Apartment Living

Apartment living is something that has definitely taken some getting used to in the past 3 months since I got married.  I didnt think it would be much different than living in a dorm with 70+ girls....but I was wrong.  Don't get me wrong here.  The Lord was gracious in providing us with an affordable place to temporarily live, and I am so grateful for that.  The rent is affordable and the utilities we have to pay for are at a minimum.  By living here we have been able to save up money.  However, this place does have some character and quirks.  Here are some examples:

1.  The shower head is super bi-polar.  I'm pretty sure that some mornings I spend more time trying to find a happy medium between scorching hot and freezing cold than I do actually showering.  We don't have our own hot water heater, so I guess whenever someone in the building flushes their toilet or turns on the water, the temperature of our water goes crazy.  However, the hard water pressure is very nice.

2. The bedroom doors.  Or lack of.  Here is a picture from inside of the bedroom looking out.  The other bedroom is the same way....its a good thing we arent going to be having kids while living here.  I hung up a curtain that I had used in my apartment last year in college just to help keep some of the light out.

3. Notice that door with the mirror on it in the picture above?  That's my closet door.  Here's what the inside looks like.

It's just wide enough for a hanger....

And the bar goes straight back.  I forget about some of the clothes I have sometimes because I can't see them.  And to get to the clothes in the back, you have to move out all of the stuff on the floor of the closet and maneuver back there. Its interesting. At least I dont have to share this closet with Caleb.  He has one of his own, but the gibberish design doesnt bother him as much because he doesn't have many hanging clothes, and he only wears his hanging clothes once a week to church.

4. The back door.  It doesnt seal up, at all. This door doesnt lead straight outside, just to a tiled stairwell that leads to the back outside door.  This is how far away the door is from the door frame. 

You can even see the neighbor's back door while sitting at the kitchen table through this gap.

This wouldnt be a problem at all if the neighbors didnt smoke like chimneys or get it fights at 3 am right outside this door.  We've thought about getting some stuff to seal up this door and my mom even suggested newspaper, but we havent tried anything yet.  My luck, we would stuff things in it and then someone would come knocking at this door for once.

5.  Neighbors.  Living in a dorm, I got pretty used to sound and people always being around, but I forgot about how much I took for granted that my neighbors in college were Christians and held to the rules of HLG.  There are no rules and based on the language I hear and actions I see around this apartment, the people dont seem to be Christians.  I realize that life can't always be butterflies and rainbows, but I have definitely learned to have more respect for the people living in this apartment building because they only thing I can do is to treat them the way that I would like to be treated.

So that's apartment living for us right now.  I look forward to the lease being up at then end of June and seeing where the Lord leads us next.  Hopefully somewhere where we can't hear our neighbors.  :-)