90 Degrees

One of the nice things about living in an apartment, aside from not having to go through the process of selling a house when we move in a month, is that some things are just taken care of by nature of the rent we pay. Case in point: last Saturday, when close to a dozen family members from three separate states were all set to converge on our place at 11am for some bratwurst, chips, and summer sausage. When we woke up that morning the air conditioning had gone on the fritz, which meant that soon the whole place would be not just hot but muggy as all get out. Major bummer, for sure. But thankfully, all it took was a quick visit to the main office and a guy was up in less than an hour to fix it--at no charge to ourselves. So even though he technically didn't get the problem fixed (it was a bigger issue than the repair dude realized, so he had to call for backup), it was cool that there was a solution at hand that required very little effort.

It's this kind of thing that I go back and forth on when it comes to the idea of owning a house, which we hope to do by the end of the year, Lord willing. I like to fix things, and from time to time I even get to try my hand at the occasional household or automotive problem, but there's so much I still don't know how to do as far as maintaining an actual house. But my dad taught me enough growing up that I think I could at least make a respectable effort at fixing problems before having to call some type of repair service. We'll see, I guess. So while I'm really stoked to have our own place, with a yard, a garage, a washer and dryer, carpet we can rip out, walls we can knock down, walls to paint...well, it's some of those things we can't do here that make an apartment kind of cool. In any case, though, we'll be renting at least for the first few months following our move, but I sure think it will be cool to have a house soon. :)

The weekend, with all the aforementioned family visiting, was really really cool, by the way. It's so nice when family come from out of town, and we spent a lot of time just visiting, or going to the Mall of America, hanging out at the hotel, walking to the park, and just being with each other--and at the end of the day, that's really what it's all about. So yeah, thanks to everyone who came for the visit, and here's hoping we can see you again soon!