8.10.2010

The New Diggs


So I’ve been MIA for a while. Mainly because July was the craziest month for us in a long time, if not since we’ve been married. The biggest of all the many events of last month is that we moved. Nothing too crazy, just a few miles south of where we were. But the hectic part was that we only had about 30 days to find something as it was somewhat unexpected, and it was almost as if we looked at the calendar and said, “When would be a really hot, busy, and inconvenient time to move?” and went with it. Besides it being a thousand and four degrees outside, Niels has finals and his National Boards this month and I am seven months pregnant. But alas, everything actually went very smoothly thanks to great family and friends who helped a ton.

Niels says I think the move went smoothly because I didn't have to do any manual labor (reason # 47 I like being pregnant). However, I did all of the nasty contracts and paperwork as well as most of the unpacking and organizing which is just as difficult in my book. I picked up some fresh Winchells’ Donuts for our helpers the morning we moved and I had to laugh at myself as I held a cake donut (white frosting with rainbow sprinkles in case you care) in one hand, and I directed everything that needed to be lifted and moved with the other hand. It was pretty amazing. I'm thinking child #2 might need be scheduled around our next big move in a couple years.

I'm not going to list our new address here for obvious potential creeper purposes, but I will say we have slightly upgraded in the street name department by no longer living on Anticipation Court.

We really like the neighborhood – quiet, friendly, clean and there is a nice community pool that doesn't have hoodlums in it.

We had several rental leads from friends, but most of them didn't have enough space for Bertha, Niels' big, black and beautiful baby. She arrived safely in the new place and fits nicely in our front room.


We are acclimating nicely and it is starting to feel more like home everyday. But there are a few quirks we don’t love about it. I discovered that’s kind of the name of the game with rentals. There is no such thing as a PERFECT rental so you pretty much need to make a mental list of things you can bear living with and the things that you can’t look past. While weeding through the dozens if not hundreds of rental listings I found myself thinking things like, wow that is an awesome floor plan but I just can’t do the mauve carpet, or the ivy wall paper or (insert any other heinous feature here) … I just can’t.

Sure, I realize that might sound ridiculous because it is only a temporary dwelling. And yes, I do realize that we are in dental school and should be living the stereotypical one bedroom apartment lifestyle with crate boxes and cinder blocks. However, with the way the housing market is in Las Vegas right now there is definitely room to be picky. There are so many places available so it is somewhat foolish to rent an apartment when most are just as costly if not more than rental homes. And again, it's all about having space for Bertha.

Anyway, like I was saying … overall, we enjoy the new place. We love having more open space which will be especially handy when little miss arrives. The features we don’t necessarily love, but make the "we can live with list" include things like having carpet under the kitchen table area, oak cabinets, hokey bathroom light fixtures (you know the kind with five 60- watt light bulbs in a row screwed into a silver rectangle), etc.. So while there are probably about 15 things that bug us about the house, there are really only two things that drive me crazy enough to spend the the time and/or money to change asap.
# 1 This brass beauty in the kitchen has to go.




# 2 White walls. We have TONS of wall space in this house and it is all white with white blinds. I don’t know why this drives me crazy but it does. We aren’t painting the whole house because that would just be a silly waste of money, but we thought we would give at least our family room and kitchen some pigmentation. A HUGE thank you to my step-dad for doing this for us since I can't inhale fumes right now (reason # 23 I'm happy to be pregnant) and Niels is up to his ears in Board preparations. Pictures forthcoming once we get things up on the walls.

The good news for you all is we still have a guest room. We have loved hosting a good share of visitors at Hotel Jensen the past two years and hope people will still come even after baby J arrives on deck. Actually, now that I think of it … if you come stay with us we will graciously allow you take baby night duty. Deal?




4 comments:

Kara said...

I have gold light fixtures ALL over my house, including the ugly bulbs in the bathroom! I think they're awesome (HA, yeah right)!! Glad you are getting settled in, I'm sure you'll make it your own in no time!

Carolyn said...

Lucky you have a sister in law in the lighting business!

Mauri said...

ok...exciting move :)
and your little bump looks cute...
also, just incase you want to add anything to your list, i was thinking if you were up this was before the arival of your little one I'd love you throw you a shower up here. I know that you have quite a few friends up here that would like to shower you with little lady cuteness.
let me know!

jenorme said...

I am behind on reading your blog. I am so glad that you are settled and that Claire will have her very own "reading room" under the stairs.