A House Story, Part 3

Progress is being made! I purchased a comforter set online. And mostly decided which mattress to buy, although I am waiting for the next credit card statement, so I can spread out major purchases. (Last months' major purchases were the Ikea bed frame and the alarm system. October's major purchase will be Sal's dental bill. He may not have any teeth left after this round of cleaning and teeth pulling, so maybe then we can get around to buying a couch.) It is kind of pathetic that minor errands count as life progress for me, but it is what it is. It means I am thinking about things other than gun violence and urban decline! 

Even though last night was a very bad night in DC (http://www.popville.com/2015/08/multiple-shootings-friday-night/), I am not panicking, and I sat out on my front porch for an hour this morning, amidst the sirens and police helicopters, and enjoyed reading the paper. Jason is still annoyed with my fear mongering since I made him look up the addresses of all of the shootings to assess how far we are from them, but I think I am doing better. It's clear to me that we would have had these issues in any neighborhood we bought a house in, and neighborhoods we were priced out are having even bigger crime issues. This was probably the safest neighborhood we could afford* to buy in. It is very sad that "safe" here is a relative term meaning less gun violence vs. more, but that is just the situation right now. The only area of DC where this really isn't happening is my beloved upper Northwest, west of the park. We could have bought that small condo with bad views, in an old and creaky building there...which I actually was in favor of...and, I don't know. Even after the fact, the home buying process still befuddles me. 

Last weekend, armed with wedding gift cards, we went to Friendship Heights to make some home purchases and...came back with two hand towels and six forks. I can't buy things anymore without reading 1500 online reviews first. We made the mistake of stopping into a mattress store to get a lay of the land, and practically had to run out of the store because both the salesperson and the manager were demanding that we make a purchase. I had the same experience when I called ADT to get a quote. I had to hang up on them because they would not let me off the phone without making an installation appointment, and then they called me back every day for a week. It almost makes me want to tell them, "look, I am a millennial. I can't shop this way. You are driving me to the internet." So we went with Simplisafe for our alarm, and I think we will go with Tuft and Needle for our mattress. If you have experience with one of these online mattress companies, let me know! I know people who like Casper, but Tuft and Needle seems similar enough that I'm willing to try them out for $200 less. 

Food:

Despite moving and my descent into crazy-town, we've still been really good about cooking and not going out to eat, although I feel the need to support the fledgling businesses in my neighborhood, so I'm buy more little things like coffee and muffins than I used to. 

I highly recommend making this recipe. I didn't take a picture, because it just looks like an unremarkable bowl of pasta, but it was delicious! I'm super excited to eat the leftovers for lunch today.

This weekend is our anniversary. We initially had big plans to take an overnight trip to the Inn at Little Washington over Labor Day weekend, but that has been shelved for more robust financial times. We are going to try out this place tomorrow instead, which is just a 10 min bus ride away. (Note the commitment to public transit- we take the bus on our anniversary.)

*Afford, like safe, is also a relative term.