Growing up, I used to insist that living in an apartment would be way better than living in a house. You can say that television is to blame for this, and I might even agree with you, but apartments symbolized cool to me. They were everything city, everything bright lights and busy streets, everything that my rinky dink depressed hometown was absolutely not.
Flash forward: I am a grown up (I think? I'm supposed to be anyway, right?) and I am living in an apartment and it is damn cool, so there.
Jon's and my homestead trajectory has been pretty simple, fortunately. Our furthest move has been 3.4 miles.
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| image via Pittsburgh Neighborhoods Wikipedia | The gold stars are us. . .approximately. ;) |
While in college, we lived in an apartment that I can now consider rinky dink and slightly gross, but as students it was amazing: great location, cheap rent, fully furnished, stocked with appliances. Major win. From there, we moved to a townhouse in a development that was still in the city, just slightly removed. Although the space and amenities were super nice, the price was not. Cut to our current place: just the two of us and the cats, two bedroom, one bathroom, high ceilings, hardwood floors. . .yup. This is the city-fied apartment I've wanted for forever (although it is not located above a restaurant/bar/shop, much to younger me's dismay), this is what a Pittsburgh apartment should be.
Due to the insanity that we encountered while moving this summer, it seems that while our ornaments and lights survived, our tree did not. Inspired by the awesome holiday decorations of my girlfriends, I was so ready to deck out our tree - I even had the perfect place for it.
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| Representing the holidays in Apartment #1 |
Christmas to me has always meant white tree with silver and blue accents - my grandma had a white tree when I was a kid and it just really stuck with me (probably because most people had a green tree, as is the norm). I had always said that when it came time for me to buy a tree, it would be one that honored Grandma Teena. Our roommate actually surprised us with this tree and I remember being so touched.
Anyway, I was momentarily stumped and disappointed this morning when I discovered we were sans tree. I stared at the box of ornaments and lights and all things festive, ready to put it back in the closet when I had my aha! moment.
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| Apologies for the crookedness, I promise it's my angle and not, you know, the wall. . . |
I strung the lights on our mantle, hung some of our favorite ornaments (including a Tinkerbell one I was gifted in a work Secret Santa a few years ago as well as our invitation ornament that one of my girlfriends gifted me last year) and was pleasantly surprised with how well my quick problem-solving vision had come to life. Sure, I ended up ruining an entire string of lights in the process and sure, I cursed a lot trying to get everything untangled and in place, but for a girl who can't even hang streamers for birthday parties, this was pretty fabulous.
So, that's the holiday amazingness in our abode this year. Next year, we'll replace our tree, but even so, I might still hang lights from our mantle - might as well incorporate a new tradition, right?
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