March. The one month with an identity crisis.
Honestly March, are you winter or are you spring? Can’t you make up your mind?
And this March has been a doozie. At least for me. Went into the doctor Feb 25th and had a sinus infection. Got a major cold (or was it more sinus infection?) Stayed home 2.5 days from work the first week in March. Last week in March, went back and found out from my dr that I never got over the heinous sinus infection. And in between were three weeks of making invitations.
March. I dislike you. I broke my leg in March and a long time ago had a breakup in March. But Chris was born during this month. So I guess, March, that makes up for you.
So yes, you heard me right before. The invitations took 3 weeks to create. There are several pieces to our invite. Most of which we created ourselves, even the envelope. Pocketfold shell, belly band with vellum cut out castle, rsvp card, wallet photo, map and the gold card with the wording on it. Ouch that’s a helluva lot of work. They are pretty cool if I say so myself. On the day of my worst sinus pressure/headache/torture we sent them off. And two days later I got this text: Hey Beautiful, What you send me in the mail? Your cute envelope was sadly opened on 3 sides w/ nothing inside. In my head all I could hear was screeching and wailing and maybe Wash the Pilot saying “Oh God Oh God we’re all gonna die” Then the bawling started. And I did and did. I’m guessing it probably helped my pressure filled sinuses in some fashion too. But it didn’t make me feel any better. I imagined all the envelopes I made falling apart in the mail. I thought about reinforcing the edges. I did. I really really did.
So I emailed people, Chris called friends and some got theirs. So far about 3 have gotten either only an envelope, an invite and envelope separated from eachother or invites with faulty envelope edges. A lot of others thankfully got whole intact wonderful impactful invites begging to be RSVP-ed upon.
Well anyway in more news I quit Fashion Bug in March. I needed the time to move, work on wedding stuff and I’ll be working longer hours at Coke for half the month (or more). Irene is going on vacation to visit her son (yay for her!) but that means I get to dispatch. And for two glorious hours a day I get to do my job. Um yay? Just the parts I can’t do back at her desk. Which is a lot. As for leaving Fashion Bug it was needed. It was time. I just need more of that, time. Funny how it speeds up doesn’t it? Although now it is April, two months til Chris and I say “I do”. Only two months. That’s it. Um, good luck to me, I think I’ll need it.
Now its early April, I've been dispatching all week and going nuts. Its not hard its just tedious and I get bored. I can do some of my job at her desk but not all. I get away to my desk thankfully for a couple of hours each day. And I've finally started feeling good enough to walk in the mornings for ten minutes. I've been craving red meat so I'm sure my body is missing iron. I rarely have red meat, its mostly chicken or turkey. So I've had red meat two days in a row with leftovers for two lunches. I hope thats enough to get me back in the game! :-D
Well, other than that we are working on the slideshow, signs, various little projects. Just waiting for the timely stuff in May. Alot of things are time sensitive and now is not the time. The time now is packing and moving. Oh boy. Fun!
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Pick a place, pick a life, pick your potion.
A post about apartments.
Maybe in that order. Or maybe not.
In the last weeks my mind was reeling with pros and cons and amenities and price points, OH MY! Yes we were apartment shopping. Trying to get a leg up on finding a great apartment. We thought that it is usually a 60 day notice. However now we understand only about half require 60 day notices, others are 30 days. So at that point do we wait to see what comes up 30 days before we want to sign a lease or go with a 60 day notice now? Oh decisions decisions.
Some background on my psycho mind. Every once in a while my mind goes bonkers and shuts down. The smallest tiniest decisions elude me. They turn into huge turn of events that will forever change my life. I usually figure out it’s going on when I break down and cry over what to have for supper or what candy bar I want at the store. No, I’m completely serious. There are warning signs I’m sure but this is the one that clues me in.
But in apartment hunting I really didn’t have problems with making decisions on ones I didn’t like. It kind of boiled down to: do I feel safe here. Cuz bubba I’ma gonna be livin’ here all alone for a whole whopping month! Yes, yes, I said that with a straight face. I’m 32 and hate being alone at nite. Afraid of the dark, claustrophobic and kinda neurotic doesn’t mix well. Oh and I have a vivid imagination.
Back to the safety issue. I fell in love (on paper) with an apartment complex near where I live now, Anchor Pointe. The three stories have three different price points. We viewed the third floor and I loved it. What I didn’t love was that we couldn’t look at a 1st floor. That was the one we wanted at $525. The others had decks that we just didn’t care about and were more money. Also this way a 1st floor is more energy efficient in the summer being partly in the ground. I liked it but didn’t feel overly safe.
We took a look at Timberland but for the price it didn’t have enough amenities. My friend Mel lives there and really likes it but it didn’t jump out at us. Veto by both of us. Next was Village Green. It had the amenities but when we walked in the room with the intercom it was tiny and half under the stairs. Each floor had a closed door. And being claustrophobic I hated that. Being neurotic I thought strangers were lurking behind every door. (Waiting to take my pizza, cat food and shampoo from Target I’d be hauling up. Oh and maybe my purse but as there’s no money in there, the joke’s on the robber.) Veto by me.
I called Country Acres where I used to live with Amy and Mindy in Sartell. No openings that she knew of. Keep calling, maybe something will open up she said. Then I called the first apartment, Anchor Pointe. Nothing was coming open for April. Then she said the words that would turn me off from these apartments: ‘But we have evictions coming up and there are always lease jumpers.’ Oh hi, yes sign me up for those, they sound awesome! Yikes. I happen to know that no one is perfect and no apartment complex is either. My mom happens to make a living as a property manager. So without knowing names or direct details (in some cases I’m very glad of that) because my mom is a professional and doesn’t tattle or gossip, I happen to know these things happen. But for the apartment manager to come out and tell me that wasn’t too appealing. Veto by me.
Back to square one. The cheap places aren’t cutting it. Plus they don’t have the amenities we want. Fine, Village Green had an in unit washer and dryer for 600 (cheap for that) but it also took up half the second bedroom’s closet housing a compact washer and dryer. Not much closet space when you come down to it.
Then came Pointe West and West Stonehill. Saturday morning while Chris was working I got a call from a girl at Pointe West saying she talked to Chris and he pointed her in my direction. (He was working at Game stop and couldn’t talk.) So I set up a time for the following Tuesday nite. I had been looking at so many apartments online, in books and calling around that I had about 20 pages of notes for all of them. Not exaggerating. So I didn’t remember much about them. And since we were looking at those I set up a time to look at two other apartments in the same price range, Park Meadows and West Stonehill.
Park Meadows was up for Monday nite. We got there at different times and I liked their waiting area. Big comfy couches and a tv. But what’s with the small kitchen in the hallway? Weird. When Chris got there the girl was making strange faces at the people who came in while he filled out paperwork. She had a slightly haughty air about her. We left the office and I found out it wasn’t a waiting area but a community room. Kinda small compared to others. Their pool and gym was a completely separate building. Granted it was in the middle of all the buildings but they were pretty far apart. The apartment was nice, but nothing overly special. Then we found out about laundry. It was 1.50 to wash and a 1.50 to dry. 25 cents more than most places. AND the biggest turn off. It was a card system. You have to buy cards with cash at the office to use the washer and dryer. Ick. Veto by both of us.
I’ll come back to Pointe West, the apartment we toured on Tuesday but on to Wednesday's tour, West Stonehill. The office building was way back behind the residential buildings and we both had a hard time finding it. That building also had the community room (this time a nice large sized room) and the fitness area. I honestly can’t remember if it had a pool or not. I believe so. We drove to the buildings to look because they were farther back. The first had a nice quarter bath next to the walk in closet. Ah, very nice. I fell in love with their light fixture in the dining area, their flooring and cabinets. Oh so slick and nice looking. Not standard apartment colors either. Their laundry was a stacking w/d combo and they had a nice little linen closet. Also for a minimum of 2 nights for $40 a nite guests can rent a suite with internet and everything. Sophisticated! However once again the fitness center and community room were far away. Also they charged pet rent and we don’t like that. Pet deposits are great and needed but unless my cat gets a job there should b e no need for pet rent. They aren’t human.
I want to take a moment to point something out. If you do a search on the internet or open up the phone book under apartments you’ll see something. A lot of apartments are named the same. You could generate an apartment name from two or more words in this list: point, garden, view, north, park, south, pine, hill, hillside, hillcrest, country, grand, place, ridge, oak, west, river and wood. In the St Cloud area there are 6 apartments that start with Oak, 6 that start with North, 6 that start with Pine, 7 that start with West and so on. Oak Garden, Park Garden, Garden Square, Pine Pointe, Pointe West, West Stonehill, Hillside, Hillcrest, Hillcrest on the River, Windsong, Windsor, Birchwood, Woodhaven, and the two that makes me laugh: Edgewood Court and Edjwood Estates. Huh?
Anyway back to Pointe West. It really is on par with West Stonehill in amenities and space. However where W.S. had a compact washer and dryer this one had a room with full sized w/d with shelving. This also had two bathrooms. Yay the cat gets his own bathroom! Oh wait, fine we then have a guest bathroom. Um, another bathroom to clean? I don’t like cleaning one. (ask Amy) Still it is more for the same money. No pet rent and less pet deposit. Just a few feet from our apartment is a trash chute, so no more going outside to get rid of trash! And unlike the other places the community room and fitness center are all in the same building as the apartment.
Well you can tell we picked Pointe West. They are letting us move in April 24th and signing the lease for May 1st. All without charging us extra for moving in sooner. Oh this will be nice. Only thing is we have to give out more deposit. Oh well it’s like a savings right? So now all we have to decide is first floor or third floor? 1st floor is actually more like the second because of the “underground” parking. (it’s on a hill so our side has the hill) But we could jump around all we want because the floor is the garage ceiling. However if we went with the 3rd floor we could jerry-rig a satellite dish to face the south. According to Chris it is much cheaper and his hatred of Charter is mind-blowing. Though I love the idea of the 1st floor apartment because I believe in the summer It will be much cooler. I guess this is something we’ll have to do some research for and some converstaions about.
In the meantime I’m just excited we chose and got an apartment. Now all we have to do is go through our stuff, pack it all, move it over and unpack it all. Oh yeah piece of cake, right?!
Maybe in that order. Or maybe not.
In the last weeks my mind was reeling with pros and cons and amenities and price points, OH MY! Yes we were apartment shopping. Trying to get a leg up on finding a great apartment. We thought that it is usually a 60 day notice. However now we understand only about half require 60 day notices, others are 30 days. So at that point do we wait to see what comes up 30 days before we want to sign a lease or go with a 60 day notice now? Oh decisions decisions.
Some background on my psycho mind. Every once in a while my mind goes bonkers and shuts down. The smallest tiniest decisions elude me. They turn into huge turn of events that will forever change my life. I usually figure out it’s going on when I break down and cry over what to have for supper or what candy bar I want at the store. No, I’m completely serious. There are warning signs I’m sure but this is the one that clues me in.
But in apartment hunting I really didn’t have problems with making decisions on ones I didn’t like. It kind of boiled down to: do I feel safe here. Cuz bubba I’ma gonna be livin’ here all alone for a whole whopping month! Yes, yes, I said that with a straight face. I’m 32 and hate being alone at nite. Afraid of the dark, claustrophobic and kinda neurotic doesn’t mix well. Oh and I have a vivid imagination.
Back to the safety issue. I fell in love (on paper) with an apartment complex near where I live now, Anchor Pointe. The three stories have three different price points. We viewed the third floor and I loved it. What I didn’t love was that we couldn’t look at a 1st floor. That was the one we wanted at $525. The others had decks that we just didn’t care about and were more money. Also this way a 1st floor is more energy efficient in the summer being partly in the ground. I liked it but didn’t feel overly safe.
We took a look at Timberland but for the price it didn’t have enough amenities. My friend Mel lives there and really likes it but it didn’t jump out at us. Veto by both of us. Next was Village Green. It had the amenities but when we walked in the room with the intercom it was tiny and half under the stairs. Each floor had a closed door. And being claustrophobic I hated that. Being neurotic I thought strangers were lurking behind every door. (Waiting to take my pizza, cat food and shampoo from Target I’d be hauling up. Oh and maybe my purse but as there’s no money in there, the joke’s on the robber.) Veto by me.
I called Country Acres where I used to live with Amy and Mindy in Sartell. No openings that she knew of. Keep calling, maybe something will open up she said. Then I called the first apartment, Anchor Pointe. Nothing was coming open for April. Then she said the words that would turn me off from these apartments: ‘But we have evictions coming up and there are always lease jumpers.’ Oh hi, yes sign me up for those, they sound awesome! Yikes. I happen to know that no one is perfect and no apartment complex is either. My mom happens to make a living as a property manager. So without knowing names or direct details (in some cases I’m very glad of that) because my mom is a professional and doesn’t tattle or gossip, I happen to know these things happen. But for the apartment manager to come out and tell me that wasn’t too appealing. Veto by me.
Back to square one. The cheap places aren’t cutting it. Plus they don’t have the amenities we want. Fine, Village Green had an in unit washer and dryer for 600 (cheap for that) but it also took up half the second bedroom’s closet housing a compact washer and dryer. Not much closet space when you come down to it.
Then came Pointe West and West Stonehill. Saturday morning while Chris was working I got a call from a girl at Pointe West saying she talked to Chris and he pointed her in my direction. (He was working at Game stop and couldn’t talk.) So I set up a time for the following Tuesday nite. I had been looking at so many apartments online, in books and calling around that I had about 20 pages of notes for all of them. Not exaggerating. So I didn’t remember much about them. And since we were looking at those I set up a time to look at two other apartments in the same price range, Park Meadows and West Stonehill.
Park Meadows was up for Monday nite. We got there at different times and I liked their waiting area. Big comfy couches and a tv. But what’s with the small kitchen in the hallway? Weird. When Chris got there the girl was making strange faces at the people who came in while he filled out paperwork. She had a slightly haughty air about her. We left the office and I found out it wasn’t a waiting area but a community room. Kinda small compared to others. Their pool and gym was a completely separate building. Granted it was in the middle of all the buildings but they were pretty far apart. The apartment was nice, but nothing overly special. Then we found out about laundry. It was 1.50 to wash and a 1.50 to dry. 25 cents more than most places. AND the biggest turn off. It was a card system. You have to buy cards with cash at the office to use the washer and dryer. Ick. Veto by both of us.
I’ll come back to Pointe West, the apartment we toured on Tuesday but on to Wednesday's tour, West Stonehill. The office building was way back behind the residential buildings and we both had a hard time finding it. That building also had the community room (this time a nice large sized room) and the fitness area. I honestly can’t remember if it had a pool or not. I believe so. We drove to the buildings to look because they were farther back. The first had a nice quarter bath next to the walk in closet. Ah, very nice. I fell in love with their light fixture in the dining area, their flooring and cabinets. Oh so slick and nice looking. Not standard apartment colors either. Their laundry was a stacking w/d combo and they had a nice little linen closet. Also for a minimum of 2 nights for $40 a nite guests can rent a suite with internet and everything. Sophisticated! However once again the fitness center and community room were far away. Also they charged pet rent and we don’t like that. Pet deposits are great and needed but unless my cat gets a job there should b e no need for pet rent. They aren’t human.
I want to take a moment to point something out. If you do a search on the internet or open up the phone book under apartments you’ll see something. A lot of apartments are named the same. You could generate an apartment name from two or more words in this list: point, garden, view, north, park, south, pine, hill, hillside, hillcrest, country, grand, place, ridge, oak, west, river and wood. In the St Cloud area there are 6 apartments that start with Oak, 6 that start with North, 6 that start with Pine, 7 that start with West and so on. Oak Garden, Park Garden, Garden Square, Pine Pointe, Pointe West, West Stonehill, Hillside, Hillcrest, Hillcrest on the River, Windsong, Windsor, Birchwood, Woodhaven, and the two that makes me laugh: Edgewood Court and Edjwood Estates. Huh?
Anyway back to Pointe West. It really is on par with West Stonehill in amenities and space. However where W.S. had a compact washer and dryer this one had a room with full sized w/d with shelving. This also had two bathrooms. Yay the cat gets his own bathroom! Oh wait, fine we then have a guest bathroom. Um, another bathroom to clean? I don’t like cleaning one. (ask Amy) Still it is more for the same money. No pet rent and less pet deposit. Just a few feet from our apartment is a trash chute, so no more going outside to get rid of trash! And unlike the other places the community room and fitness center are all in the same building as the apartment.
Well you can tell we picked Pointe West. They are letting us move in April 24th and signing the lease for May 1st. All without charging us extra for moving in sooner. Oh this will be nice. Only thing is we have to give out more deposit. Oh well it’s like a savings right? So now all we have to decide is first floor or third floor? 1st floor is actually more like the second because of the “underground” parking. (it’s on a hill so our side has the hill) But we could jump around all we want because the floor is the garage ceiling. However if we went with the 3rd floor we could jerry-rig a satellite dish to face the south. According to Chris it is much cheaper and his hatred of Charter is mind-blowing. Though I love the idea of the 1st floor apartment because I believe in the summer It will be much cooler. I guess this is something we’ll have to do some research for and some converstaions about.
In the meantime I’m just excited we chose and got an apartment. Now all we have to do is go through our stuff, pack it all, move it over and unpack it all. Oh yeah piece of cake, right?!
Friday, January 28, 2011
Update on all the wedding weirdness
OH hi everyone. It’s been a very busy month for Chris and I. We figured once January hit we’d be swamped with ideas and things to do. So here are some random weird things we’ve been up to.
St Cloud Wedding Expo. (wasn’t worth it.) Honestly what we needed from there was A. travel agents, B. hotel accommodations for guests, C. jewelers for Chris’ ring, D. hair and beauty stuff for moi and entourage. (speaking like Miss Piggy makes me feel goofy and classy at the same time) Luckily I got our tickets from the newspaper at half off. So I spent 12 bucks getting us in. Which now that I think of it I forgot to take out of the savings for. Oooops oh well. Overall there were two hotels actually talking about accommodations, two jewelers (one of which we’ve been to), one hair salon and one travel agent. Pretty underwhelming. But Chris is a trooper and came with me. Awwww…
Invitations. Ugh. One of the two banes of my existence right now. I keep changing my mind about how I want them to look. Chris is awesome and at each turn says something like “whatever you want, you know my tastes.” Because in reality he does give a hoot. And that’s why I love him. Pocketfold? Belly band? All in one? Yes, yes, yes and no, no, no. Make up your mind woman! And then when I do and I get out my silhouette and it just doesn’t work or can’t do what I want it to. I can’t just draw and have that drawing transfer to the program. Irritating.
Apartments. Double ugh. The other of the two banes of my current existence. I wonder just how many there are in the st cloud area. I’m guessing a few hundred. No kidding. At least 200 and that’s not counting every building, that’s counting one name per complex. In a perfect world I’d just love to stay where we’re at. It feels like home and not much moving required. However I emailed someone about how much it would be and they haven’t gotten back to me. Needless to say we are paying 100-150 more than we would like if we stayed there. So far I’m loving Anchor Pointe down the road a bit but we must look at a first floor before anything else. (We looked at a vacant 3rd floor) We’ve been looking at so many online and three so far as of today in person. Saturday will be number 4 and Monday number 5. I got spoiled by only looking at one the last time Amy and I moved in together.
Little to no hours at my part time job. So instead I’ve been cleaning, going thru my stuff and donating what I can. Although now the hours are starting to pick up. So I’ll be right back at that extra hundred to two hundred bucks in the wedding fund per month. It’s better than nothing and I’m glad for it.
Bridesmaid dresses are now bought and on their way (from some place in China where underpaid workers put them together). The girls got them at David’s Bridal which I kept saying was like the walmart of wedding stores. I’ve been changing my mind since a lot of the bridal salons do not carry anything over a 16 (which fits like a 10 or 12). I think this is a bit unrealistic and a pain in the arse. Also they had a fairly good selection of different dresses. I want each girl to wear a different dress to fit their personality. It was only my fault for picking a true purple that was limited in selection. So David’s Bridal unless you screw something up big time I’m happy we got the dresses with you. (Oh and now my friend Shanda works at one in Iowa so I’m happy for her.)
And that in a nutshell is the big things going on right now. I’m overly stressed about this apartment hunting only because of all the decision making. As you can tell I’m terrible at making up my mind. And adding to that is all the specials going on out there. Most apartments have some sort of special going on. Only a couple I’ve talked to don’t. And they aren’t used to having vacancies so I can see why. Two particular specials are: One month free and 199 moves you in. The first is many times implemented as money off per month so the monthly rent looks small. This can be a bit deceiving if they word it wrong. Also the 199 moves you in seems to be your 1st month’s rent, deposit and sometimes application fee. This is nice and I can see why they did this. Generally they must give you interest with your deposit back. However if they state that the deposit is non-refundable OR the deposit is free instead of the first month’s rent being free they aren’t responsible for giving you back your deposit and any interest. Sneaky, huh? I’ve gotten pretty good at asking the right questions to get to the bottom of it. And it helps my mom has been a property manager for a while and taught me some of the things she knows.
St Cloud Wedding Expo. (wasn’t worth it.) Honestly what we needed from there was A. travel agents, B. hotel accommodations for guests, C. jewelers for Chris’ ring, D. hair and beauty stuff for moi and entourage. (speaking like Miss Piggy makes me feel goofy and classy at the same time) Luckily I got our tickets from the newspaper at half off. So I spent 12 bucks getting us in. Which now that I think of it I forgot to take out of the savings for. Oooops oh well. Overall there were two hotels actually talking about accommodations, two jewelers (one of which we’ve been to), one hair salon and one travel agent. Pretty underwhelming. But Chris is a trooper and came with me. Awwww…
Invitations. Ugh. One of the two banes of my existence right now. I keep changing my mind about how I want them to look. Chris is awesome and at each turn says something like “whatever you want, you know my tastes.” Because in reality he does give a hoot. And that’s why I love him. Pocketfold? Belly band? All in one? Yes, yes, yes and no, no, no. Make up your mind woman! And then when I do and I get out my silhouette and it just doesn’t work or can’t do what I want it to. I can’t just draw and have that drawing transfer to the program. Irritating.
Apartments. Double ugh. The other of the two banes of my current existence. I wonder just how many there are in the st cloud area. I’m guessing a few hundred. No kidding. At least 200 and that’s not counting every building, that’s counting one name per complex. In a perfect world I’d just love to stay where we’re at. It feels like home and not much moving required. However I emailed someone about how much it would be and they haven’t gotten back to me. Needless to say we are paying 100-150 more than we would like if we stayed there. So far I’m loving Anchor Pointe down the road a bit but we must look at a first floor before anything else. (We looked at a vacant 3rd floor) We’ve been looking at so many online and three so far as of today in person. Saturday will be number 4 and Monday number 5. I got spoiled by only looking at one the last time Amy and I moved in together.
Little to no hours at my part time job. So instead I’ve been cleaning, going thru my stuff and donating what I can. Although now the hours are starting to pick up. So I’ll be right back at that extra hundred to two hundred bucks in the wedding fund per month. It’s better than nothing and I’m glad for it.
Bridesmaid dresses are now bought and on their way (from some place in China where underpaid workers put them together). The girls got them at David’s Bridal which I kept saying was like the walmart of wedding stores. I’ve been changing my mind since a lot of the bridal salons do not carry anything over a 16 (which fits like a 10 or 12). I think this is a bit unrealistic and a pain in the arse. Also they had a fairly good selection of different dresses. I want each girl to wear a different dress to fit their personality. It was only my fault for picking a true purple that was limited in selection. So David’s Bridal unless you screw something up big time I’m happy we got the dresses with you. (Oh and now my friend Shanda works at one in Iowa so I’m happy for her.)
And that in a nutshell is the big things going on right now. I’m overly stressed about this apartment hunting only because of all the decision making. As you can tell I’m terrible at making up my mind. And adding to that is all the specials going on out there. Most apartments have some sort of special going on. Only a couple I’ve talked to don’t. And they aren’t used to having vacancies so I can see why. Two particular specials are: One month free and 199 moves you in. The first is many times implemented as money off per month so the monthly rent looks small. This can be a bit deceiving if they word it wrong. Also the 199 moves you in seems to be your 1st month’s rent, deposit and sometimes application fee. This is nice and I can see why they did this. Generally they must give you interest with your deposit back. However if they state that the deposit is non-refundable OR the deposit is free instead of the first month’s rent being free they aren’t responsible for giving you back your deposit and any interest. Sneaky, huh? I’ve gotten pretty good at asking the right questions to get to the bottom of it. And it helps my mom has been a property manager for a while and taught me some of the things she knows.
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