Apartment Life

Last night we extended our lease by another six months. Ryan just isn't sure that his current job is one that he wants to stay with long-term. So, we'll wait until this summer to see if something else comes up. It is very hard for me to be patient especially with low home prices and interest rates as well as a down payment waiting in the bank! So, I've decided to come up with a top ten list of reasons that apartment living is good.

10. Very little liability in terms of costly repairs to a home- If the littlest thing goes wrong in the apartment like a slow drain or even if I just want new drip trays for the stove, I just call maintenance, and they come right over.
9. We get to experience just how much my parents love us by letting them store a whole lot of our stuff for another half of a year.
8. Very low utility bills- our portion of the trash just increased to $4.25!
7. We get to say that we are debt free!
6. Our apartment is right by several square miles of upscale neighborhoods. We enjoy walking and running in this area.
5. Very convenient location for shopping, restaurants, our church, etc.
4. Two of my close friends (and their offspring, Molly's friends) live right here within a 90 second walk! It makes for convenient babysitting swaps.
3. Free use of workout equipment in the fitness center.
2. Good possibility of convincing my husband that I need a new bistro set to put outside our door to help me endure the next six months here.
1. Much smaller area to clean!

December

I almost saw this today! Story at the bottom of this post.

We are enjoying a sunny day with temperatures in the 60s. It's funny how accustomed to the warm weather we have become. We think it is a very cold when the temps dip into the 30s.

Molly has been busy learning new words. It is amazing how overnight her vocabulary grew. The following are words that she tries to say or says successfully:

mama dada duck walk milk hot papa nana no ball baby cheese shoes book

I'm learning that 15 month olds are so funny. I was letting Molly sit on my lap in the front seat of the car and snack on some animal crackers in the mall parking lot. For some reason, she started to say, "Hot!" (This is her favorite word by the way. She often uses it correctly, like when I'm holding a cup of coffee or pull something out of the microwave. However, sometimes she just says it randomly.) Midword, she let out a burp. I started laughing, and she started laughing and let out a longer burp. That made us both laugh harder. It is so fun to have a shared giggle.

We have a baby gate up near the entrance to our kitchen. Molly plays near the gate while I cook or load the dishwasher. Today, I knew she was standing there just a few feet from me doing something but I wasn't paying close attention. When I looked at her I noticed that she had taken her pants off! I'm hoping this doesn't become common or involve the removal of her diaper!

The big news around Fort Worth is the landing here of the space shuttle as it is being transported from California back to Florida. Because of weather conditions in Florida, it had to make a pit stop here. I was heading out to meet a friend this morning. As I drove near the Air Force base where the shuttle spent the night, I saw at least a hundred cars pulled over on the freeway and service drive. I concluded that the shuttle was going to be taking off soon. I had to meet my friend and couldn't stop. I think I missed seeing the shuttle atop a 747 by just a few minutes. By the way, the trip back to FL costs two million dollars.