And
She's completely changed her mind about where she wants to live
There are a lot of details about it that I'm not going to go into
But for a variety of reasons she now does not want to live in the retirement community
She was dead set on an apartment
But then when she wasn't going to go to the retirement community she was trying to decide where she was going to go and I was like you know if you lived close to me it would be easier for me to check on you and it would be easier for me to make sure that you took your medicine and it would be easier for me to you know come over and maybe make you some food or something
Cuz I've been driving over to her house to work on cleaning up her s*** and it's only like 8 mi but it feels like it's a thousand miles and it takes me like 30 minutes to get over there and then sometimes coming home it takes me closer to 45 minutes cuz there's some traffic and it's just like Jesus you know this place she was wanting to move to was even further and I was like you know it's very far
So she came and looked at an apartment in my apartment complex and she was
Well let me just say the guy who showed us the apartment is the guy who works here that I really like I see him pretty frequently cuz he parks right in front of my apartment and you know I've been waving to him for years right He's really friendly he's really nice I really like him
And I felt like she was kind of borderline rude when he was showing us the apartment because she was kind of like you know when I was written apartments a one bedroom apartment was bigger than this
And you know she just did not like it I thought it was a super cute apartment but she thought it was really not good enough for her and she was making it clear that she did not like it
And you know I don't know it it she kind of embarrassed me
So then I was like you know look you clearly don't like that one would you like to look at some other apartments then she's like yeah okay
So there's this place kind of right around the corner from me and I'm always looking at it thinking man that looks really swanky
So blah blah blah I won't go into all the boring details but we went over there and we toured the apartment and she fell in love
It's a two bedroom two bath apartment it's like a 1070 square feet it's open concept it's got you know one of those kitchens that's basically in the middle of your living area which I personally don't like I like a separate kitchen I think those open concept things are kind of gross
But it's like you know a luxury apartment right
It's got a gym room downstairs and it's actually a pretty well stock gym I mean sometimes those places are kind of lame if you really analyze with the equipment but this was pretty well stocked really
And they've got like a little cafe thing that has one of those machines that makes different kind of espresso drinks you just push a button and it's basically the same kind of machine that Starbucks has so it's a really good quality drink that you get well that's in their little cafe thing you just get free drinks whenever you go in there
And they pick up your trash every day except Friday and Saturday
And ceilings are really tall it's got like exposed ductwork
One bathroom has a Roman soaking tub and the other one has like a step in shower that you don't have to step you know like over anything it's not in a tub it's just a you open the door and there's a shower it's got a walk-in closet in the master bedroom that's through the shower I mean through the bathroom we saw the model apartment the one that she's going to be getting hopefully is facing into garden with a fountain and trees and like a courtyard with benches and things
The main kitchen living room area has stained cement which is like one of my favorite flooring surfaces
The bedrooms have carpet and she was really pissed off that the apartment over here where I live had carpet in the bedrooms but it didn't really bother her that that one had carpet in the bedrooms so you know it's more expensive it's roughly the same size because the I mean it's bigger the one here was 900 ft² that one is 1,070 so it is a little bigger but it's not a ton bigger but it's you know it's nicer it's got amenities whatever
But she really wants it because she was trying you've got to apply online You can't like give them all your application stuff at the apartments You have to do it online which I think is a big pain in the ass
And she couldn't log on at home it was saying there was a virus
So
She called up there I mean she texted the woman we had talked to that evening or the next morning to tell her that she couldn't get on there and she didn't hear back from her and normally that would be the end of it she would be like oh they're not treating me like you know I don't know the God that the earth revolves around that she expects to be treated like
Normally that's the end
But she called up there and talked to the assistant manager and they said that if she came down there they would log into one of their computers and they would help her as much as she needed help and she told her she'd be there between 2:30 and 3:00 and she texted me and told me that she would you know be here before that and we would go over there and I was like there's no way she's going to be able to get here that fast and normally when she says she's going to be someplace she's like you know she doesn't leave her house until the time till like 10 minutes after the time she was supposed to be there and so she's however many minutes late it is that it takes to get to the place right so that would mean that she would you know get here at like I don't know a quarter to 4:00 or something but she got here at 2:45
She wants that apartment that she's never on time she's never on time and then we went over there and I mean that girl was so nice and she didn't get irritated or loser patients once it took us like almost 2 hours to fill out the forms and upload her proof of incomes and I don't think it should have taken that long that just seems really slow but whatever it took forever then she had to upload her driver's license and so I took a picture of her driver's license for her and emailed it to her and then she was trying to send it but it was she couldn't save it to anything and so I went and asked woman I'm like hey you know there was some stuff that was already preloaded in here that was stuff y'all had entered when she was here the other day I'm like is there any possible way that you can just upload the driver's license I knew you took a picture of a driver's license the other day and she's like well you know I need to take another picture cuz I got a scan it not Xerox it but but yeah if she puts something in that just one of the other things into that slot I can swap it out so we got that done and she is applied
And although it is what I would consider to be too expensive I mean she will get some use out of some of those amenities and it is really pretty
And it's still quite a bit cheaper than the house she was going to rent in the retirement community I mean actually the rent is cheaper than the rent was going to be for the house in the retirement community but then there was all this like buying into the community and having to give first and last month's rent and blah blah blah so although it's too expensive
I mean that's relative right
In LA when I was looking to see how much an apartment would be there they were very very expensive for like a shared room in a house
But to give you an example the apartment in my complex was two bedroom one bath and it was $1,248 a month all bills paid
Which is you know pretty good
And the floor in the living room and kitchen was some kind of I don't think it was actually limited I think it was actually some sort of a maybe it was laminate maybe it was linoleum I don't know it looked fairly convincingly like wood very dark wood and they hadn't swapped it out yet and he said if you're okay with this floor and we don't have to change out the floor they'd already changed out the carpet in the bedrooms if if you don't need us to change out this floor we'll take $150 off the rent looks nice and actually I think I prefer the dark would to the gray wood which is what the new would looks like like what they've got in the office it's kind of a medium gray it's not that pretty it's not bad it's all right but I like the dark wood better
And this other one it's two bedroom two bath and like I said it's got a lot of amenities blah blah blah it's 1,070 ft² and it's base rate is 1631 a month but then there are some other things that you get charged for and that adds up to being like $1,740 a month plus you pay all the utilities there isn't gas so it's just electric and water but I mean that's going to add up
But honestly I thought that the luxury apartments were more like 1500 for a one bedroom one bath so I mean I don't think it's price gougey I think it's fine I just think I would rather have the kind of quirky looking apartment for a lot less money
But she loves it she loves it and you know she can afford it and
I had spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to arrange things in the house that she was going to rent and then when she was looking at the apartment in my complex across the street in the other side I was like well it's smaller but the layout is similar so and it's not as much smaller as you would think because in that house there was a hallway that was 4 ft wide and it was the whole depth of the house and so all of that was you know space that you can't really use for anything cuz you can't put bookcases or anything like that in the hall it's not really wide enough for that so that becomes not really very usable space but it's still part of the square footage and then there was that back bathroom that was like had built-in bookcases as though you could store a lot of stuff in it but not really books or anything paper because it's a bathroom with the shower and whatnot so that was square footage but it was kind of you know like awkward so you know it was bigger
But with this apartment since it's an open concept it has a lot less usable wall space and you can't really I mean like actually the areas that you have you've got your kitchen but then the island comes way out into the room so you've got room for a table the model home had a table you got room for a dining table or kitchen table or whatever and you've got room for a seating area and the living room with like you know a sofa and a media state media console but you can't really start with a lot of bookcases and whatnot
So I had to really give it some thought and I mean I think I've got it all figured out and I was pitching it to her because the idea and what I've been telling her is you know for her whole life she's been telling herself and I think I said before as I'm cleaning up there are all these like you know affirmations and vision boards and whatever about how she wants everything to be beautiful and open and airy and clean and you know all this stuff but I mean she writes that down as her goal for herself that she wants to do but she doesn't manifest that she manifests you know a s*******
So you know I basically told her my idea for what I wanted to do and how I want to help her manifest this you know I want to help her get this thing that she's been saying not what she told me she wants or what she's been telling herself for like at least 40 years and probably more than that that she wants but you know that she's going to have to let go of some of this stuff because you cannot go into a place like that and put a bunch of stuff you know if you want it to be an open concept Air-y open and light and pretty and whatever You really have to not have a lot of stuff You can't have a bunch of you know bookcases and furniture line in the walls You just really have to keep it to a minimum and you know I pitched her bedroom design as kind of a salon kind of architectural digesty thing
With her bed turned she's got a twin bed right so it's not a giant bed and she's got room for a giant bed if she wants a giant bed but she doesn't she just wants the twin bed and I'm like okay well if we turn it sideways and push it against the wall then you can have pillows and stuff on the back and a skirt around it and it sort of looks like a sofa when you're not you know sleeping in it or whatever and then put the white bookcases along the walls behind it so it becomes like this you know built-in kind of bookshelves with books and her collections of objects and things like that and then she's got this giant mirror with a big gilded frame on it which is kind of hideously out of date in a way but you know if it's hung up on the wall so she can use it as a dressing mirror then it starts taking on kind of a salon you know like if you went to a fancy dress shop or millimeter shop or something and Paris or something you know so I think in that context it'll work and I'm like and since and then you can have your chair she's got this stuffed side chair kind of thing with an ottoman with this kind of light purpley flowers I don't know it's not my favorite but you know whatever and there's a thing in the garage that seems like it's a table but it apparently opens and you can store things in it like a cabinet and so I'm like you can have that over in the corner she's got that currently in her bedroom and then she's got these shorter white bookcases and I'm like those can go along this other wall and she can have pictures above it you know like an art wall and I'm like since you'll have your bed against the wall instead of sticking out into the room you'll have a big space in the middle and you can put you know a couple of tables maybe with tablecloths or you know something in the middle with some with like a vase of flowers and coffee table books and stuff and so she liked that idea and I'm like and in the living room
In that area she's got her she's got this zero gravity chair and I'm like will put your zero gravity chair and and she's got this antique ice cream table that's got like a black slate top I'm like we can put that next to the zero gravity chair so that you know if you're sitting in the chair you can work on your computer or you can have a drink and that'll be pretty and will you know look for a really cool lamp you know like stand up lamp
We'll have to get me some kind of chair to sit on so that I have some place comfortable to sit when I come to visit you and then maybe we'll have like a coffee table and then that's pretty much all the furniture in that area and then we'll have you know the walls that furniture will be out from the walls and the walls will be hung with you know paintings and stuff and then in the area by the kitchen in the model home it had a table and chairs but it was a little bit big for the space you know and she's got three chairs that are those classic design navy chairs from the '40s I mean reproductions of that not actual antiques from the '40s
I'm like so I'm thinking around table with a glass top so that it doesn't take up as much visual space and then by the door in the model home they had like a big shelving unit bookcase kind of thing I'm like but I'm not thinking I'm not thinking that I'm thinking more like a buffet against the wall so there's a thing there that you know when you come in you can put your keys on top of it and if there are things that you need to you know take in and out like I don't know whatever they'll be a cabinet that you put things in and close the doors so there's no visible clutter
So I just kind of pitched the whole idea of this apartment and then the second bedroom you know we can set it up with her sewing machine and that kind of stuff but then it's probably realistically going to kind of be a junk room because it just probably is going to be although I have gotten her to commit to getting a storage at least initially because there's just not going to be any way that we can go through all this stuff in the amount of time that we have so whatever stuff that she can't bear to be parted with you know it's just going to have to go into a storage until we can figure something out
Because the idea is that when this place becomes available we move the stuff in that she's going to have in there and then you know she can get in there and she can live with it and feel you know how it is and if there's some stuff that she needs or whatever then we can figure that out but not move all the stuff she has to the new place just move the stuff that's going to go to be her usable stuff so that she can feel you know what it's like to be in the open airy place and I think that will help her to detach herself some from all the other things and you know I mean I'm not saying that it's not going to backslide at all but she really seems to have bought into this idea you know and I'm really hopeful that I can accomplish all this
Wow that took me a really long time this might be really long I haven't any idea
