Sunday, February 21, 2010

New apartment! (No question mark!)

We got the apartment! I'm so ridiculously excited. Over the last week we've written way too many checks, signed way too many papers and spent way too much time looking for new furniture, but we're happy! When making semi-life-changing decisions like choosing a new place to live, I usually feel very anxious and unsure of myself, but this time I feel good. The ONLY negative thing is that they have a no pet policy (it was really hard convincing the new landlord that my chinchillas are clean, hypoallergenic and don't smell...so much so that she made us pay double the security deposit) so that means no puppies for the next two years. It's hardly a sacrifice considering all of my other "new apartment must-haves" are there (walk-in closet, bath tub, 2 parking spaces, patio area, good bathroom storage) and even some extra bonuses, like a free gym and indoor pool and having jacuzzi jets in said bathtub. Our move-in date is March 1st but we're going to take our time and do it little by little. Working 6 days a week makes things hard so we're not going to stress ourselves (hah, easier said than done).

Our current landlord started showing our place today, which meant that for the whole afternoon we were in cleaning mode. I hate that we let it get so messy but we clean up for OTHER PEOPLE, not ourselves. I would love to blame it entirely on how tired we are from work but I think it's definitely half exhausted/half lazy. I felt like a little kid, hiding things under the bed and stuffing things in my drawers or the corners of my closet hoping no one would notice. I have my fingers crossed that someone liked the place and will rent it soon. The sooner they rent it the better for us, since we're being charged for the full month of March even though we'll probably be out by the 15th. Now comes the fun part, packing our entire lives into boxes! Wee!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

New cameras, new apartment?

After the Kid Cudi show we went to a few weeks ago, Bri got bummed on the quality of photos and videos we took. Obviously they weren't great, they were taken with our cell phones because he didn't want to bring the giant Nikon D40 (even though I bought him a cute, wait no not cute, MASCULINE, camera bag from Supreme). So that weekend we went to New Jersey to get him a new digital camera. He is a brat/geek and has to have the best of everything, so he was dead set on buying a Leica, just to have a small point-and-shoot camera that he can easily bring with him anywhere. After about ten minutes of boring camera talk, I wandered away to entertain myself. That is when I came across their Lomography section.

I'd always wanted some sort of lomo camera. At one point I NEEDED to have their four-lens ActionSampler, then the SuperSampler, and my most recent (recent, as in, for the past 6 years) necessity was the classic Holga. I finally bought it! The guys at the store were awesome, they showed me what film to use, what speed is best, how to load/unload it, etc. They were really helpful and kept laughing about how Brian and I are polar opposites in regards to our cameras.

We went back to the store this past Saturday. B wanted a portable tripod, I had some questions after reading the Holga book and I had my first roll of 120 film that needed to be developed. After asking all my questions about film types and cross-processing I picked up some 120 slide film also. I'm pretty surprised that they cross-process (and they also scan negatives! I can't wait to try some 35mm film in the camera and hopefully get photos printed past the sprockets. I'm going back Thursday night to get my film. I hope the photos come out good but it was my first time with this camera, I'm not expecting too much. Again, the guys were REALLY helpful and awesome. If you're in the NY/NJ area, go to Bergen County Camera (we've been going to the Westwood location). There's honestly no need to go to B&H anymore, they have everything and are even more helpful.

New apartment! Well, not yet, but we looked at places last week and we really like this one. It's a condo unit but it has its own entrance (not in a building where you have to take the stairs or elevator to your floor), it has two bedrooms and two marble/granite bathrooms (one bedroom will be our office/chinchilla room), a washer and dryer, a little patio area, views of the Hudson River and TZ Bridge, an AWESOME kitchen with marble counters and custom tiles...I loooove it. We put down a deposit and filed an application, fingers crossed! The worst part was having to call my current landlord to ask if we could get out of our lease a few months early. Ugh, terrible. He said ok, though, after sounding totally hurt and confused. Now I'm just going to wait anxiously and see what happens!