Moving Forward!

Hello everyone! Long time no post…sorry for the hiatus; I’m BACK!

So just a quick update on what I’ve been up to since I last wrote:

1. I conquered my finals, finished up the school year, and passed all my classes with As and Bs. I got an A- in my religious studies class, so thanks to all of you for following my blog and helping me succeed!
2. I graduated from UC Davis! Woo! officially a college graduate! Only took me $20,000 but whatevs!
3. I’m now an intern in the State Capitol for the Assembly Floor Majority Leader. I won’t discuss this too much on here since it’s not generally wise to blog about work related things, although suffice to say I’m loving the job and my coworkers.
4. I moved to Sacramento! Yeah yeah yeah, it’s only 20 minutes away from Davis, but it’s a whole new world when coupled with new roommates and a new job. After much consideration and a hard, serious look at finances I realized it would cost me about $1,000 less to live in Sacramento than in Davis (based on expected rent, gas, commute and food costs). Also, I feel that it’s worth mentioning that these four events occurred within three days of each other. Yes, I took finals, moved, started a new job and graduated all in the same week. Am I a bad-ass or what?

So I abandoned my blog after I finished my class since I didn’t quite know what to talk about anymore (even though I feel that the recognition of happiness is an ever-important pursuit, I just couldn’t sustain my interest). But I finally decided what I’d like the next phase of my blog to focus on.

As I sat here on the couch in my new apartment this evening after spending two hours cleaning the kitchen, it dawned on me that I needed to blog about my apartment (and new life in general, except for work-related things). I plan on blogging about my apartment because I feel it’s blog worthy and I can already anticipate many interesting stories about it. So let me begin with some background information on the apartment and my new roommates:

On the day before Mother’s Day I talked to Erin about the possibility of me subleasing my room in Davis for the summer and moving to Sacramento to be closer to my new job. She said it was a good idea but that I should post an ad for my room ASAP. So I went home after our lovely brunch and posted a few ads on Craigslist and other sites. The rest of the day proceeded as normal and I forgot all about my posts. Later that night my mother convinced me to go home for mother’s day, but I lied and told her that I wasn’t going to go home- I ended driving down and surprising her anyway. While driving to Fresno I received an email from a girl asking to sublease my room. I later determined that she was legit and it wasn’t a scam like the other emails I’d received. So we talked and haggled and less than 24 hours after posting my ad, the deal was official. I then began looking at apartments in Sacramento.

Thanks to my mother’s knowledge of Sacramento due to her having lived there and been a Sheriff there, I determined that I needed to live in Midtown, which is a delightful mixture of Fig Garden, the Tower District and Downtown Fresno. I found a few apartments and made an appointment to check one out. I went to the apartment, met one of the girls, poked around a bit and made mental notes. Because I’m incredibly lazy and time was of the essence, I decided to rent the first apartment I looked at. I made some calls, came up with the deposit, dropped it off and got a key. I was stoked and couldn’t stop mentally decorating the apartment. And then, one day after work, I stopped by the apartment to drop off some stuff, took a look around and nearly had a heart attack.

I hadn’t taken the opportunity to really examine the apartment or poke around in the nooks and crannies. To say the place was dirty was an understatement.

(At this point I want to clarify that this is not because my roommates are dirty and disgusting. Rather they are several years older than I with full time jobs and busy social lives. They get home late in the evenings and are gone most weekends. So while the apartment was dirty upon moving in, it would be unfair to blame my roommates. The dirt was simply a culmination of months without a deep cleaning.)

Still, the place was dirty. I tried to cook one night and the burners started smoking because there was dirt buildup in the little metal trays beneath the burners. The refrigerator was grimy and filled with half-consumed bottles of Gatorade and soda. The shower was filled with hair (which, as many of you know, is my kryptonite). The window in the second-story bathroom does not open because it is overgrown with foliage. The sliding glass door to the outside patio is also overgrown with foliage, as is the entire patio. Random things were strewn about the apartment including weights, golf clubs, wrapping paper, etc. Like I said, this place was dirty.

Luckily though, I enjoy cleaning so I drove my ass to Target and invested in some paper towels, some Lysol surface spray, Ajax and sponges. And I cleaned. And I cleaned. And then I cleaned some more. I reorganized the kitchen, I cleaned the stove, oven and microwave (all of which were caked with food and grease). I put things away, I swept, I scrubbed and I sweated…a lot. And I was satisfied for a short while, although there’s still much to be done. In fact, today I spent 2 hours cleaning beneath the sink, organizing all the paper and plastic bags that had been collected and cleaned the entire refrigerator, inside and out. Oh, and I also put the dishes away.

And there’s still so much to do! Cobwebs need to be removed, dust, grime, and dirt need to scrubbed away, the upstairs bathroom still needs to be cleaned, the floors need to be mopped, mini-blinds need to be fixed, windows need to be washed the forest growing in our patio needs to be removed and many walls are in need of decoration. In short, the entire apartment needs to be overhauled in every possible way, except for replacing the furniture since it doesn’t belong to me.

Now this apartment may sound like a total disaster to many of you, and that’s exactly what I thought at first. I thought it was hopeless the second I tried to hang my towel up in the bathroom and the towel rod fell out of the wall (fixing that is also on my to-do list). But I’ve chosen instead to look at this as just another adventure. And thanks to Pintrest, some heavy duty cleaning supplies, elbow grease, time and my imagination, this apartment will be in ship shape and bristol fashion shortly forthwith!

I look forward to utilizing some of the best features of this apartment, which include a large brick fireplace, exposed brick, exposed wooden beams, and an interesting layout, to create a functional and well-furnished/decorated apartment for myself and my roommates. By the time I’m finished with it, I expect this apartment to be a delightful mixture of urban and classical elements with both masculine and feminine accents resulting in an ideal apartment for young-professionals.

Stay tuned for the next several months during which I’ll post stories and pictures of my apartment in order to show the progress being made!

I look forward to embarking on this journey with you all!