To dirty ovens...

Dear future Amanda,

You tried to use oven cleaner one other time before today. It was when you were cleaning your first apartment, remember? Even though you and your summer roommate followed the instructions, the oven looked dirtier than it did before. Then you didn't get most of your deposit back from the landlord despite the fact that the rest of the apartment looked awesome.

Today you thought you would give it a second try. Forgiveness may be divine, but this does not necessarily apply to harsh cleaning products. Again, you read the directions through several times and followed them. This time, the fumes totally made you cough like crazy, even though you held your breath and were well away from the oven when you came up for air. Then, to add insult to injury, the crap didn't even work (despite all the scrubbing you did with your little mask on).

Please do not repeat this mistake again. The house smells bad despite the fans, and now you are super grumpy. Grumpy enough to write a reminder to yourself. Just use the self-cleaning option to burn off the big chunks and then enjoy your dirty oven. In the wise words of Michael Scott, "You know what they say? Fool me once, strike one. But fool me twice, strike three."

Love,
Amanda

A post about bathrooms

We have hard water with a high iron content. This leads to rusty looking everything. When we first moved into this house I tried several rust removers, but nothing worked. This problem is one that only gets worse with time, but instead of trying more cleaning products, I just decided that we would have rusty bathroom fixtures until we fixed the water. It took me a while to get used to it and then I stopped caring, but I still felt bad for guests.

Enter my awesome dad. He found this stuff:



I can't find a better picture, but don't let that stop you from trying it. It is amazing. The rusty stuff is starting to come off of the walls and tub (after only 1 use!). The only thing I don't care for are the fumes. It says that it has a "clean fresh scent" but personally, I feel a little dizzy after using it. I just sprayed it on and then shut the door with the fan blowing. Hopefully this will help a little bit. If the fumes don't go away, I hope that they will kill the ants.

ANTS! IN FEBRUARY!

I get totally crazy about the ants. Today I saw the first few in the bathroom. I have a feeling that this blog may turn into crazy-person ranting about my epic battle to kill any ant that comes in the house. It was fun while it lasted.

Some different worries.

I got a job offer today! I am super excited and am bouncing happily on the exercise ball as I type this. I am really relieved. Well, relieved about finding a job. Now I am worried about a false positive on the drug screen or something crazy coming up on my credit report (I have tried to check it more than once, but it won't let me do it online). But as long as those unlikely things don't happen, I will be working come mid-March. Watch out house, we are going to improve you something crazy once the extra cash starts rolling in!

Unemployment

It really isn't so bad sometimes. This morning I made salad for Scott's lunch and thought, "Mmm...salad. Maybe I will have one for lunch." Then I realized there was no one around to see me eat salad for breakfast, so I did. It was delicious.

If you don't already...

Pandora is a really great way to listen to music. You just type an artist or song, and it plays similar music. It's free and there are no commercials. A friend told me about it a couple of years ago, and I recently remembered it due to the fact that we live far from my favorite radio station. Yay.

Because the internet is dying to know the rest of my weekend

Jeff Tweedy!

You can listen to this while you read:



This is the fun concert we saw on Saturday night. Awesome, awesome. I don't play the guitar, so I never talk about guitar stuff. I can say that I just love, love the way his voice feels so exposed and vulnerable. It was a really laid back, perfect concert. He unplugged his guitar and came out in front of the mic for the last two songs, which brought that teenage girl feeling to the surface. So great. I kind of wish I had taken a picture of him surrounded by his 5 or 6 guitars. It was cute. I just realized I would be really bad at reviewing concerts. Oh well.

So, that was the rest of my fun weekend. I used to just do homework and worry on weekends. What a nice change! On Sunday night we put together some Ikea furniture we bought while up in the suburbs. I took some blurry pictures of Scott putting a wardrobe together. I might get around to posting those eventually.

Another journal-y post

I still don't really know what kind of blog I want this to be. I read home improvement blogs and craft/homemaking blogs, so part of me thinks that would be fun. The problem I see with that is the fact that I don't really do crafts or home improvements often enough to post regularly.

I also like to read journal type blogs. This kind would be easy to update regularly, but they seem a little risky. I think that it is pretty easy to overshare or offend someone in real life when posting mainly thoughts and feelings.

For now, I am just posting whatever because this is still new and exciting. This is what lots of people do, so maybe I shouldn't be so picky. This post is going to be me talking about my weekend. Hope you don't mind.

Thursday night we saw Spamalot with Chicago family people. It was awesome, and I think it is the kind of show that almost anyone would enjoy. One of the highlights was the fact that the cast kept throwing Blagojevich references into the show (we listened to his impeachment hearing on the radio while we were driving to the show). It is so impressive to watch talented actors give the crowd what they want. The funniest part of the show had to be the French taunters. So awesome. This clip gives a general idea:



Lego reenactments of anything are rad in my book.

Scott and I got to spend the night with my brother and awesome fiance and then go spend the next day with Scott's brother and also awesome wife. We are really lucky to have them so close. It is one thing to have siblings (and spouses) that are fun and share similar interests. It is even better to have those siblings within a couple hours drive.

Actually, I think I will finish the weekend fun log in a separate post. This is getting long, and I want to be able to ramble about the fun concert we saw.