for posterity

Our final walk-through of our house is today at 5. We sign our life away to finalize everything tomorrow at noon.

We have 11 paint cans sitting here next to our front door.

Our new fridge comes on Saturday.

Our washer and dryer come on Monday.

And I'm at the point where I'm realizing that we're about to purchase our very own very first home.

So I thought I'd dedicate this post to all the "fun" experiences we've had living in apartments, particularly this apartment. Not to complain (I'm too excited about the new house to complain about this apartment), but to record them for posterity's sake.

Let us begin.

• We lived here to save money--and we were happy to learn that our first month here was free. Sometimes that thought has been all that's kept me here.
• Cockroaches. Absolutely yuck!
• We've had the maintenance guys here literally every week. And every time we ask for them to come we have to go in the next day to ask again.
• The last time they came they left the bathroom fan hanging from the ceiling. It's still dangling.
• We can hang pictures just by pressing them up against the walls. The paint is super sticky.
• Although I cannot figure out where they're coming from (and I've tried!), we have a fruit fly infestation.
• Who needs TV when you can watch real life cops settle real life disputes right outside your window?
• We're learning Korean (or maybe Chinese) by listening to the couple next door yell at each other.
• "Screaming boy." Is there a hotline you can call to report someone to the Super Nanny show?
• And of course, the Great AC Flood of '09.

We've learned a lot of "life lessons" from our time in apartments. We now know to ask if there's a specific move-in time, to make sure your mail forwarding is working, to never try to keep the AC set at lower than 70 degrees, to walk softly if you live above someone else, and hopefully, we've learned how to laugh at the little things.

And starting tomorrow, we're homeowners.