Two-car garage, washer and dryer, a quiet, nice neighborhood in Beaverdale, two bedrooms and a stone’s throw from the nearest bus stop. All for a good price. We went over to take a look last night and ended up signing the rental agreement. The only things missing from the house are a dishwasher and any semblance of taste in the bathroom. It has green tiles EVERYwhere, and the wall space is painted light blue. It also needs a good scrubbing and a new light fixture. Gross.

So we’re planning to go in in two weeks and start painting and replacing things (the bedroom is also a nice pastel pink at the moment). But what color goes with not-quite-teal green? I’ve created some palettes with the approximate hue along with black, for the color of our towels. I also have some old lavender towels from college that we don’t really use, purple hand towels and one pink bath towel. Anyway. Here are the options so far:

It’s hard to like any of them, really, but i haven’t come up with anything better yet. Any suggestions? Favorites? I’m leaning toward #2 myself, but to be honest i haven’t lived with that much color since my purple bedroom in high school. I’m a black-and-white kind of person (obviously).

This is a photo of one of the 111 City Lofts in downtown Des Moines. I went and looked at them last weekend and definitely fell in love…

When i went home from visiting my sister i was confronted by Dan about some things, and the conversation ultimately ended in us each going promptly to facebook and changing our relationship status from “In a relationship” to “Single”. The timing of it forced me to hastily pack a bag and return to Des Moines, find and sign a lease the following morning, and sneak back to Ames periodically to pack shit while Dan was out of the apartment. It’s still my apartment, of course, and i’m welcome there, only if the other resident happens to be around i’m greeted by cold silence the back of his head. Understandably.

So, one week, three trips to Ames and one overpriced Uhaul later i’ve got all of my stuff in my new apartment finally. I had thought that, having lived with a roommate in a small one-bedroom apartment and lost virtually everything that wasn’t in it, i didn’t have that much stuff left. My furniture filled a fourteen-foot truck and the rest took two carloads though, amazingly. Let me tell ya, walking fifty yards between the car and the front door over and over again in the middle of summer can make a person want to burn what’s left of her worldly possessions. Next time i’m hiring a moving crew, i don’t care how much it costs.

I owe a huge thank-you to Mike and Dan Falk, and of course to my Mama who not only helped me schlep my stuff around but has also provided companionship and food, and will most likely continue to do so. Maybe it’s just the fact that there are still boxes all over the place, but i really haven’t found the motivation to cook any sort of meal just for myself in this place yet. I don’t even have butter. And i don’t care.

I’m in the bottom right one there. The other buildings have cute landscaping around them, but not this one.

The new place is a two-bedroom, bigger than i need but with no dishwasher or garbage disposal or working air conditioner. There’s a constantly-crying baby next door and the laundry facility is in the basement of the next building. It has its drawbacks. I’ll post photos of the interior when i’ve put all this stuff away. I haven’t even found a bike rack yet, so my bicycle is taking up a big awkward chunk of my living room. The cable and internet will be hooked up tomorrow, and i think it will be a much more comfortable place with those distractions readily available. I’m thinking of getting a futon for the extra bedroom, so if you’re ever in Des Moines and need a place to stay, give me a call.

My sister Amy and her son Harper are visiting from Oregon right now. They arrived on Wednesday and the three of us and Mom had fun shopping around the East Village of Des Moines, going to see WALL-E, reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and generally hanging out. Friday evening Uncle Doug and Aunt Vicki had a little BBQ to celebrate, and of course their whole branch of the family was there. Saturday we drove out to Uncle Dave’s and visited with that bunch and Harper had fun playing with his second cousins. It had been a couple years since most of us had seen each other, and it was nice to be able to catch up.

That evening Mom, Amy and I went to see Ani DiFranco at The Capitol Theater in Davenport. I never cease to be amazed by how much she rocks. She was a little less talkative than the last time i saw her over in Iowa City with Emily last summer, but that’s okay.

I wish i’d taken pictures of all this stuff. Next time.

Yesterday Amy & Harps headed for Cedar Rapids and Mom & I came back to DM. On our way we stopped at the Amana colonies for lunch and picked up some blueberry wine. I hadn’t been around there in quite a few years. It’s really well-maintained and cute, but it was so hot that we didn’t stick around for long.

I saw some paintings by this Chicago artist Laura Lee Junge in a little gallery there, and i thought they were really neat:

On an unrelated note, my current goal in life is to decide on an apartment to move to in Des Moines, which is proving to be a major headache. But i got my new camera phone today, so playing with that should relieve some stress for sure.