Home - Sweet - Home

It's been two weeks since I've moved into my new apartment, and I am absolutely delighted with the place. It's the luxury that I could never afford in college, including having my own room AND bathroom.

Somewhere around my junior year I had resigned to the fact that I would never have my own room again. I'd move straight from the cramped student dorms, to a cramped post-college apartment, to eventually getting married. All of which required sharing a room and shutter a closet with an unsuspecting stranger. After spending 17-years of my life having my own room, I mourned the loss of my privacy and uninterrupted closet space.

So, even though I may be spoiling myself a bit too much, I was delighted when I realized I could not only have my OWN room, but also my OWN bathroom at the new place. Now I can scatter makeup and brushes and cotton balls from one end to the other without my roommate ever uttering a sound. (Not that my current roommate, "the Actress" would even care).

Yet, as wonderful as it is to have my own place, I came to a quick realization just how much everything COSTS after the first weekend of settling in ended. Little things I took for granted - like the floor lamp that went home with my roommate, or my university-provided standard college desk, suddenly became "luxury items" after realizing that almost half my "impressive salary" went straight to my rent check.

I've always been a good manager of money, and paid for all of my college bills off of my minuscule part-time student worker paycheck. But I always had the benefit of relying on my student loans to give me one lump sum to pay off my subsidized University housing each semester. Now that I can't put rent on my already overburdened credit card, the necessity of a desk or lighting goes WAY down on the priority list.

Needless to say, I was delighted to find a gem of a desk on Craigslist for only $10! I'd looked at the desk not two weeks before at Ikea, but for a whopping $110 +tax, there was NO WAY I'd be getting it. But with a couple of screws, a little bit of nail glue, and homemade dinner as a bribe, my boyfriend put together my very first desk of my own. WoooHoo!

Now the apartment is almost settled, minus the fact that we have zero decorations and are slipping back into the 1800s and surviving on candlelight. (hey, it cuts the energy bill too - right?) It feels good to finally have a place to call "home" after over 4 years of a slightly flexible definition of "home." Somehow, I'm starting to feel like a grown up - especially with my rent check due in less than 2 weeks.