Water under the sink

Ever wake up with an "it's going to rain today" headache? That was me this morning. I've been trying out this new alarm SpinMe, which requires that I get out of bed and spin around twice to make it stop making noise. It's meant for people who have trouble getting up in the morning. Like me.

Anyway,  so I was off to a good start. I was up so early, in fact, that I had time to clean up the kitchen a  bit before GoTime.

So I went under my sink to grab a scrubby sponge to clean off the stove. And discovered the bin that I store my cleaners in was filled with brown water. Yep. The same bin that was filled with brown water last week when I called Ye Old Landlord.

And that's the same sink that she texted me about last week and said was an "easy-peasy" fix when the plumber came out.

Not so easy peasy. It's still leaking. And now, the bucket overfloweth and I have a big mess.

So, I went from zero to 60 mad.

And J chose this time, this early morning, pissed off time to say,

"This is why I don't want to buy an old house."

Always say, "Yes, and..." (Weekend update)

I'm so excited to announce that Jason invited me to join him for a Comedy Sportz Houston six-week improv course. Jason and I were in Comedy Sportz High School league together and I'm really looking forward to the class and to spending some time with Jason. One of the main teachings of improv is to always say, "Yes, and" when given a suggestion.

In other news, this past week, I went to my first-ever Texas Exes Alumni Chapter meeting. A things have shaken out, I spend a lot of time with Aggies (thanks J) and really don't have many Longhorn friends in Houston. I really enjoyed that the chapter meeting was a lot like the Kappa Delta meetings of yester-year. Shouldn't surprise me as the president of the chapter was Greek himself and is running the meeting the only way he knows how - like a fraternity meeting.

J threw a party this Saturday and we mixed many friend crowds. Always nerve-wracking, but it really went well. We had a few friends from Jarrod's office, friends from college, from church, and Gonzalo and his neighbor Eric. The night ended with a walk to House of Pies and a delicious Bayou Goo pie...which I then ate for breakfast Sunday morning.

Sunday afternoon J and I went to Bombay Pizza to eat and watch the World Cup game (I'm so glad that my "interest" in soccer has come to an end...).

I'm most proud of myself this week for painting and putting up these shelves in my bathroom. I was, however, a little overzealous and got red spray paint all over my cement porch. Oops. Sorry, Landlord Donna.

Because there's too much junk in my trunk

I am a frugal (read: cheap) person. So cheap that I sometimes skip over items at the Goodwill because I deem them to pricey.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have been known to spot a furniture item in or near the trashcan, remove it, and place it in my home.

A favorite example is the wooden bookshelf I picked out of a dumpster in college. The previous owners for some unknown reason had thrown eggs at the poor bookshelf and the left it in the summer heat. I felt a deep, strange pain for the piece of furniture. So, I hauled it up to my apartment, Clorox wiped it all down and now, five years later, it sits in my living room.

Furniture has soul. People buy furniture to make life better. If it’s good quality it’s passed down. My sister, Sarah, has a trunk from the early days of mom and dad’s marriage that she uses as a coffee table. I think I hold on to furniture because I see stories within it.

I think it all started when I was just a young girl and Mom would take me thrifting. Back in those days, the Goodwill had an awesome selection of furniture. If feel like you don’t see as much these days. I remember looking at this radically vibrant upholstered couch and thinking, ‘wow, someday when I’m a grown up I want to decorate my house in this cool stuff.’ I thought that would be the dream.

All of this is to say, I occasionally am a hoarder. I work hard to remind myself that things are just things, but I really struggle here. When I moved into my most recent apartment I went down a whole room. Well, more than that if you count the loss of overall square footage and closet space.

I’d like to think that I jigsawed everything into my apartment nicely. I will admit, however, that the day I moved I sat crying in my new home in a red vinyl wheeled chair that I’d pulled out of the dumpster at my old apartment as Jarrod tried to convince me that it “just won’t fit.”

(I tell you what, I can’t wait till the day I get to tell him that his 8 foot stuffed black bear “just won’t fit.”)

(For the record, that chair has since been described as the best part of my apartment. Thank you very much.)

The lesson that is working on my heart right now in the early days of 2014 is that just because something is cheap/free/a great deal/antique/will otherwise fill a landfill, doesn’t mean I need it in my home.

As a former poor college kid that’s still convinced that Santa Clause will come along one day and reclaim my adulthood, I’m finding it difficult to really take to heart that being an adult means sometimes leaving that really expensive Shark vacuum cleaner my neighbor left out for another dumpster diver.

So, I was really proud of myself this morning as I left for work and saw that a neighbor had put a very cute shelf out by the dumpster in the universal free-stuff-here spot. After I did a mental scan of my apartment, I realized I have no more space. And I walked on.

Here’s something that my friend Chelsea understands in a way that I hope to someday: If I don’t fill my home with garbage, I can be very intentional about my purchases and decorate with quality items that I will want to have in my home for years to come.

I’m still getting there. But working on it.