Household Quirks and Accomplishments

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We've been arranging furniture, unpacking various items, and hanging lots of pictures over the past week.  While doing so, we've noticed that our new living quarters have a few quirks, to say the least.  While there are wonderful aesthetic aspects to our casita, such as granite counter tops and crown molding, there are some aspects that leave us just saying "What?!?!?!"

Let's take a little look....

1. We've been hanging pictures all week and have concluded that our walls and ceilings are not level.  If you look at the floor, you can see where the floor isn't even.  Then, we went to go hang pictures and used a level to make sure it was even.  Despite the fact that the level said it was, my eyes told me it wasn't.  Yup, the ceiling was crooked so all of our pictures and frames look crooked while hanging.  Good thing I'm not OCD....
2. While hanging said pictures, we quickly realized that a hammer and nails was not going to be effective because the walls are made of CEMENT.  Yup.  Our entire house is made of cement. I'll let you figure out how we managed to hang those lovely pictures. Get creative. We did. 
3.  The office and the back guest bedroom share a wall. Or so we thought.  Mike was hanging his "Don't Give Up the Ship" sign and realized that it was a little bit different from the concrete walls.  He left the nail in and went into the guest bedroom and opened the closet door that is on the "shared wall" and, yup, you guessed it, there was the other end of the nail.  So, the supposed wall that these rooms share is non-existent.  The (current or previous) owner decided to just put up closets in this L-shaped room and make it two! We had heard that most rooms don't come with closets, but I guess we just thought we were lucky. 
4. The counter tops have these little lips so you can't wipe things off of them.  It's kind of annoying, but mainly just weird. I guess it prevents things from spilling on the floor. Maybe?

I'm sure there are others that we've yet to discover, but these are the fun ones we've discovered thus far.   I actually love our apartment and think it is perfect for us, despite these little quirks.  Attention to detail has never been one of my strong points, so crooked pictures and oddly shaped rooms don't bother me.  I just think it adds a little character to the house.

And now for the accomplishments!

1. Congrats to my brother Andrew for getting hired as a Program Manager with City Year DC!! Andrew and I both served two years with City Year in various cities, but Andrew is now on staff making the big bucks (comparatively)!  He snapped me this gem on his first day of work, which made me chuckle, so I broke the number one SnapChat rule and took a screen shot to share with all of you.
   
2. Mike got accepted to the University of Izmir School of Economics!! Wahoo!! It's his back up school, but it's definitely a relief to him (and me!) to know that he'll be going to school somewhere.
3. And maybe the biggest accomplishment of them all... I beat Mike at cribbage! Hooray! Don't worry.  He beat me the game before that and the game after, but for one game, I was victorious. 

 

Oh and since it's Wednesday, here's a little something extra I like to call Michael's Musings to get you over the hump of the week. These are probably the you-had-to-be-there funny, but they make me laugh, so you get to hear them too.

Mike has been reading To Kill a Mockingbird (my all time favorite book) and shortly after starting it...

"Scout is kind of a bitch."

Are we reading the same book?

Knowing that I have the bladder the size of a pea....

"Wait. Wife. You don't have to pee?"

After our humbling experience with the oven 

"Do you feel as dumb as I do right now?"  The answer is yes, yes I do.

While we (and by we...Mike) was hanging pictures

"I can't hear you over all the slave driving" 

During our time without an oven, I tried a lot of new crockpot recipes.  Since Mike is an extremely picky eater (no fruits or vegetables), I made a board on Pinterest called "Things Mike Likes" to save the recipes that were good and met the approval of the Mister.  This particular recipe for chicken curry was not that great. 

"You can defriend this  from the Things Mike Likes board."

Mike: Smell my feet.

Me: No thank you.

Mike: Please, it'll be good for you.

Me:

As you can tell, it's a wild world in the Hogan Household.  Until next time