Monday, July 21, 2014

Living with Elephants that vacuum

Good Hello

   I live in a bottom floor apartment, I have for over 6 years now. I understand that not everyone has ever lived below someone else and that they don't get how loud they walk. Over the years the people above us have come and gone, for the most part all have been great about being quiet up there and did not thud around. Mind you I know I have complained about the upstairs neighbors before like when we first moved in and for a couple of years after the people that lived up there were horrid, not so much on the walking loudly but they complained about us and we are quiet and well she was just a mean lady, the landlord didn't even like her. But they moved out and everyone else that had moved in and out over the years since them have been great neighbors. Heck one set we didn't even know were up there unless they accidentally dropped something. Then came the sisters, our neighbors right now, one of them has a daughter and one of them not sure which one got custody of one of their nieces from another sister, so we have 2 kids under the age of I'm going to guess 7 living above us. It sometimes sounds like a heard of elephants has moved in above us.

  Now don't get me wrong, I love kids and I know they are going to be loud especially at that age range. I never hear them screaming and hollering unless our windows are open and they just got in trouble, and are being punished but I do hear them loud and clear when they decide to run or throw a hissy fit and thud on the floor. so granted kids will be kids and they don't bother me all too much. What weirdly gets to me more noise wise is the constant vacuuming that the sisters do, EVERYDAY! At least once a day if not more often the vacuum comes out upstairs. So now not only do I have to deal with the heard of elephants from about 6am to when ever their bedtime is, so anywhere between 8-9pm. I have to hear the vacuum every stinking day. It makes me long for the lady who hated us to be living there again.

So I just deal with the vacuuming cause I understand that kids are messy, and that the sisters could in fact be neat freaks since they vacuum so much. But last month they crossed a line with the vacuuming by doing it at like 6:45 in the morning. Now this was before I decided to start getting up at 6am and making Richard his coffee. I'm dead asleep and get woken up by one of them running the vacuum right above my head. Mind you I sleep with a fan to help drown out noise and I could hear their vacuum. So I got up got dressed told Richard I would be right back (he was on vacation) went upstairs and knocked on their door. When one of them answered the other one had left for work already, I explained that I live downstairs and am a light sleeper, plus there are noise restrictions, that you can't make any loud noises including vacuuming until 9am and not after 10pm. I also explained that I was being nice and coming up there to talk to her about it, and to please not vacuum so early again. She did apologize and hasn't done it since. Thankfully.

You are probably asking well why don't you complain about the noise to your landlord? Well I could, but really she can't do anything about the noise either, Cause yes she could call them up and say hey can you guys not be so loud but then again, they can be loud from 9am to 10pm sooo really can't do anything about that. Plus why bother her about the noise cause it just paints us in a bad light because we are bothering her over something she really can't control to much. Now I have no problems complaining if they start vacuuming during quiet ours and I have done it in the past with the lady that hated us. I choose to pick my battles wisely when it comes to apartment living cause I don't want our landlord to hate us, and she doesn't cause we are so low maintenance and quiet and get no complaints about us (anymore). Side note, she never took the complaints from the one lady seriously after the second one in one week cause we had rented from her before and never got complained about the first time we were living here, so our record is good.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

All over the place

 Good Hello Readers,

Since my last post, I have turned another year older, July 11th I celebrated turning 31 by going out to lunch with a great friend of mine that I have known for almost 10 years then went to Color Me Mine to paint and sat with a friend I made through there and cheered her up because she was kinda having a crap day. The next day it was time for the family Birthday dinner, since mom works evenings now we have to the dinners on the weekends. So Hubby, mom and my Mother-in-law and I went out to dinner at Piccolino's Restaurant, they serve Greek and Italian food. My mother-in-law surprised me with a gift of paint brushes and a holder for them. I can't wait to get to Color Me Mine so I can use them!

Richard and I are making an effort to not sit in front of the TV every night, we either play board games, put a puzzle together or read. We now only watch TV a few nights a week, which is a lot better then every day. One of these weekends I want to challenge us to go the entire weekend with out turning on the computer or TV and see if we can do it. We also wont use our cell phones to get online, they will still be on in case someone needs to get hold of us but that's all that they would be used for. I think it's a good idea to disconnect from electronic devices every once in a while. We are so dependent on devices for entertainment now days it's sad. I don't even turn on the TV anymore for background noise and have been known now to just sit around the apartment in silence. It really is rather nice. Everyone should try it, even if it's just for a moment or two.

July 27th will mark 6 months of no soda, or desserts. I have almost gone half a years with out it. I don't really miss the soda, but every now and then I crave a cookie or a piece of candy. The first month was the hardest for me with the no desserts. and there was a moment in April where I almost accidentally ate some cake because I was starving, it had no frosting on it but before I even got close to taking a bite I realized I couldn't eat it because it was in fact cake. I blame Richard for this because he gave it to me, he claims he was going to stop me before I actually took a bite. I don't know that I believe him on this though lol.

I have gotten a nice little routine going in the mornings now, I get up by 6:30 and make Richard his coffee for the day with our Keurig, mine as well, then I make myself breakfast and make sure his lunch is ready to go. I really do enjoy getting up and making him his coffee, it's a nice little thing I do for him and he enjoys it as well. .