We’re signing a new lease on Friday.
More about that later.
But before we head out, I thought we could take a minute and look at the pros and cons of living in this tiny apartment.

PRO: Very low rent. Very. As in, we would be OK even if one of us lost our job.
CON: Rent has dropped even more since we moved in, so we’ve pretty much been paying more than market price the last few months.
PRO: Close to Andrew’s work
CON: Also very close to the main house and landlord. Where a …

I bet you’re all wondering what we’re still doing in this tiny apartment and when we’re going to be tired of it.
Done. Tired of it.
Here’s the latest update in our house-hunting adventure.
As of June 14 when we moved into our current place we had about enough for a decent downpayment (about 10%) in savings for the house.
My grand plan was to spend the next 6-9months furiously saving $$ so we had another several thousand.
Using the base as a down payment and also having enough saved for closing costs and some …

I woke up this morning and cursed the heavens.
I was supposed to do a super fun (Amy-styled) photo shoot with Angela. Wednesday night we looked at the forecast and there was an 80% chance of rain on Saturday.
Sad, but I needed to postpone the photo shoot.
It involved several factors that just would NOT work in the rain. Can’t tell you more just yet.
And then today, Saturday, I woke up and it was sunny! SUNNY!
It’s not supposed to be SUNNY! I canceled my photos!!!! Curses!
Luckily (or not, depending on your p.o.v.) …

We visited our friends in Oakland for a weekend ….. and I couldn’t stop taking pictures of their insanely cute apartment. It makes my heart hurt how much I love their little home ….
Take a look …
(I want a big big resting on the floor mirror like this, please)

And I need a cute little reading corner like this. I love the way the perfectly-placed mirror actually creates more light for this spot. Love!

Also, I love that they only have plain white mugs. Andrew and I love our coffee mugs, so …

Just a quick Saturday note to tell you about our Valentine’s Day last weekend.
Woke up.
Read. Vegged. Intenet/email.
I think we had leftovers for lunch.
BBC Yellowstone Documentary.
more reading.
Trip to Trader Joe’s (decision: Andrew and I should not go grocery shopping together)
When we get home, Andrew puts on “romantic” music ….. or, rather just something I don’t hate.

Then he made us some caprese salad (and added prosciutto).

(um, yea, also, we got cheap cupcakes from Ralph’s because I have been craving butter cream frosting)

yum!
It was so so delicious!
tomato + basil + mozzarella + prosciutto …

I might have told you …. we went bed shopping recently …
It’s kind of a big deal.
Yes, I said it. 1 single piece of new furniture is kind of a big deal to us.
Picture this: We’ve been happily married for over 4 years. Our “bed” is simply a box spring/mattress on the floor because we’ve never had the $ to spend on a good bed frame. The mattress was a hand-me-down when I got it summer of 2002 (so you can just imagine the quality). Because of the awfulness of …

So, for the past couple of weeks Amy and I have gone bed shopping.  We’ve never owned a new bed together.  Not since we’ve been married.  When Amy moved to Arizona our co-worker, Matt, gave her a hand-me-down kingsize bed.  I think it was a hand-me-down to him, which makes it doubly so for Amy.  And maybe triply so when Amy and I got married a few years later.  Well, anyway, this bed is old and not so awesome.  As we’ve been bed shopping, Amy kept talking about how we …

Amy loves the 60’s.  She loves the music, loves to watch television shows that take place in that decade, loves the fashion, loves that Americans were fighting for change and for peace.  Ok, well she doesn’t love all the psychedelic music, but she knows just about every girl group song that ever was.  I can’t wait to build a time machine and take her back to the land of Mad Men & American Dreams & The Wonder Years.  It’s one of my favorite things about Amy, that she genuinely would …

I don’t often talk about other people than myself on this blog.  But today is about my wife.  Amy.  She’s hard to describe because I think she is completely unique and different than anyone I know.  She’s even a lot different from me…..I mean to say that she has everything that I lack and more.  We’ve been married for 4 years (and 1 day by the time you read this post.  If you read it after Nov. 7th 2009 then I will have no idea where our marriage is, but …

As I type this, we still have about 4 or 5 scary movies on our Netflix queue and at least 3 still in the house. Once we get started with this tradition, we just throw ourselves into it, I guess.
Plus, we missed 8-ish days of prime scary-movie-watching time because of a little thing called ‘international travel.’
Andrew’s already started our list for next year.
The thing we’ve noticed about scary movies this year is it seems like these characters/stories exist in an alternate universe where they have never seen a horror film …

Fall has been in SoCal for a few weeks now …. all of a sudden, it was a Sunday afternoon and I needed socks and a sweater to go outside! Just out of nowhere …. it was heaven.
There are not a lot of trees on our street, so I can’t judge the season by the leaves, but we have other external triggers that make it feel like fall in my heart:

craving soup
Santa Ana winds
apples/peanut butter
turning fan off when we sleep
apple cider
scary movies
hoodies
watching ‘Band of Brothers’
baked potatoes
cinnamon in the coffee
dry skin
scarves
candy …

Finally the weather is cooling down.  Finally at night it’s chilly in our apartment.  I love the fall (I think I posted about Fall last year as well).  Amy and I have a tradition of watching scary/sci-fi/thriller/cheesy spooky comedies starting in October….well, this is our second year.  But we don’t watch spooky movies all year round so that it makes it feel rather special when we start up in October.
I went for a walk the other night in Santa Monica and saw one tree with the leaves turned orange in …

I usually try to plan a lot of tasks/stuff/activities on my days off (I usually get one a week, sometimes two).  Those tasks usually involve driving to SCV to see my family and do laundry.  I’ll try to get together with a friend, and spend time with the dogs just running around the backyard.  But it seems like I have very few days where I just stay home and read and relax (in my underwear/boxer briefs; well just stay home I guess is what I’m saying).  Today has so far …

It is Labor Day and we are laboring ….
I hope you all enjoy your day off and BBQs or however else you are spending the day.
I wanted to remind you of one to see/get/buy the photos I take – and let you know of a new way as well.
Currently – You may access my personal photos by visiting Flickr.

In order to see all my images, you must:

Have a Yahoo! account
Login to Flickr and add me as a contact on Flickr.
If you are a friend or family of mine, I …

Amy and I don’t watch a lot of broadcast television together. We maybe have two shows that we will watch on a regular basis: The Office and Phoenix Suns Basketball. In the past catching these shows and watching them through a veil of analog video fuzz has been a problem because we don’t want to pay for cable. But finally we ended up renting
an apartment/garage that includes basic cable. So we now have 60 + channels that we never watch but it’s there I guess …