The Meeks Vs Ownership

Its funny how the little things seem to make all the difference. As of the last 5 days, we are officially not living in the village and are getting situated in our new home. I still get rather giddy at the fact that my washer and dryer are on the same floor and right next to each other. I’m excited to do laundry. We eat food, rinse off the plates and put them in the dishwasher. The sink stays empty as much as possible now and everything feels like its coming together in a non-cinderblock wall home.

I can put holes wherever I want to. My stuff looks crazily uncluttered. Well, at least on the main level where everything is coming together really nicely.

The other level, well I try not to think about it, the boxes strewn everywhere and it looks like my closets threw up clothes. Not to mention getting rid of our Full size tetanus ridden, rain stick sounding bed and relying on a King Memory foam mattress. As of this moment in time there is no frame or box for. Its on the ground and while it is ridiculously comfy and has made my back feel better in 4 nights than it had felt for a long time. But, its going to throw all my daydreaming décor ideas out the window. Sigh, I used to think King Size was blingy and in your face and now I get to experience it first hand. It is definitely a good thing and we are so lucky that we could get a replacement mattress before I got the back of an 80 year old over night. However, we still have many disagreements, the mattress and I, about space utilization and practicality.

About these insanely awesome little things that make my heart flutter with trepidation is our new vacuum. Our old one broke shortly after the Fall and enduring helping 2-3 people move it deserved to end its services.

So, we got a silly device that makes me exceedingly happy.

We got an iRobot Roomba that vacuums all by itself. I feel like I’m watching a video game when its on but yay for the Roomba and being able to be the little vacuum that could in my life.

Sure it makes me feel lazy, but seeing as we found it for a steal it makes it all that much more awesome to me.

This little gadget got under my furniture where a normal vacuum wouldn’t and I could be doing many other things whilst the little bot works.



Roomba = time saver; Time Saver = a happy non burned out or overwhelmed Angie.

Yes this is a very, very good thing.

January Brought a Heaping Helping of Change

So some interesting things are a foot. I feel like I’m finally starting to wake up from last semester. I mean calling last semester hard is a huge understatement, but because of it this semester feels so surreal. My brain feels so free and I feel ambitious again.

So I think I need to recap the awful events of January, our apartment flooded.

Did you know certain types of bath valves can TURN themselves ON?! Me either.
Did you know that floods in winter are much worse than floods in the summer?
Did you know that cinderblock holds in moisture once introduced to it and grows mold ridiculously fast?

The night before our flood I came home and the water in the tub was running. I was really freaked out and went through a plethora of possible reasons for this. Among them I was really wondering if Ryan had left it on, however, I knew he’d gone to work over 4 hours ago and at the speed the water was filling up the tub there was no way that it had been on that long.

I knew maintenance had been banging around in the apartment below us that was newly vacated and wondered if they had come in and done something and forgotten to turn off the tub.

I even theorized that our neighbors who we’d been having a few issues with because of our connected bathroom sink plumbing had come over and turned on the tub…. Yeah I wrote that one off pretty quick too.

So the next day around 11 am when Ryan and I were both at work maintenance called us and told us our apartment had flooded. The damage was minimal, and the water pooled to the front door and didn’t go in our bedroom at all. I was still in hysterics and felt a lot the same way I felt when our little Honda had been stolen. I didn’t feel safe. Maintenance replaced our valves with a different model and despite that, I’ve been really neurotic about what is left on the ground because I can’t help but wonder if it could still happen again.

Yeah the above had a lot to do with our more aggressive actions and decisions to move, but I’m not going to say we haven’t had our fair share of great and awesome things to happen. We’ve had lots. The flood only really destroyed our sofa. Other than that we were really, really lucky. My laptop that could have been ruined was safely up high where it was untouched.

But the last straw for me was finding mold in my craft closet. I didn’t find it until a week and a half after the initial flood. I was getting excited to craft again; I had a craft date set with my friend on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the night before I was gathering all my items together. I grabbed something touching the cinderblock and it was dripping wet.

Feverishly I began grabbing everything away from the wall and saw more mold than I think I’ve ever seen in my entire life. The air was navy blue. This was my creating area and it had been tampered with. Then I started hyperventilating. Ryan came in and helped me to the front room where I laid, curled up in a ball breathing shallowly.

He bleached all of my plastic containers clean and though we had to throw a way my wicker basket and a few contents, a lot of it was salvageable.

I’m looking at the move as a chance to grow and change. The timing really couldn’t be better for us. I honestly feel like if we hadn’t been on the ball about looking to move that something more catastrophic would have happened. This isn’t to say we didn’t have great times in the village, we did, and we made great friends over the 3 years we’ve been there for.

It’s just that it’s time for some dramatic changes in our lives as we graduate and figure out what chapters are up ahead.

One of my favorite novels of all time sums this up really well where the text reads:

But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our lives?.... If we cannot, if we believe that we must do things as we have always done them, then we must either fight to remain as we are, or die. the Fool in Robin Hobb’s The Golden Fool

I'm a big fan of being alive and doing new and invigorating things. I'm highly looking forward to all the new things to experience in these upcoming years. Why should I be complacent if there are things I can do today to better myself in the future? So this is how we make Lemonade out of Lemons, and I'm excited for whats up ahead as well as whats happening in a matter of days.

So what big changes do you have up ahead and how are you getting ready for them now?

Ducks In A Row

So now that all of our ducks are in a row, I can finally share one of my particularly awesome good news items.

We're buying a townhome.

Most of you didn't even know we were looking, ah but we were and found a lovely place to call home.

We put in our 30 days at Married Student Housing and we're on our way to the joys of being a home owner.

I love the location, how its older and how it just feels so right. We know we could have gone new, but thats just not who we are and that above is Angie and Ryan in so many ways.

After the joys of MSH can you blame us for being ready for this next step?