Words that are one word:
meantime
earful
Words that are two words:
every day
Unless, that is, you’re using the word “everyday,” which is an adjective used to describe a daily activity/thing.
Examples:
For Steph, dry skin is an everyday problem.
She has to put lotion on her hands every day.
I’ve been calling people i don’t know EVERY DAY for the past week and a half trying to get this thing and that thing all figured out and hooked up and re-checked and working properly. The weird-flushing toilet. The non-operational door keys. The new cell phone line. Oh my god, the new cell phone line. The wireless internet. Everything is finally working, i think. We just need our window shades and couches to be delivered now. And we need to hang things on the walls.
One EVERYDAY annoyance is the fact that there’s some clattery noise coming from the radiator or the windows or something, which drives me NUTS. I’m about to start wearing headphones constantly. Sleeping is especially difficult, no thanks to the light pouring in through the window above our front door from the brilliant beams out in the hallway. Whose awesome idea was THAT?
The stress will fade away soon, and i’ll start bragging about what an amazing place i live in now. I promise.
I don’t have any pictures to post, for several reasons: 1. I’ve lost my cameraphone. 2. My CF card reader is still packed away somewhere, and 3. I haven’t taken any pictures this week, since my life is in utter chaos and really isn’t photogenic at the moment.
Okay, maybe “utter chaos” is a little strong. Here’s the story: i packed all my stuff up last week, and on Friday Nathan and i started taking SUV-loads of my crap from the old place at Franklin Court down to the new loft downtown. I lost count around six. I cannot understand how all of my stuff fit in three small sedan-loads and one U-Haul for the furniture just seven months ago. I suppose a U-Haul is pretty huge, but i swear i’d already moved most of the boxes by then. All i’ve acquired since is a dresser and bedside table. And some odds and ends – but honestly. It doesn’t add up in my mind.
Saturday we finished moving all the furniture with a little help from Nathan’s family and friends, and we cleaned the old apartment thoroughly, turned the lights off, shut the door and turned in the keys. It was far more emotional than we had anticipated. Perhaps it was just the finality of those fore-mentioned actions – i’ve never really done all of that. Last time i left my roommate to do all the cleaning and key-returning. The dorm rooms i had were never difficult to leave. The move out of our house a couple summers ago was a slow, transitional process and i was damn grateful to be done with it by the end. I haven’t cried about leaving a dwelling probably since we moved away from Eugene. And i was only in this place for seven months.
I guess it was partly the fact that it was my first and only place all to myself, and it was a symbol of my independence. But more importantly, some memories were made there that will probably have significance for the rest of my life. The rest of our lives.
I park my car now three blocks away from the loft at Nathan’s workplace, and when we were returning from it Saturday night we managed to be locked out of our new building. The hard keys don’t work in the outside doors and the key-cards they gave us also failed to work, due to some error in setting them up. The garage door opener is currently the only way for us to enter the building, and that, of course, was in the car. Luckily someone came to visit a friend, and we followed him as he was buzzed-in.
We spent some time yesterday putting things away, and the loft is slowly starting to feel like home. We have no blinds yet, so the giant window-wall exposes us to the inanimate brick wall across the alley. We’ve purchased a sofa-and-loveseat set which will be delivered next weekend. The cable and internet were not ready for us and won’t be until Wednesday, and we can’t yet use our washer and dryer since they require some bracket in order to be stacked, and will be hooked up upon the installation of that item. We don’t know when. Our stock of clean clothes is running dangerously low, but i refuse to go to a laundromat.
More updates to come in a few days. I’m going to be very difficult to reach until i get a replacement for my phone. 
I had just been thinking how grateful i was to have that thing, actually, since Nathan’s phone was damaged on Friday and he had to buy a replacement. I lost mine the next day, and really can’t figure out where it could be. It’s dead, of course. Phones only get lost when they’re desperately low on battery power.
My current lease is up in March. Here’s a photo of what may very well be my next home:
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…
Here are some interior photos of the new place. It’s extremely difficult to photograph an interior without distorting it to look bigger than it actually is, so i apologize for not being very talented with that. It is pretty big and empty, though, other than the bathroom and the kitchen.
This is what you see when you walk in the front door
What you see from the other side of the room
Dining nook. The table really wouldn’t fit any other way.
My bedroom – and the awesome dresser i scored on Craigslist
The other bedroom still has all my boxes piled up in it
The bathroom is so tiny i can’t even photograph it properly. That green rug is right in front of the bathtub, if you can imagine that. There are cabinets and closets that i didn’t bother to photograph in the bedrooms & hallway. It’s pretty nice, somewhat lonely but mom comes over and keeps me company quite a bit, and i’ve even had some friends over. My birthday party was pretty sweet. 
There’s been a lot of drama going on in my life recently, and if you haven’t already heard all about it you should give me a call.