The Apt

I told myself I would do this blog thing, and I'm doing it.  Even though it's Friday night and I should be getting ready to go out.  But that's a topic for a completely different blog.  Oh, Coloradans...  

If you'll recall, when I first moved to CO last year, I moved without even having visited Boulder.  I moved into an apartment that I'd never seen, with a roommate who I'd only communicated with via email, and everything ended up just peachy.  Great, even.

Until I got kicked out of said apartment.  Again, a-whole-nother can of worms.  

Either way, being kicked out of that place ended in me moving out to Broomfield and in with Kenny, who I now cannot live without.  Seriously.  The condo we were renting from his voice teacher in SD was great.  Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a piano, amazing location, King Soopers a half block away, really low rent... Everything was wonderful.  Except commuting.  Commuting 13.6 miles one way, two times a day made me want to die.  Rush hour traffic at 8:00 am was never fun, and being at school for 14 hours and then driving home was about as enjoyable as having teeth pulled.  We both knew that we couldn't stay there for another year, no matter how much we loved the place.  Our cars hated us.

So, in March or April, when a mutual friend and fellow vocal performance major was asking around for two new roommates for this fall, I immediately offered to move both Kenny and myself in.  It didn't take her long to agree that we should move in, and we started to get things in order.  Even though rent would be substantially, significantly, and incredibly higher (this is Boulder, after all), we decided that it was worth it.  After all, when we figured in gas, car maintenance, and convenience, there weren't many arguments as to why not to move to Boulder.

So, when the summer was over, Kenny and I moved into our new place in beautiful Boulder.  The new apartment has 4 bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms.  There are 4.5 of us (Brent's boyfriend is around a lot), plus a very cute rabbit named Potato and Max the chinchilla.  We did have Bob the cat for a few weeks, but Brent's parents took him back when it was decided that he was too much stress.  Sadly.

Our location is great.  We're literally one block away from the Hop bus, which drops us off 20 feet from the front door of the music building on campus.  Target and the 29th street mall are a mere 6 blocks away.  We walk to and from the world-famous Pearl Street pedestrian mall a few times a week.  When we feel like it, we can take the scenic route and walk the 25-minute walk to school.  It's seriously wonderful.  

The roommate situation couldn't be better.  Here's the breakdown:

• 2 females
• 2 males
• 3 voice performance majors
• 1 opera fanatic/physics master's student who knows more about opera than the rest of us combined
• 2 sopranos
• 2 gays

What more could a person ask for, really?  And that's not mentioning that we all get along really well, especially when you consider that we hardly knew Danielle and had never met Brent when we moved in.  Our building could use a few improvements, but that's not happening anytime soon.  Damn BPM.

Also not happening anytime soon is pictures.  If you'll recall, I put my camera through the washing machine last spring, and haven't had the money to get a new one.  I'm asking for one for Christmas, though, and when it comes, I'll get ya'll pictures.  Until then, feel free to come and visit at anytime.  Then you can just see it for yourself!

All Along the Colorado Trail...

In recent years, I've moved a lot.  Let me give you a run-down:

• August 2004: Gwinner to Jamestown for my freshman year of college.
• May 2005: Jamestown to Gwinner to work at Bobcat.
• August 2005: Back to Jamestown for sophomore year.
• May 2006: Back to Gwinner for summer #2 at Bobcat.
• August 2006: To Jamestown for junior year.
• May 2007: To Medora to work for the summer (plus a carload of stuff to home first!)
• August 2007: Back to Jamestown for my last year of college (or so I thought)
• May 2008: Summer #2 in Medora
• October 2008: Back to Jamestown for a year to live with Tab
• April 2009: Back to Medora for summer #3
• August 2009: To Boulder, CO for freshman year #2
• December 2009: From Boulder to Broomfield after I was kicked out of my apartment
• May 2010: Back to Medora for summer #4.

That's 13 times since August of 2004.  That's an average of 2.6 times per year.

Now, one would think that with all of my practice at packing and moving that I would be good at it.  I'm not.  I'm pretty bad at it, actually.  More than one carload is too much stuff, and I have about 2 carloads worth.  Thank goodness Kenny and I decided to rent a storage unit to get us through the summer.

What I have improved at is knowing where I put stuff away when I unpack.  When it comes time to re-pack, I know exactly where everything is.  And I know exactly which box everything is in, because it's been in and out of the same box multiple times throughout the past years.  But the problem remains that it's just too much.

When I pack, I like to take my time.  I'll pack a box, then sit down and write for a while.  Then I'll pack a box and eat supper.  Then I'll pack a box and call some friends.  It's a process.  A time-consuming one, but it helps me keep my sanity.  And even though I hate it, there are good things about packing. It's a chance to reorganize things and to get rid of the stuff you just haven't used in forever.  And it means you're going somewhere, which is always exciting.

Usually, when I'm moving to Medora, I'm nothing but excited.  Medora is like a second, maybe even first home for me, as my trailer house is the place I've lived longest in recent years.  This year, I'm very excited, and there's lots of hype surrounding this summer in Medora, but it's also a little bittersweet to be leaving.

CO is quickly turning into a home for me. I'm really comfortable here, and am settling into routines.  I'd like to stay to experience summer on the Front Range.  I'm leaving my boyfriend, and will likely never see him again.  There are lots of things that I'm really going to miss, in no particular order:

• The mountains.  I see them every day on my commute, and they are so, so, so beautiful.  Really.  It's worth a trip through CO just to see the mountains.  I get sad on foggy days when I can't see them.  They're gorgeous.
• Chipotle.  I know this is silly, but there isn't one in the whole state of ND.  Especially not in Medora.
• Recitals.  I'm in the habit of seeing about a recital a week around here, and that really isn't an option in Medora.
• Recycling.  No one recycles in Medora, even though we really, really should.  Especially the bars.  Maybe I'll work on that this summer.
• King Soopers.  King Soopers is my favoritest grocery store ever.  I love having a King Soopers card.
• Kenny.  Because he's Kenny.
• Slacker and Steve.  When I don't get to listen to Slacker and Steve on the radio, my life is incomplete for a day.  This is going to be a whole summer.  I'm going to have to stream them online.  Seriously, people, they are hilarious.  Thanks to Kenny to introducing me to Alice 105.9.
• The hot, Hot, HOT sun.  My hypothesis is that we're closer to it here, so the heat of the sun is really a lot warmer than it is at home.  Even on chilly days, the sun is hot.
• Of course, all of my friends.  Although I don't want to miss anyone so I'm not naming names.
• The folks at the Center of the American West.  They rock.  All of them.
• Voice lessons.  I love singing.  And learning how to sing.  I need to find time to do that this summer.
• Traffic.  I love driving in traffic.

Okay, that's probably not everything that I'll miss, but it's a significant portion.  I leave this wonderful place on Sunday, so wish me safe travels.

And don't worry, the blog will continue in Medora, although the content may not be quite as exciting.

The Long Commute

For my seventh birthday, my parents bought me the Laura Ingalls Wilder book series.  I don't know what possessed them to do such a thing, but I could never put them down.  I can't even count how many times I read them when I was young.  I was so obsessed that I made my family go to their homestead museum in De Smet, SD during a family vacation.  They hated every minute.  I loved it.

After Thanksgiving, I was talking with my pianist, and she had said that she had read one, "The Long Winter," while she was home during Thanksgiving break.  I thought to myself, "What a fantastic idea," and decided to read the series while I was home for Christmas.  Between drinking, knitting, drinking, puzzles, drinking, and drinking, I didn't really have time to read a whole lot.  However, I brought the books that I didn't finish with me to CO so that I would have some entertaining reading for my life.

I just finished "The Long Winter."

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That story has absolutely nothing to do with this blog topic, other than that I stole the name of the book for my blog title.  Ha!  I make myself laugh sometimes...

Some know and some don't that I was kicked out of my apartment in Boulder at the end of December.  They didn't really have any good reason for kicking me out other than that they didn't want me there, but I left without a fight.  Luckily, at about the time I was getting kicked out, Kenny's ex-boyfriend was moving out of their condo in Broomfield.  Broomfield is a suburb of Denver, approximately 15 miles from Boulder.

Fifteen miles is not that far.  At least, not by ND standards, where cruising speed is 68 on a 65, and highways are void of things like traffic, potholes, car accidents, and stoplights.  Yes, stoplights.  I'm not kidding you when I say that highways here in CO have stoplights in the middle of nowhere.  There is nothing more annoying.

The road that I take to Boulder doesn't have stoplights, but it does have traffic.  Let me tell you: it has traffic.  Sometimes it takes me 45 minutes to go those 15 miles.  And that's on a clear day.  I haven't experienced snow/ice yet, but Kenny tells me it's even worse on those days.  Ew.  Now, I could take the bus, but I can't park for free at the park and ride because I have ND plates, and it takes even longer to get to Boulder by bus.

Because it now takes me more than 7 minutes to walk to class every morning, I have to get up that much earlier in order to get to class on time.  I have class at 8:00 am twice a week and at 9:00 am twice a week.  That equals getting up at 6:00 and 7:00 at the latest.  If you know me, you know that mornings and I are not friends.  Not even close to friends, so that is less than ideal. 

After fighting traffic to arrive in Boulder, I have to find parking.  Because I have class so early, it's generally not too difficult for me to find free, off-campus parking, but it's not too convenient, either.  It's just a hassle.

Let's not even talk about how stinky it is not to be able to go home in the middle of the day to take a shower, or a nap, or to eat dinner.  Most days, I bring lunch and supper with me. There hasn't been a day yet that I haven't spent more than 12 hours in Boulder.  But it's not worth coming home in the middle of the day, and especially not during rush hour traffic.

The current condo is cheaper than the old one per month, but we have to pay utilities and I have to pay for gas for commuting.  Blech. 

Now, there are positives to the new place.  My room is much bigger, I have a bathroom all to myself, there's a piano at home.  Oh, and of course, I have a fantastic roommate who entertains me daily.  Next year, we'll be living the high life in Boulder.

No, not that high life.