Living on my Own: Love/Hate

So I have been living on my own for almost 4 months now! I really can't believe that it has been this long.   My first blog about Living on my own, I wrote about lessons learned.

Living on your own, there is so much to get used to. Thats what today is about. What I love, and hate about living on my own.

Love: Walking in the door to silence. It's so nice knowing that for the most part, I choose what sounds are made in my house. For all my talk of not liking silence, I think I was wrong. There are times that sitting in the silence, and the only noise that is made is the clicking of my keyboard, or the wind.

Hate: Laundry. Not doing the laundry, but LUGGING it up and down 3 flights of stairs. Tonight I almost  broke my pinky lugging the heaviest bag up tonight. Plus because I don't have a washer/dryer (and i don't want to pay to do my laundry) I have to take it to my mom's house. Now I do have a washer/dryer that is mine, but I have to find out how to get the two appliances into my closet.

Love: Decorating my apartment how I want to decorate it. All my life I have wanted to decorate, and show my creative side. Right now my apartment isn't perfect, but there are elements that I love. Like my dining room wall. I have a set of shelves that I love. It is holding a quote that I love. Also in my room I have a shelve that has pictures of my family on it.

Hate: Being alone. Now, I know what you are thinking... Doesn't the whole "Living on your own" give that away? Yes, and no. Yes, I knew that by living on my own I would have times that I was alone. But what I didn't realize is how much time I would spend alone. Sometimes I'm ok, but other times I miss having people to talk to. I think the worst part is when I remember a funny time, and I want to share it with a friend. I want to laugh with someone, and stay up too late just talking.

I have learned that many things are different when living on my own. There are some things I would change, and others that make my day. Funny thing is, I wouldn't give up the bad (except for not having anyone to laugh with) for something different. In these 4 short months I feel like I have changed who I am and that is what I wanted to do.

Living on my own 1

Today I wanted to tell everyone what I have learned from living on my own at my apartment. Some things may sound simple and no brainers, but until you have to do it yourself, you don't realize the little things that happen.

Please don't be afraid to leave a comment, as I am still learning, and welcome any lessons.

1. The disposal can smell bad! I came home one night, and smelled a foul smell. I thought it might be the trash as I hadn't taken it out for a couple of days (I don't want to waste a trash bag.) I took it out, and sprayed febreeze (yes it really works). But when I came back home the next day, still the foul odor was there, and getting worse. A friend suggested taking out the black rim of my disposal and cleaning it out. When I started to clean it; a gross nasty black film that was stuck to the underside of the black rim came out. I cleaned as much as I could, and then poured some lemon juice down the drain. 
2. Don't leave noodles in a crockpot all day long. I decided one day that I was going to make chicken noodle soup. I chopped the veggies, precooked the chicken, and added it all to the broth in the crockpot. Wanting the noodles to absorb the broth, I added the noodles before I left for church, turned the crockpot on low, and left. Coming back home I was excited when I came in, and it smelled good! I had to friends come over as well to celebrate my first real complete meal made all by myself. As we went to look at the dinner, I was dumbfounded that the noodles had almost quadrupled in size. They took up most of the crockpot. The soup, and chicken still tasted good, but the noodles were way too soft, and had too much of the broth in the noodle. 



Noodles

3. The dishwasher creates heat, which then takes away heat from the rest of the house. It has been unseasonably warm this past weekend. Saturday it was 72 here! But I was sitting on my couch with a blanket around me because I was cold.  I ended up shutting off my heater, and opening up my doors, and windows. I thought that I was getting sick because I was cold. No it turns out that my dishwasher was staying on (not sure why yet) and my dishwasher is right by my heater intake. While my dishwasher was on the warmth is making my heater think that it is warm enough to turn on my air conditioner! No wonder my feet have been so cold. For now it is fixed by leaving my dishwasher open just a crack to make it shut off. But I am going to have to talk to my apartment managers about what I can do to fix it.

These are just the first three things I have learned from living on my own. I'm sure there is more, but I can't think of anything right now.