Halfway There!

I've survived half a year here in the hood, and believe me, it wasn't easy or fun. Winter is a lot quieter than summer, mostly because not as many people are outdoors all day, but today it was really nice, so the music and the dogs barking were going full force.

I don't have a lot to report, since I'm not really doing anything with the house or yard. I'm already looking for a place to move to in August. I'd really love to go back to SW Florida, but it's hard to find anything down there that time of year. Their rental season starts April 1st, sometimes May 1 and my lease isn't up until July 31. If I can save enough money and find a place, I may move anyway, because I'm not going to get my deposit back, no matter what I do.I'll be a lot more careful of what kind of landlord I get next time.

Just in case I can't go back south, I'm also looking up here. I did find one apartment complex that sounds promising. It's only one story, so no one tromping around above me. It's supposed to be very quiet, too. The aparments are roomy for the price, water/sewer and garbage are included and there is a laundry facility on the property. Plus, it has a lot of closet space, including a nice pantry in the kitchen. It has a nice sized enclosed patio with a locking gate as well. I haven't actually gone to look at the apartments yet, but I'm going to go next week for sure just to see for myself what they are like.

Gardening Burnout

I'm really ready to give up having a yard. I can't even get excited about planting anything here, mostly because of my landlord's attitude but also because I know if I plant a veggie garden, they will get stolen. I don't know how I would feel if I were somewhere nice and safe, but right now, I'm suffering from a bad case of gardening burnout.

I will soon have to start having the lawn mowed again, and I'm thinking of just buying a little electric mower to do it myself so I don't have to pay anyone to do it. Still, I hate mowing the grass, so I don't know. It's so depressing looking at all the dirt yards around here. My yard is full of glass still, and I keep finding more and more of it lying around. I have no idea where it comes from.

I do have a few things I rooted in water this winter that I need to get some potting soil for. I'll probably run up to WalMart on the bus and see about getting some pretty soon. I have no idea how I'll get it home, but I'll figure something out.

Living in One Room

I am basically living in one room of my house now.  There is too much noise to use the front room, and no way to block it out since most of it is from across the street. I can block out some of it in the back room by running the window a/c fan and playing some white noise, but nothing can block out the booming bass. I'll soon be ordering some noise-cancelling headphones to try to block it out even further.

I pretty much cleared out the front room so I could put the plants in there during cold weather, but I don't use it for anything else other than ironing and stashing things. The living room is full of boxes and my bicycle. It's very depressing, because all I wanted to do was to finally be able to unpack, and I'm still stuck living in my bedroom. At least my bedroom doesn't have boxes piled all up in it, though.

It is nice to have the kitchen all to myself, though. That's the one thing I like about this house.

I hope I can stay here for six more months without going insane. I really didn't have a clue what I was getting myself into when I moved here. I won't make that mistake again.