This is war

Here we are a week later, and still no balcony photos to share with you. Our balcony was perfect for literally 1 or 2 days. It finally felt like a completed space to sit and enjoy, the love seat and table went well with the rugs, and I was happy. Well, my happiness was short-lived, because that's when the bird seed started appearing.

It started out slow- little by little I found seed here and there, and then the next thing I knew, the whole balcony was covered in bird seed. BIRD SEED, lots and lots of it. For once in my life I am pretty sure I hate birds more than Rob does, and that is saying something! The funny thing is that only a couple weeks ago I told Rob that I was going to get a bird feeder, and how funny would it be to watch Roxanne watch the birds all day? Rob pointed out that there probably wouldn't be any birds eating out of our feeder because Roxanne would scare them all away. He's right, even though part of him was probably just trying to put a stop to the whole bird feeder idea.

So I quickly got over not having a bird feeder of my own when I went outside the other day and realized my table, love seat, rugs and plants were covered with bird seed. The guy who lives 2 floors above us has a bird feeder on his balcony. At first I thought he was being really careless with his birdseed. Then I thought that the birds must really be going crazy with their eating up there. I even took into consideration that it had been really windy and stormy out lately so maybe the seed was blowing off of the feeder. Or maybe the 2 little child monsters that live directly above us were actually taking bird seed and pouring it through their balcony floor cracks onto our balcony. It didn't hit me until I saw the squirrel on our balcony that the squirrels are at least 75% to blame for the mess I am currently dealing with. They climb up 4 floors, attack the feeder, and make the biggest mess ever, those little devils.

I was so mad about it that I wrote the neighbors a note and taped it to their front door, explaining the daily mess I am dealing with and how my dog is trying to eat all the bird seed, and it's all over the furniture and can you possibly manage your bird seed better?!? Maybe a more mature, secure person would have knocked on their front door and talked to them face to face, but I couldn't bring myself to face that sort of awkwardness. I don't know who lives in that apartment, but I think I have narrowed down the possibilities to 2 men in their 50's. Though I don't really want to talk to either of them, I do hope that whoever lives up there walks by one of these times while I'm sweeping my rugs off so that he can see the situation firsthand, and just maybe start a conversation with me about it that we can have at a comfortable distance (me on my 2nd floor balcony, he on the ground level). Since I haven't received any response letters, the bird feeder has not moved/changed, and I'm sweeping the same amount of seed today as I was before I wrote the note, the future is not looking very bright. I have a real jerk of a neighbor on my hands here. This really wouldn't bother me as much if I didn't just buy new furniture that I would like to enjoy without having to pick bird seed off of my lap. Rob said it best when he said something along these lines, "It isn't going to be the loud, disrespectful neighbors that push you over the edge, or the continuously broken gate, or the people who drive 40mph through the complex with their music pumping, or the average/sub-average apartment amenities that make you want to move to a new apartment complex; it's going to be the bird seed on your balcony that does it."

And an update...since I wrote this post a couple days ago, it has gotten worse. Today when I went outside to assess the situation, I found 5 blobs of squirrel poop, more bird seed than ever, and it looks as though something has been in my plants kicking dirt around to get pieces of seed that have fallen into the plants. I faced my fears and knocked on apartment 261's door, but no one answered. So, I called the front office to complain to the manager...but she was in a meeting. Manager Nancy will be hearing from me today though, that is for sure.

I'm glad Rob watches HGTV

What a wonderful husband I have. I critique and poke fun at him plenty in this blog, I know, but who in a relationship doesn't do that now and then? I just happen to be sharing my stories with everyone on the internet. It's only fair that I brag a little about him as well.

Since we moved to Atlanta, decorating our apartment really has not been a top priority of ours. Of course we would like it to be, but when it comes down to it, the money could be better used elsewhere. Our bedroom probably gets my vote for the least decorated room in the place. It is one of the larger rooms and all of the walls are bare. Not a single thing was hung up, until now.

Rob took it upon himself to decorate the space above our headboard, and I just love how it turned out. He used pictures that he took on the last 2 cruises we were on together (2 from Jamaica & 2 from St. Maarten), got them blown up and printed out in black and white, framed them and arranged them above the bed. I played no part in the project, so what a nice treat it was when Rob called me into the bedroom to show me the final product.

Patio furniture update

You may have read about my patio furniture I was pretty excited about a few posts back. Some of you have asked what it looks like, and I will surely be posting finished product balcony pictures soon enough, just not yet. We've have some difficulties with the furniture.

First, the table. While Rob was at class the other night, the UPS man delivered our 2 boxes of put-it-together-yourself furniture. Actually, the 2 boxes were delivered over 30 minutes apart from each other. Poor deliveryman had to come back to our apartment complex after he realized he forgot to deliver one of them. Anyway, I opened up the boxes and decided I would take it upon myself to put the small side table together. While the directions seemed simple enough, I knew it wouldn't be easy, but what literally went through my mind was, "What if I wasn't married, what if I was single living on my own? Then I would definitely have to put all of this together myself, so get to work!" AHH! I definitely don't have the do-it-yourself/handy woman/I own power tools trait that my Mom has. The table took me well over 30 minutes to put together, and even then it was not standing straight like a table should. I tried to loosen the bolts, rearrange the legs and shelf, and re-tighten, but I couldn't get it to look perfect. And a table is something that looks a little ridiculous if it doesn't stand up perfectly. Luckily Rob came home before I had to throw anything, and he took the table apart and put it back together so that I was happy with it.

Last night I came home from work around 12:30am and what did I find in my living room/guest bedroom? Rob had put the love seat together! And you can only imagine what a headache that love seat looked like to me after dealing with the little table. I was pretty excited about it, but I wasn't sure why the love seat was still inside. I just assumed it wasn't completely finished yet. This morning Rob told me the reason it's still inside is that it won't fit through the balcony door! The classic case of putting something large together in one room, only finding out you can't get it to another room because it's too darn big. It's the worst! There is a chance it will fit through the front door, and that we might be able to lift it onto the balcony once we get it outside. Otherwise, both the table and love seat will have been built not once, but twice.

Do you want to hide in the clothes?

I've been working at my new job for almost a month now, and so far so good. The girl I work with is great and fun to be around, and each day I get more familiar with how things run at the house. There is even a pet pig named Piggy that I get to help take care of, and today I popped her/him some microwave popcorn and threw it around the pen for it to snack on. Piggy has a pet bunny that lives with her/him, and it ran around eating the popcorn too. But if you can believe it, feeding Piggy and Bunny microwave popcorn was not the most exciting thing I did today at work.

I may be successfully avoiding the massive amounts of snow that Boston has been getting this winter, but one thing I never had to worry about while living in Boston were tornados. What did we get today in Atlanta? A tornado watch. I usually think tornado watches, or really any kind of weather watches, are silly. Until it turns into a warning or I see some evidence that the weatherman is for real, I don't even think twice about it. Well maybe that is because I grew up in PA and spent the last 7 years in Boston, where the likelihood of a storm causing any real damage to my apartment on the hill in Brighton was not too high. After today, I think I will take watches more seriously here in Georgia.

Around 4:45pm today my boss called to tell me she didn't think it was safe outside to be driving because of the storm/tornado watch, and that I should probably stay at work until it passed through. That, and also that I should seek help from some guys stronger than I am and move the girl I work with (her daughter) into her closet away from the windows. The rain, lightening, hail and strong winds seemed to be getting worse, so we did as we were told and moved to the closet. At first I thought her brother was kidding when he asked me if I wanted to hide in the clothes, but he wasn't. So in I went, and for the next 10 minutes we played Words With Friends on her ipad until the storm passed and we could get out of the closet. They informed me that it is normal to have 10 bad storms/tornado watches each spring, and I informed them that I just moved here in August and I was unaware of how frequently these things happened in GA. I ended up leaving around 6:30pm, and besides some heavy rain the drive home was fine. At least now I know what to do the next time we are under a tornado watch!

Shopping styles

Today Rob and I made two pretty big purchases- plane tickets and patio furniture for our balcony. Both purchases were equally stressful, and do you know why? Because Rob and I are two completely different types of shoppers. In a nutshell, I shop like my Mom and Rob shops like my Dad.

I am always on the hunt for deals, I look at the store sale ads, and I use coupons whenever I can. Before making a big purchase I do my research, go store to store to see what all of my options are, take time to contemplate what I like best and maybe even call someone for a second opinion before heading to the register. I like to think that I do all of this because I am a smart shopper who wants to save money and get the best deal that I can, but I will also admit that a lot of it has to do with me being very indecisive in general.

Rob is pretty much the opposite kind of shopper. I don't know if he has ever clipped a coupon, and he is definitely not indecisive. He can make purchasing decisions at lightening speed. No joke, I am almost positive that he decided on and bought his car in less time than it took me to decide which outdoor plant stand I liked best at Home Goods, and this was after I had found and narrowed the decision down to 3 stands. When he sees something he likes, he buys it, it's that simple. No running around town from store to store to see what else might be out there or waiting until something goes on sale to buy it. I've known that Rob shops this way for quite some time now, as we just hit our together 7 years mark, but it didn't matter to me as much when he was using his own money for clothes from J Crew or running shoes. Now it's our money being spent on bigger items, so it matters more.

I have wanted patio furniture for our balcony since we moved into our apartment last August. Patio furniture was not very high on Rob's apartment wish list, which is probably why we still don't have more than 2 outdoor folding chairs out there right now. I was too indecisive to pick something I was willing to spend the money on, and Rob just didn't care. Last November my Mom helped me pick out the plant stand, plants, candles and outdoor rug that are currently on the balcony, and I planted new flowers in the pots this weekend since the cold weather killed most of my November plants. All that is missing is a nice place to sit.

This week Target put their patio furniture in the stores, and I found an all-weather wicker love seat, chair and side table that I liked. Of course I was still debating the furniture options today, so I went online to look at the pieces again, only to find that they were on sale online and they qualified for free shipping! That was the kick in the butt I needed. I brought Rob to Target tonight to show him the furniture and he approved. All that was left to do was add it to my cart online and click purchase, right? Well, what would have taken Rob less than a minute to do, literally took me 30 minutes. To get the matching table, or not to get the matching table? Could I find one at Home Goods for less money that still looked OK? (Hello..me + Home Goods = 2 hours to shop for 1 thing) Should we splurge and get the 2 matching chairs, even though we only really need 1, because they are on sale too, or wait and just get 1 at the store? Ah they don't qualify for free shipping, now what? Rob was such a good sport, though I don't know how many more times he could have handled me showing him pictures of accent tables online and asking if he thought it would match the furniture or not.

All in all, I think it's probably best we are different kinds of shoppers, even if we stress each other out when it comes time to make a purchase. We balance each other out. I use my coupons and save us money at the grocery store each week by buying what's on sale, and Rob makes buying big items like our TV or blue ray player pretty easy and painless, which I could never do. Our patio furniture should be arriving in about a week...I hope it was worth the wait!

Week in review

It has been a pretty busy, exciting week here at the Porter residence. From jobs to cars, a surprise visit to a planned visit. Even the Super Bowl made for an exciting evening, but since it didn't end well I won't even go there.

It's been a long time coming, but I got a job and have re-entered the working world! I haven't blogged much about my job searching experience, but what can I say- it wasn't easy. Sure there was the move and settling in, the trips to Chicago, Florida and New York City, taking care of and training a puppy, the holidays, visits from family and friends, and the New Years cruise. Of course I allowed all of those things to take time away from my job hunting, but I think I would have gone crazy if I hadn't. I can't tell you how many jobs I applied to, hours and days were spent scouring the internet job sites, and how many places I didn't even hear back from. But I can tell you that from January 13-26th I applied to 41 jobs, from which I got a handful of calls and emails, and I started working as a caregiver last week.

Me getting a job meant one thing was certain. We needed a second vehicle. Since we moved to Atlanta, Rob and I have been sharing my Saturn Vue. It made sense- why make 2 car payments and pay for 2 insurance policies if only one of us was working and needed to be somewhere each day? It made sense, but it wasn't always easy sharing 1 car. Getting up early and fighting traffic to drive Rob to work, just so I could get to a 20 minute vet appointment, only to pick him up again at 5. Asking people (aka Tom) if he could pick me up from dog class at Petsmart because Rob had class on Tuesday evenings. Always asking the other person if they needed the car for anything before we made plans to go somewhere. Well, no more car sharing for us! This past weekend Rob bought a used 2010 Pontiac G6 and it has been great. Funny enough, I wasn't with Rob when he test drove the car and I hadn't even seen a picture of a G6 on the internet, let alone the actual car he was going to buy, before he bought it. Heck, Roxanne got to ride in the car before I did. I think I deserve some cool-wife points for letting him do his thing and not getting all involved and inquisitive over such a big purchase.



Last Thursday night I worked from 5-11pm, getting some training in before I started working on my own this week. Around 10pm I checked my phone because I knew Rob would be wondering where I was since I wasn't sure how late my training would go. I was pleasantly surprised to find texts from Rob saying my Dad was at our apartment. His flight was cancelled from Atlanta to Charleston that evening, so he got a hold of Rob and asked if he could stay at our place. I think Rob got to hang out with him longer than I did since I got home so late, but he did take me out to breakfast the next morning, so it was nice to be able to spend some time with him.

Tomorrow I'm flying to Harrisburg, PA to visit new Mama and Daddy Hagerman and the not yet 2 month old babe! I haven't seen Linds since my wedding, so it will be great to have some best friend time together, and of course I can't wait to hold little Savannah. Look how cute...

Oh the irony...

No more than 15 minutes after I took this picture she peed in the living room. I don't think she has had an accident in the house since starting the intermediate class, and on her graduation night she decides to take a pee break next to the couch while playing ball.