.

Here is our laundry room (I am standing between the screen door and the kitchen back door). The laundry room is tiny and smells like cats. Luckily we were able to get a stackable unit. I love it and couldn't imagine squeezing in here with a side-by-side washer and dryer.
This is what happens when I try to open or close the laundry room door. Our water heater is in such a position that the door won't open properly. I used to have to push the water heater back and push the door open at the same time using all of my weight to get it open. Thankfully Stephen moved the water heater back a little, but the door still gets stuck on the water heater. I love the sticker telling me it's dangerous, this is actually where I used to put my hand to push the water heater, what other choice do I have?
Out here you will find many homes with apartments out back. I think it's kinda weird, but hopefully we will have some nice people renting it out!

We will conclude this tour with this little picture. This is our view out the back screen door. We have a little bit of grass, a pecan tree and a shed to the left that houses our wasps. There is a dumpster right out back and I love our little gateway entrance, although it is a litte awkward to be walking right next to the apartment!

Oh yes, this tour does not contain the bedrooms or bathroom, that tour has been postponed until a later date.

First week in Texas

We had finally made it into Texas when Stephen noticed this unusual sight off to the side of the road in the middle of a field. We knew we had to check it out. Needless to say it was RIDICULOUSLY windy. I felt as though I was going to be swept away by the wind.
Here's us in front of the rental house we are living in. I am SO glad we were able to move into this place, I'll have to post pictures of the other two rental properties we were considering. Once we saw this house the other two were out of the question!