Laundry Room

When we moved into this apartment back in March, one of the most awesome parts of it is that it came with washer and dryer hookups. So, I could have my own washer and dryer. However, we have never had the money to get them. Every time I would go into Lowes, Home Depot or even Sears, I would price them, then leave because well, they are expensive. I started looking and Craigslist, and Facebook Swap groups for used sets, but we have no truck to pick them up. It was disappointing. We had to find somewhere that delivered.

My birthday is coming up next month, and the only thing I wanted was a way to do my own laundry. My husband currently spends his days off over at his mother's house, doing our laundry. He doesn't remember specific washing instructions I give him, and he left my favorite pair of my shoes over there a few weeks ago, that no one is able to find now. I felt like I need my own way to do laundry.

I considered the Wonderwash. It looks awesome, easy on water, and requires no electricity. I was concerned about the drying time. I feel like the clothes would be soaking wet, and I have no where to dry them. It would be awesome drying outside on a clothesline, but... Well, I live in an apartment. The clothes would have to dry inside somewhere. That being said, the Wonderwash wasn't logical for me.

Tyler told me to start looking for a used set. I called around and found one. They were still way much more than we wanted to pay, but they delivered. We went up there, and purchased them. When we were paying for them, it was an additional $75 for delivery and what she called "installation". This was cool because we never installed a set before, and if installation was included with delivery, that was even better.

Guy came, dropped off the appliances in the middle of the laundry room, and handed us hoses. And left. My husband and I looked at each other after he left, dumbfounded. We both were like, wasn't he supposed to install them? I called the company back, to question why didn't he install them. Apparently, delivery was free, but if they bring it into the house and supply the hoses, that's what they call "Full Service Installation." therefore, he did what he was supposed to and we were not entitled for a refund. I was pissed. Maybe don't use the word installation to people? He paid $75 for what we thought was installation, but really was just to wheel the things 10 yards into the house and putting hoses into our hands. Ugh. Would never purchase another used appliance from them again.

But anyway, he hooked up the washer and dryer, and I spend the whole day doing all my laundry. I love having clean clothes. And I love having my washer and dryer in my own apartment.

I started to knit a grocery bag caddy a while ago, and finally finished it in time for the appliances to get here. Was trying to pretty up my new laundry room, and it turned out pretty nice! I like it, and it holds a ton of bags in it. Didn't require much yarn, either. I am thinking that I'll revisit this pattern around Christmas, because they will make wonderful gifts.

The dryer doesn't go all the way to the wall because our vent is somewhat where it isn't supposed to be, so we have to have a tubing system of some kind back there, which won't let it go all the way back. It is kind of a tight squeeze in there, really only enough room to turn around in. I could, possibly move the wash machine back further,but my OCD wants them side by side. Add the cat litter box in this room, and it feels even smaller.

So pretty! Even with all the drama of that day they came, I love my washer and dryer!

Almost 5 Months

Amelia is a little over almost 5 months old today, so I think it is time for a little progress report.

We have been visiting the dog park almost every weekend now that she is fully vaccinated and healthy. She loves the dog park! She runs and plays with all the dogs, and is so exhausted when we get back to the car, which is awesome. Occasionally, we will run into a mean dog, but she will just run to try to get away. When we see it happen, we leash her and take her to another part of the park. I worried about her at first because it was a huge park, and I knew if she ran from me, I would never catch her. But, she is the one who never lets us out of her sight.

She has begun to lose her baby teeth as well! The other day, I had given her a bully stick, and had a bit of a freak put moment when I found blood on it, and on the carpet as well. I looked over her body, and found she had lost one of her larger, back teeth. After cleaning the mess, I later found the tooth on the floor (by stepping on it). As weird as it sounds, I was really excited to find one, so that I could keep it, yay! I think the majority of her teeth are her adult ones by now, she lost 2 of the sharp canine teeth, so now I think we only have the remaining top canines left to go.

We are doing loads better with her chasing the cats. We started training what I call "bad no cat, good no cat". I put a bunch of little treats in a small baby food jar, and pretty much kept it with me at all times. When a cat was walking by, and Amelia would stare at it, I would say "hey" or something similar to get her attention and look at me. When she turned her head to me, I would say "good no cat!" And give her a treat. My theory was that if I can praise her for looking away from the cat, she might see that as a not wanting to look at the cat?

It has been working really well so far. The other day, she was laying on the carpet with a toy, and a cat came up to her. I watched the entire encounter, waiting for Amelia to give chase, but she never did. The cat first started to sniff her tail, then her legs, and slowly sniffed up to her face, but Amelia never moved. When the cat started to walk away, I thew a huge "good no cat" party for her, and gave her an almost handful of treats for that one. I was so proud.

Occasionally, we will still have a "bad no cat", when she will start chasing one, or walk up to the cat, trying to mouth him. When that happens, I will tell her "bad no cat" and lead her into her crate. We only leave her there for about 5 or 10 minutes, then start the process again. We are getting it, bits at a time!

I have been wanting to try and wean her off of the crate at night. So a couple nights ago, we wanted to test her a bit We brought everything we could up off of the floor and out of reach, and closed the bedroom door off. My husband did not want her out at night because he was certain she would have an accident on the floor. My concerns were that she would find something to destroy while I was sleeping. She did a lot of getting on the bed and then getting back off, but eventually, she went into her crate by herself and slept there. We closed the crate up a little while afterwards. Confusing because she will whine for a while after we put her to bed, but she goes and sleeps by herself last night? I don't know.

We are slowly getting it with her. We have had our bad days, and our good days. Lately I feel like we have more good days than bad.

Nail Polish Collection

I used to chew on my nails for the majority of my life. It was really bad sometimes because I would chew them down so low that my nail beds would actually bleed. That isn't to mention the horrible, countless hang nails that I would get. After dealing with them for so many years, my new years resolution last year was to simply stop biting on my nails.

I went and got acrylic nails done, thinking it would help me. It kind of did. I did not bite on my nails, but having to pay $20 to get them done every couple of weeks was not going to do it for me. Besides, I wanted real nails. I vowed to let the acrylics grow out, and then work on strengthening my real nails.

Once I removed the fake nails, my real nails were incredibly weak. They were not even breaking because they were so weak, they were bending instead. They had the feel of a drinking straw. It was discouraging. I tried many different strengthening products, spent a lot of money on them. But what worked for me was moisturizing my cuticles with Burt's Bees Cuticle Balm, and the NailTek system. They slowly became stronger.

The biting itself was rather easy to stop, once I really set my mind to it. My theory was that if I kept my nails painted, I could pick off the polish, but not stick my fingers in my mouth. I figured, as long as I was picking polish off, I wasn't destroying my nails. It worked. Eventually, I stopped picking at my polish, and had no interest in biting my nails.

However, once I started buying nail polish, I had trouble stopping. There was always a color that I didn't have, a new collection I didn't have, or a creative glitter that I felt I needed. This lead to a huge explosion of nail polish that I accumulated.

Recently, I found that I had nail polish scattered through the house, and decided to take some time yesterday and reorganize them all back into my shelves. I was shocked at how much it grew since the last time I did this.

So now, I will give you all a peek into the most intimate part of my life... my nail polish collection. It has gotten so overwhelming in the past year and a half that I am almost embarrassed of it. But Anyway, here we go!

This is what a large portion of the nail polish community call a Melmer. It is basically a drawer storage system that they sell at Michael's and craft stores. I believe it is mainly supposed to be for scrapbooking storage, but it is fantastic size for nail polish bottles. I store all of mine in one of these.

It holds a lot! I really wanted a Helmer from Ikea, which is twice the size, but it would have cost a fortune to get it to me. I would have had it shipped to me.

Now, for a closer look into each drawer!

This is the first drawer, which I affectionately call "the fire drawer." Meaning, if the building catches on fire, or some other catastrophe happens, this is the drawer I would pull out and take with me to safety. It holds my more expensive polishes, my indies and other ones that are more difficult to get. Ones that I have ordered from Etsy (such as Different Dimension) and others which I had to jump through hoops to get delivered to the United States (like my A England's and Emily de Molly). A lot of these would be difficult to replace.

The second drawer is more common ones, ones I picked up on a whim, clearance or sales. There is a lot of China Glaze in here, because the Sally's Beauty Supply near me used to have good sales and I found them on clearance sometimes. I would pick up several at a time.

The last drawer simply is Julep and Essie polishes (and a couple other randoms that won't fit in the second drawer). I used to subscribe to the Julep Maven box, but found that the price of the polish was expensive compared to the size of the product you got. I much rather preferred their beauty products. Anyway, this drawer has the most room left because I strictly only buy Essie nail polish now. After all the brands I have tried and owned, I found that my nails will only allow Essie polish to stay on longer than a day. Everything else, does not last longer than 24 hours. I am told that my nails are too oily and won't keep nail polish on. So, the majority of nail polish I apply will just peel off in sheets.

Up on top of my drawers, are my accessories. I have a modpodge of everything up here. Cuticle pushers, nail files, a stamping kit that I never used, and even swatches. Also here are all my top coats, strengtheners, glossers, bonders and base coats.

So there you have it! While I was organizing everything and had all the polishes sitting on the table, both my husband and I was in disbelief. It is one thing to see them all tucked neatly under the bathroom sink in a set of drawers, but when they take up a huge portion of your dining room table, looking at you in the face, you view them a little differently. Hah!