I’m moving on up… to the Eastside…

After three years of living at home – which have been great – I am finally moving out of my parents’ house for the last(?) time.

After college, I moved back home to pay off some bills and to attempt to deal with my millions thousands of dollars in student loans.

Some people can’t believe that I’m 26 and still living with my parents, but it really hasn’t been that bad. I have a great relationship with my parents, I live here rent-free (I pay a couple of household bills and help clean around the house) and I have the entire second floor to myself. Plus, I work 2nd shift, my parents both work 1st, which means we really only see each other on the weekends. I don’t have a curfew, I get to be with my adorable doggies and I really don’t have it that rough.

That said, I’m moving out. Finally.

My younger sister and I will be moving into an adorable lower flat next month in Milwaukee’s lower east side. I cannot wait.

Did I mention I’m moving out?

The house has beautiful archways and hard wood floors. We will have plenty of space, plus a backyard (where our new landlord has already planted some veggies for us!) There is also a HUGE kitchen, which I am just itching to decorate.

4276_686468868988_26700645_39639918_5413487_n

4276_686468968788_26700645_39639925_3993241_n

Emily and I decided to split up the decorating – she gets the living room (black and white with red accents), I get the kitchen (vintage/retro/diner) and the bathroom will be rubber ducky-themed since she already has all that stuff. Our dining room will become a fabulous office/art studio/crafty space and our extra bedroom is going to be an oversized, walk-in closet. There are only 3 small closets in the entire apartment, so we figured the extra bedroom could be converted into one.

I will be so sad to leave my doggies at home (my parents won’t let me take them and the landlord doesn’t allow doggies), but I know I’ll be at the house often to visit them my parents.

I found an awesome, vintage 50s-style chrome table on craigslist for the kitchen, and found this fabulous retro spice rack on ebay!

My super cute new retro spice rack!

Angel on my shoulder?

When you see the photo I’m about to share and read the story behind what happened, you’ll know why I’m thinking I had a guardian angel looking over my shoulder Friday morning. I was on the way to an appointment in Waukesha Friday morning. It was just after 10:30 and I got on 894 heading north toward the zoo interchange. I merged onto I-94 WB which puts you in the left lane. shortly thereafter, my car starting shaking and I heard a weird noise (that did not sound like the engine). Somehow, I managed to cross all the lanes of traffic and get to the right hand shoulder at about Elm Grove Road. I waited for a safe chance to get out of the car (so much for that move over or slow down law)… and this is what I saw:

Front passenger side tire

HOLY CRAP. Do you see that? Seriously, I have NO idea how I got to the shoulder without getting in an accident. Luckily, I have steel rims and somehow the rim was not harmed at all. Again, wow. Can you imagine how this would have looked if it was alloy? Now, here is where I wasn’t sure what to do.

1. I don’t know how to change a tire.

2. I don’t have AAA

So I did what any respecting adult woman would do. I called my mom.

She came and met me on the freeway and then we called AAA using her card. They said they’d have someone there within the hour. While we were waiting, a state patrolman stopped to make sure we were ok and gave me the number for his office in case the AAA guy didn’t come soon. He was very nice. I was very surprised that he stopped, but my mom reminded me that before cell phones, all you COULD do was wait for cops to show up. (seriously, what did we do before cell phones?)

Finally, the guy showed up to change the tire… and put on my itty bitty baby spare. Here’s him hard at work:

His jack is way better than the one in my trunk

He had some problems getting it off, which makes me think that even if I did try to change it myself, there’s no way I would have actually gotten it off.

When my dad got home from work, I had him take a look at the tire and we found a huge nail in it. That was the culprit. Of course, if I would have noticed it was going flat, I probably could have gotten the tire patched for much less moola. $175 later and a trip to Sears, I have a new tire.

Here’s a little layout I did about the ordeal. Click on it to see a bigger version.
Blowout