So much has happened since yesterday I feel as if a month has passed instead of twenty-four hours. I spent the night at the condo again. My next door neighbor smokes so I woke up feeling like I could barely breathe. When we were planning on doing some work down in the basement I bought a diffuser that was much more expensive than some of the others I've gotten in the past. My favorite way to diffuse essential oils is to boil water and pour it into shallow soup plates with a rock so you can see that there's something in there, but that's not always a practical long term solution as the oils dissipate quickly and of course we've knocked over more than our fair share of these. They also leave rings on unprotected furniture and I've mistakenly tried combinations that made our house smell worse instead of better, but more often than not we get this pervasive feeling of whatever the oils were intended to do which makes it worthwhile to me.
I ran the diffuser next to my bed and laid there for a while, wondering if I was going to have an actual asthma attack. There are a lot of really nice things about my condo. It's pretty roomy and spacious, I think I have 1100 square feet, but it may only be 1000, I can't remember what our realtor said when we were buying it. I have a great view of the pond and at night the hotel lights shine on the water. During the day I can hear the fountain which is nice. I have a patio and a balcony, both of which were thoroughly cleaned this morning. Next time I'll be smarter and start upstairs so I don't sweep everything from there down on the patio that I just swept. Last night I pulled into the parking garage to find that some rude person had parked as close to my spot as they possibly could so they had extra room on the side by the pole. This person is very fortunate that I didn't hit their car trying to park in the dimly lit structure, and I'm blessed beyond belief to have made it into my spot without hitting the yellow safety pole or another car although it was close when I tried backing up and came within inches of them.
This person had two garbage bags in my area so I moved them over to their side of the yellow liine. Living in an apartment or condo building is a lot like getting divorced. You can be a total bitch or dick, but you have to wake up the next morning and deal with these people all over again. If the person next to me keeps parking so close to my spot I'll say something, hopefully they'll get the hint and start respecting the limited parking space we've been granted. My neighbor that doesn't smoke is mad that we pulled up the carpet since now our footsteps on the stairs are much louder. Personally I hate carpeting, but I'm going to look into doing something to deaden our stairfalls out of consideration. I'm not going to spend a lot of money on this, and I may even say something like, how much is this worth to you, here is how much it would cost to do whatever, is this that big of a deal or can you just realize that people go up and down the stairs quite a bit next door?
She has a bunch of shrubbery and lawn art in front of her patio area. I understand the need for privacy, but she doesn't get enough sun so the plants are not healthy and she doesn't have any grass so the lawn art looks strange, but these are pretty minor to me since I don't have to stare at them unless I'm parking out in front which I have been lately since I have to go up two flights of stairs to get to my place when I park underground and that stinks when you're lifting and carrying heavy things. Today we took most of the closet doors to the dumpsters. I wouldn't have heaved them over the balcony, but it was an easy way to get them down with a minimum of effort. After a couple trips back and forth I was winded and my arms were killing me, but I felt good about what we had accomplished. I spent the morning laying in bed under my nice warm covers. I added a wool blanket so I stayed warmer last night than I had the night before. It smelled so strongly of smoke this morning that I opened everything up despite the cold.
Another feature that I love is being able to get a cross breeze when I open my windows and my patio doors. I put a plant outside and getting more plants over there is a higher priority than it was as plants will help clean the air better. The wall that runs behind my dining area is twelve feet long. My thought is to put a row of plants there so they can absorb smoke that seeps through the walls. We're having a guy come over to do some work during June. I'm going to talk to him about sealing things better, but I have to be careful about this as that decreases ventilation. I moved my bed against a different wall so hopefully the smoke won't be as much of an issue tonight. My back bedroom, downstairs bathroom, kitchen, and dining area all share walls with the neighbor(s) that smoke so I'm going to have to be creative about what I put against those walls. The back bedroom has two windows, but they're so high I don't think I'll ever be able to open and close them on a regular basis.
We're going to install ceiling fans in each of the bedrooms and in the dining area. That will at least help circulate the air even if it is stale. My front door is well sealed, the hallway just reeks like smoke so I'm counting my blessings that my place doesn't smell worse. There's a lot of dust and dirt over at my place, that's part of the problem, but after the flooring is installed and some of this drywall work is done, that can be cleaned up and will go away. My washer and dryer are not good at all. I put a small load in and found bits of dust all over my sheets when I pulled it out. I have a small drying rack and I'm debating whether to bring my big huge one over. I think I will eventually, but the idea of drying laundry in a room with smokers on the other side is difficult. My husband will let me come over and do laundry at his place, but the goal is to be more independent and I'd rather not cart it back and forther either. For now it's just one more thing that I'm realizing I took for granted when I lived at the house.
I read a lot of apartment life hacks, none of them covered what to do when your marriage fails and you suddenly have to move, find a job, and get your life back on track as if it ever was on track in the first place. I put a chair in my downstairs coat closet after we pulled the doors down. It's not the closet turned mudroom I want, but it's a start. I bought some woven planters that I'm going to take back. By now I should know better than to buy cheap versions of things, but I was trying to save money, and I thought they would work so that's another lesson I'm still learning. Last night the girls came over and helped me do dishes and clean. It was nice to have them over, but also stressful. They've never lived in an apartment building so they run around, sing loudly, and shout at each other the way we do at home. There's a lot I haven't been thankful for in my life, even now I'm complaining about things that are trivial compared to what some are going through.
We bought some granola style bars and found that they were better than we thought they were going to be. There's an Aldi several blocks from me which is nice for basics and staples. I bought some garbage bags, but I think I bought the wrong size since my garbage can is so much smaller than the one I had at the house. We talked about the kids and a schedule and how things are going to work now that we're no longer living together. I still have things at the house, I'm waiting for the flooring to move some of the rest of it since I don't want everything jammed into my living room. I have a lot more space than I thought that I did. Even with my bed, a dining room table, bookshelf, stand up desk, table, chair, and plants there's still a wide expanse of floor that I can still see. It will take time to get settled in, I meant to make a list of things I need, but I didn't. Door mats are going to help minimize the amount of dirt that gets tracked in, since my flooring is light you can see every speck of dust that settles, but it's pretty when it's clean and I love the airy openness lighter flooring creates.
There's a lot I want to get done, but I need to be patient which hasn't ever been my strong suit. Things are going so much better than I thought that they would. I'm not expecting that to always be true, but it is helping to ease the hardship of transitioning out of one place and into another. Today is full of appointments, errands, and the final graduation service that I would like to skip even though my daughter is in it this year. I hate sitting through things like that and by that time of night I'm usually done for the day, but this is the kind of thing I need to do as a parent. I wanted to close with the best part of the day that made me sad in a good way. Last night my oldest daughter asked if I would read a story to her while she took a bath so I did after I finished eating. It was a happy ending fairy tale and I'm just so happy that I got to spend that time with her. It sucks that I wasted so many years that I could have had with them sitting in front of the computer, but at least I'm trying to make up for some lost time. The slightest thing can start the tears, it's going well, but it's still sad and I wish it didn't have to be this way even though it's probably for the best.