War of the Worlds

Penny is getting to know the new neighbors -

When my broker tells me we didn't get the apartment

Livin' in Sin

Sometime this month, Craig and I are moving in to a new apartment.. yes, together. (with P.Nelly of course) Right at this very moment, we are waiting to hear about an apartment we have put an application in for, with nervous anticipation.

But, it is also very exciting - here, let me show you:

WHAT IT FEELS LIKE WHEN MY

RENT CHECK CLEARS MY BANK ACCOUNT

KNOWING MY RENT NEXT MONTH

WILL BE HALF OF WHAT IT WAS

LAST 4 DIGIT RENT CHECK GOIN' OUT TODAY, Y'ALL!

LET'S DANCE!

The most liberating thing I've done in a LONG time

Let the countdown to freedom begin!!!

"Don't let the..."

Just me and Penny, battling the night together

In the morning, Penny wakes up around 5:00am. She's usually in an extremely frisky mood and snuggles, swats, and scratches me awake every 25 minutes until I decide to exit the bed around 7:30am. Two weeks ago, it was a morning just like all of the others since she came into my life. She was playing with strands of my hair, I rolled over, facing her and saw her resting on the other pillow. It was barely light outside, but I could see her, ready to pounce. I reached my hand over to pat her head, letting her know that I was indeed awake. As I reached over, I saw a blur of movement right in front of my face. Startled, I sat up, turned on the light and looked. There it was, one of my biggest fears, a bed bug.

I snatched a tissue, grabbed the bug and quickly looked up what exactly they look like before sealing it in an airtight jar. I called my super who called an exterminator and scheduled an appointment for the next day. THE NEXT DAY! I had to keep a bed bug in a jar overnight and sleep in the very bed where it was found! (ew!) I woke up the next morning eaten to pieces, met the exterminator who confirmed that it was, in fact, a bed bug.

The extermination was scheduled for the following Tuesday and I was given a long list of things that needed to be done to prepare my apartment for extermination. Every piece of clothing had to be laundered, washed and dried on the highest temperature setting and placed in airtight plastic bags. Everything else in the apartment, inside of every drawer, cabinet, closet, had to be removed and put in bags. The mattress and box spring needed to be placed against the wall and the bed frame dismantled. All wall adornments had to be removed and bagged. And, Penny had to be out of the apartment for a full 48 hours after the extermination.

Because of some issues, the extermination was rescheduled every single day until Friday afternoon. And last night, after being back in my apartment for only two days, I found another bug crawling across the bed.

It has been a completely exhausting situation, both physically and emotionally. I don't sleep at night because the thought of blood sucking bugs crawling in my sheets makes me nauseous. I feel disgusting, like someone who should be isolated from society. My skin crawls every minute of every single day because of the paranoia. My immune system is shot because of the lack of sleep I've experienced over the past two weeks and I've been overrun with sickness. In short, I feel like I'm drowning. Every aspect of my life feels like I'm drowning. My work life, my relationship, being a pet owner, physically, emotionally, and mentally. My work life is suffering because my exhaustion and constant fear is inhibiting my ability to concentrate.

The tiny amount of relief I get is when I am able to stay with Craig in his apartment. But my paralyzing fear of accidentally transferring the parasites to his apartment causes my heart to race and I begin to panic again. Though, he has been unbelievably amazing and supportive during this time. I certainly wouldn't have made it this far without him.

I thought I had the opportunity to get my apartment and my life back together and now after finding the bug after the extermination, I know there will be no rest for several more days (maybe even weeks).

I've had bites on my arms, chest, face, feet, and legs. And, they make mosquito bites seem like nothing at all. They're fiery, burning, itchy whelps that are a constant reminder of what is beneath the sheets.

It's my hope that I will actually be able to get in touch with the exterminators tomorrow and arrange for a time to re-exterminate sometime soon. Until then, I'll continue to scratch, launder, and do everything I possibly can to make sure they are really gone... this time.

DIY Headboard

If you live in New York City, it's likely that you're renting your space. Because of small apartments and rules stipulated in leases, it's difficult to make a space your own. I was able to paint my bedroom in my Murray Hill apartment and decided to paint it shortly after moving in. I painted two opposing walls a deep, charcoal gray to add a little warmth and depth to the room. Leaving the two remaining walls white allowed the darker color to not overpower.

Still, even after painting, there was a definite missing piece behind the bed. I needed a headboard. Sure, I could go out and purchase a headboard, but with limited funds, that wasn't really an option. Also, I always have to consider the fact that I might move again. Would I be able to move a headboard and would I be able to find another space large enough for it? My last apartment certainly wasn't!

So, I came up with an idea. I decided that I would make the "illusion" of a headboard by painting directly on the wall behind the bed.

The project itself cost me 5 whole dollars. Home Depot makes "tester" size paints, you can choose whatever color of whatever brand of paint you want and they give you a small jar of it so you can paint a patch and see if you like a color. And, at $2.95, you can't beat the price! For this, I decided to paint two lines (one white, one light blue) using painters tape to give clean lines.

With the bed in its usual space, I marked the wall to determine where I wanted the edge of the "headboard" to be. From there, I measured, making marks of where I wanted each point to be. Then, I simply connected the dots. After taping, I went over each piece with a level to make sure the lines were straight and even.

Then I got to painting. I painted the interior, smaller, line blue and the larger outer line white. I think the differing colors adds some definition to the effect.

So here's the finished product. I don't normally have yellow sheets on my bed (usually I have a set of gray ones on there - they match the walls) but I changed them to something more cheerful during the snow storms.



Personally, I love it. I think it adds something to the wall and makes the bed more of a focal point than it was before. It was a super easy project that anyone could do. And, you could easily paint frames around hanging pictures, windows, or anything!

...it will make your skin crawl

If you know me, you know that there aren't many things that really freak me out. Yes, ticks are disgusting, bloodsucking monsters that I would rather not interact with. But, for the most part, there's nothing that I'm really "afraid" of. Not snakes, not bugs, not spiders... until now. Yesterday, I had the most frightening bug experience ever - I mean, I reacted so strongly, I'm surprised I still have a working computer (because I flinged it off the bed).

I woke up leisurely on Sunday morning, pulled my laptop over to my bed and started surfing the internet... I heard some movement in my closet. Figuring it was the rest of my clothing getting ready to come crashing down, I ignored it - let it fall, I figured, I'll clean it up later. The sound went away, but I heard some other noises which I figured were the pigeons outside - until I saw something the size of Rhode Island crawling on my bed. I flipped out, trying to get away from it and at the same time, get it off my bed - I ended up flicking it to the floor (where it went inside my rainboot) and ran out of my room.

I took a second to compose myself before tackling the beast (which was now lost somewhere in the floor of my room) I grabbed a bowl from the kitchen and went back in to trap it under the bowl. After hearing it near a plastic bag on the floor, I ended up getting it under the bowl. I had to wait until Carrie got home to help me get rid of the thing because I just couldn't stomach it. I've never had anything that made my skin crawl like that.

So you want to know what it was? I have a photo:

This exact same creature was in our apartment on November 10th, 2008 (when these photos were taken) in the bathroom. I saw it crawling on the wall - and Carrie and I tried to kill the monster. Apparently, we did not kill it as we thought (by crushing it behind the bathroom cabinet) and it has been living in my closet (::shudder::) Look at it! It's HUGE!! And it was crawling on me! AND IN MY BED!!! Oh, man... it gives me chills.

(Pardon all the hair on our bathroom floor - Carrie and I shed a lot)

Gross. Yet another reason why I'll be getting a new apartment in September. Note: The roach was flushed after being removed from the bowl.

To give you an idea of just how big this thing is/was, here's a photo of it next to our bathroom trashcan -

When it was in our bathroom before, Carrie tried to kill it while I took pictures - it made for some hilarious pictures, and it shows Carrie's bravery. I was the coward.

Apartment Mess

Every day, I'm worried I'll get back to my apartment and the building will have collapsed. The kitchen floor slopes downward at, at least, a 20 degree angle, the door frames are strained and I'm pretty sure one day the oven is going to fall through the floor. Yes, I live in a "Pre-War" apartment that probably should have been bulldozed years ago.

While I had considered staying in the apartment for another year, mainly as a reaction to not wanting to move my stuff AGAIN, my decision was definitely made yesterday. I will not live in this apartment after September. I still don't know if I'll be leaving New York City, but I'll definitely be moving out of this place!

Yesterday morning, I was awakened by a "drip-drip-drip" sound. Since it has been raining for over a week (some days with some pretty strong storms), the sound of water isn't that unusual. Once I came closer to consciousness, I realized that the dripping sound was coming from INSIDE the apartment. I quickly got out of bed to determine what the problem was and it didn't take me long to find it - there was over an inch of yellow water on the bathroom floor. The water was coming through the ceiling in 4 different places. After calling the emergency maintenance line (who, by the way, aren't very nice!) someone finally came out to determine what the problem was. Apparently, the man living upstairs decided to do some laundry in his bathtub, overflowing the tub and bursting a pipe between the floors. Perfect.

After they stopped the water, I went to work after I was promised that someone would be coming by to clean up the standing water in our apartment. When I got back that night, no one had come to the apartment and I had a HUGE mess to clean up - I used basically every towel I owned to get the water up out of the floor, and then had to take all of the towels (plus 50 pounds of water) all to the laundromat to wash them.

To make matters worse, I got back to my apartment only to find my closet racks had collapsed - leaving all of my clothes in the floor. (sorry for the crappy camera phone picture, my camera was buried under the mess) I had to move all of my clothes into Carrie's room in order to get the hardware pieces out. Now, I have to figure out how to get my closet rack back up (or something back up) so that I can store my clothing! It's definitely going to be interesting, with no man in my life to play "handy man", I'll be doing it all by myself. I don't want to spend a lot of money fixing it, because I don't plan on living in this apartment in 4 months --- uggghhhhhhh I guess I'll be spending time at Home Depot this weekend...