Kodintapainen hankittu

No nyt on sitten onneksi loytynyt uusi asunto, josta siis jo aikaisemmin kerroin ja jossa mies on asunut parisen viikkoa. Tahan asti on kuulemma vaikuttanut ihan ok-paikalta, tosin takan korjaamiseen taisi menna huoltomiehelta viikko ennenkuin viitsi tulla paikalle. Mutta lammot ovat pysyneet paalla ja suihkutkin ovat pysyneet kayttokunnossa.

Hyvin "generic" olohuone, jossa mies huonekalujen puutteessa kamppaa ilmapatjalla :)

Kyseessa on eri kaupunki, kuin mista meidan alkuperainen asunto loytyi ja harmittavasti tama uusi paikka on aika keskella ei mitaan. Ensimmaisesta asunnosta olisi paassyt kavellen kirjastoon, nyt meilla on minimiehen kanssa kavelyetaisyydella vain lahipuisto. Muualle emme sitten paivisin paasekaan, koska mies vie auton mennessaan toihin ja esimerkiksi lahimpaan kauppaan on 30 minuutin kavelymatka. Toivotaan, etta alueelta loytyisi kavereita minimiehelle, yksin on kovin tylsa leikkia puistossa. Asumme aika lahella army basea eli kompleksissa asuu paljon military porukkaa, toivottavasti siis myos perheita lapsineen.

Meillakin siis lahto lahenee, enaa kaksi viikkoa kotimaa-asumista jaljella, iiks... ja nyyh :( 

Asunto-ongelmia

No niinhän siinä kävi, ettei asunto ollut sellainen kuin toivottiin :(

Alue oli kuulemma todella kiva ja ulkopäin asuntokompleksikin ihan mukava, mutta heti muutettuaan mies alkoi huomata pieniä ikäviä juttuja. Asunto oli itsessään siisti,  mutta hyvin kulunut. Esimerkiksi parvekkeen ovi ei sulkeutunut kunnolla, vaan siihen jäi sellainen torakoiden mentävä kolo, josta tuli myös kylmää ilmaa oikein kunnolla sisälle. Marylandin talvet eivät ole mitään lämpimiä eli pakkasta on varsinkin öisin reippaastikin.

 

No nämä pikkujutut olisivat varmaan olleet korjattavissa, mutta toisena päivänä tuli sitten isompi juttu. Mies meni aamulla ekaa kertaa suihkuun ja vähän ajan päästä huoltomies koputtaa oveen, että suihku on laitettava käyttökieltoon, koska vedet vuosivat alempaan asuntoon. Ainakaan viikonloppuna asialle ei oltu tehty mitään.

 

Mies lähti perjantaina sitten samantien etsimään uutta asuntoa. Hän on nyt alustavasti varannut tämännäköisen asunnon meille:

 

 

Asunto on hieman kalliimpi kuin tuo ensin varaamanne, mutta sille nyt ei voi mitään, koska ei tuohon vesivahinkoiseen paikkaankaan voi oikein jäädä. Tällä viikolla varmaan selviää päästäänkö vanhasta asunnosta eroon ja saammeko tuon uuden asunnon...

 

Näistä huonoista uutisista huolimatta toivottelen

 mukavaa alkuviikkoa kaikille :)

 

 

p.s Viime yönä sain vielä lisää "hyviä" uutisia vanhasta asunnosta eli lämmitys oli lakannut toimimasta ja asunnossa oli +10C, jippii...

 

Rahti Marylandiin

Meille oli alusta asti selvää, että osa tavaroistamme on pakko lähettää rahdilla Marylandiin. Meidän aikuisten tavaroilla ei ollut niin väliä, mutta minimiehelle oli tärkeää saada mukaan omat lelut ja oma sänky, jotta muutosta tulee mahdollisimman vähän stressaava. Suurin osa meidän huonekaluistamme oli sitäpaitsi joko ostettu käytettyinä tai saatu lahjaksi, koska Suomeen muuttaessamme meillä oli mukana tasan 5 matkalaukullista vaatteita yms. Nebraskassa olleet huonekalut veimme varastoon anoppilaan, emme edes silloin miettineet niiden Suomeen rahtausta. Olisi kuitenkin ehkä kannattanut, koska noin vuosi sitten tulva tuhosi lähes kaiken omaisuutemme Nebraskassa... Onneksi siellä ei ollut mitään ainakaan tunnearvoltaan erityisen arvokasta. Ehdin jo tosin surra hääpukuni menetystä, mutta mies kertoikin tänään loytäneensä sen suhteellisen hyvässä kunnossa, jee!

Lähetimme tarjouspyynnön muistaakseni viiteen eri kuljetusfirmaan ja näistä valikoitui edullisimmaksi TravelCargo. Pyysimme tarjouksen kolmesta kuutiosta tavaraa, mutta kuten aiemmin kirjoittelin, määrä paisui kahdeksaksi. Tämä tietenkin suurensi kustannuksia ja loppupeleissä maksoimme TravelCargolle vakuutuksineen ennakkoa hieman alle 3000€. Tämän lisäksi tulee vielä mahdolliset tullimaksut Yhdysvaltain päässä. TravelCargo nouti tavarat vanhasta kodistamme, josta ne siirtyivät heidän varastolleen. Sieltä tavarat lähtivät meriteitse kohti Baltimorea, josta taas on kuljetus uuteen kotiimme.

TravelCargo lähetti kuvan pakatuista tavaroistamme valmiina lähtöön :)

Raportoin myöhemmin miten tavarat tulivat sitten loppujen lopuksi perille.

Sain tänään lopultakin siivottua vanhan kotimme, joten huomenna voin hyvillä mielin palauttaa avaimet huoltoyhtiölle. 

Mukavaa viikonlopun jatkoa kaikille! :)

Apartment hunting online...

Since our current "home base" is in Nebraska and we are all in Finland right now, we have been hunting for an apartment in Maryland online. Not an easy task I can tell you.

 

Not being able to visit the place you plan on calling home for at least a year or so (12 month leases are rather common) makes it a bit tough to make a decision. We found several potential places, but upon closer inspection they turned out to be not what we need or want. We first found a place with an excellent location (8 minute drive to husband's office!) and with good ratings from apartmentratings.com. Our wonderful friends (thank you so much! :) went to take a look at it and took photos and everything looked great. That is, until I probed the elementary school a bit better. While the school had gotten a decent grade (6) at Greatschools, the reviews were not good, not good at all. So we had to pass on that apartment.

 

Next we found one that was a bit further away (25 minute drive) from husband's office. The elementary school was great and the place had gotten great ratings. So we contacted them and got a nice quote from the manager. We thought about it overnight and decided to go with the place, since we were running out of time. We contacted the place again and the lady we spoke the day before was not there. The new manager told us the prices change every day and today the price had gone up $200 a month. The rents in Maryland already seemed outragious to us, so adding another $200 to our monthly expenses didn't seem like a smart thing to do. So we had to look elsewhere. We first looked at the same town, but couldn't find a good place to live in. The places were either too pricey or apartment ratings mentioned roaches and other bug issues. Some places looked great until I checked the crime stats...armed robberies, narcotics offenses and assaults right around the corner. No thank you.

 

Next we looked at a place that is a 35 minute drive away from husband's office. Again the schools looked great and the apartment complex had gotten good reviews. Crime stats showed only traffic offenses. Unfortunately they didn't have any vacancies fitting our minimum requirements (2bed, 2bath) and if we wanted to live there we'd have to settle for a 2bed 1bath place. We really didn't want to give up on the second bathroom, since we are already downsizing from living in a house to living in an apartment. Luckily the lady told us that they had another property in the same town and they had one 2bed 2bath available later this month. So we decided to go with that, since we were running out of time and options fitting in our price range. We paid the application fees and were approved. Now we have to sign the lease and have our signatures notarized and mail a check for the deposit.

 

This is what our floor plan will look like:

 

We are basically leasing the place blind, but husband did found out from their website that we have 30 days from the moving date to cancel our lease. Let's hope we got lucky and won't have to look any further!

 

#nogreenthumb

If you read this blog and use Instagram, you may have noticed the Sugar Antelope is now on Instagram :) I couldn't use the app with my own trusty crackberry, but I got a new phone from work. I probably won't be super-active on Instagram, but will upload photos every now and then.

If you have checked out my Instagram photos you've already seen this one:

It's my China rose (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) in bloom, rather pretty! I have no green thumb to speak of, but China rose has been one of the few indoor plants that I've managed to keep alive. Originally I had one mother plant, but I've done some cutting and now I have three roses and one more is pushing out roots as we speak :) Here they are:

This one is the mother plant.

This one was the first baby. It gave up the new (third) baby plant that's next to it rather hazardously. Like I said, I have no green thumb, so I dropped the thing accidentally and two branches came off :D I figured I might as well get another plant out of the mess.

Here's the second baby plant. The photo of the flower is from this one.

This is the only non-rose that we have. It's some sort of succulent house plant, hens-and-chicks I guess. Little man picked it out and I bought it for him. I've had a Christmas cactus before and it didn't die (I gave it away when I moved abroad), so maybe this one will survive as well :)

I'm better with my outdoor garden, I had some chamomile and lettuce growing this summer and they turned out pretty good. Since we most likely won't be living here anymore next summer, I didn't bother with the garden that much. I just bought some pansy seeds and got some color to our garden as well. 

Anyone else have China roses or hens-and-chicks? 

Maybe you could give me a few tips on how to take better care of them :)

 Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

The never-ending debate: move back to the United States or stay in Finland?

Husband has been bringing up the idea of moving back to the U.S lately. My initial response has been that absolutely not! But I mean I totally understand why husband would like to move back to his home country. I, after all, wanted to move back to mine too two years ago. I've been really sick (bad case sniffles from the daycare kids I'm sure) the last couple of days and I've had some time to think about why I wouldn't want to move and why it could be a good thing. So here are my ponderings:

Why Not? (The selfish list)

- I have to leave my parents behind. The thought of having to leave my Mom brings tears to my eyes, I don't want to leave her and I'd also be taking her only grandchild with me

- I'd have to leave my friends behind, and they're irreplaceable

- I'd be stuck being a homemaker again until lil man goes to school. Daycare is just way too expensive and we wouldn't have my Mom to babysit lil man

- Healthcare costs, I don't know if I'd even quality for an insurance. I didn't get one earlier due to pre-existing conditions, so chances are I wouldn't get one now either. The only way to get a health insurance would be through husband's job

- Immigration process is a hassle, and it's expensive

- Life in Finland is safe, I'm never scared here. There are some really scary places/people/groups in the U.S and I'm not a big fan of the politics either

- Public elementary education system in the U.S is not that good

Well, maybe, because... (The less selfish list)

-Husband has the right to see his parents too, right? Husband has a way bigger extended family than I do. (Chances are we wouldn't live nearby them though)

-Husband left his friends behind, he misses them as well

 - Husband has more job opportunities and he could advance in his career

- I would eventually have more job opportunities

- We could actually afford to buy a home

- Lil man would get to be in his birth country. Now would be a good time to move, if we are going to, since lil man is not in school. We could then move back to Finland before lil man goes to elementary school ;)

- Possibility of living in a warmer climate with more sunlight

photos from weheartit.com

So, yes, I'd like to stay in Finland, but I do see husband's point of view as well. We are not moving anywhere this year, that much is settled (I hope!), but I don't know about next year. Guess we'll see what happens :)

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Our Very Own Winter Wonderland

It's been real pretty outside around our house for the last week or so, so here's a photo flood of our own personal Winter Wonderland :)

Lil man shoveling the path to our house

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, super-yay!

Wishing you all a wonderful Christmas time!

Shabby chic bedroom

I'm not much of an interior decorator due to the lack of time and funds, and most probably skills. Our home is mostly a collection of random furniture we've received from friends and family. 

When we moved to Finland, we moved with seven pieces of luggage for the three of us. Obviously my husband had nothing in Finland and I, not having lived here for over 5 years, hadn't much more. We were low on funds since my husband had no income before he got his degree and I was a stay-at-home mom. We made a few purchases from huuto.net, the Finnish free auction site. I got us a dining room table for 1e and dressers for 10e etc. But there were also things that I wanted to buy new, like our bed. After living in the U.S, I've heard so many horror stories of bed bugs, I prefer to buy my mattresses new. I know bed bugs aren't a real problem in Finland, it's just in my head :)

When we moved into our current house from the apartment we live in first, we did a lot of painting and started thinking about the layout a bit more. I've previously showed how our kitchen turned out, but here are some ideas for our bedroom. If I did have the funds, I would decorate our bedroom in blue shabby chic style with maybe a touch of coastal decor. I probably would have to tone down the usual shabby chic style to make it comfortable for my husband as well :)

My dream bedroom would look something like this:

source

or maybe like this, but with a few wall hangings:

source

Here's some more inspirational photos:

from google

Right now our bedroom is a bit plain. We have our olympic queen bed, a dresser, a night stand, my vanity table set and my thesis writing desk. The walls are already painted pale blue and we have one wall hanging. The curtains are dark navy blue.

Here's the wall hanging from Ikea. Unfortunately the glass part broke when moving, but it works without it too :) And you can see the wall color, painted by the previous inhabitant. We still have a can of even paler blue paint and might paint one of the walls with that. I've ordered some new sheets and other stuff for the bedroom, so once they arrive I'll post some more photos of our bedroom.

What do you think of the example photos, anything you'd like in your bedroom?

Garden gnomes or not?

I've noticed that people either love garden gnomes or hate them. It's super-easy to go overboard when decorating your yard and gnome overload can appear real tacky. Personally I love garden gnomes and when  I lived in an apartment building, my balcony had several gnomes including one on each corner. Now that we have a some land around our house I've been able place garden ornaments in a more natural setting :) My husband dislikes garden gnomes, so I've kept them to the minimum. 

Here are some garden ornaments from our yard:

A couple of cute hedgehogs next to the entrance

A friendly frog, our lil man loves to pet him

A fox keeping watch

And the only actual garden gnome, it's Doc from Snow White!

What do you think, garden gnomes or not?

Yellow-green dining area

We got our dining area finished the other day and I'm quite happy with it. We re-painted the walls in two shades of yellow. The green faux-silk curtains are from Amazon, they were a steal!

Ignore the wrinkly table cloth :-)

Anniversary flowers from my husband :)

These three wooden wall hangings were a find on some super market's sale pile. Love the colors!

I bought the table lamp for my student apartment years ago, my mom brought the coasters and the holder as a souvenir from Tunisia. I think they fit together just great

I think the dining area looks pretty darn good, but I'm biased :) What do you guys think?

A New Hope...I mean Home

I apologize for the lack of entries in this blog. We've been busy moving to our new house and it has been an arduous little project. My ruptured disc has not been very cooperative, so I haven't been able to sit around all that much. We have, thank goodness, gotten all the stuff moved now and have given the old apartment away. There's still a lot to do, lot more than I expected.

I'm sure most of you have experienced the feeling when you see your new home without furniture for the first time; the in-need-of-some-serious-repainting feeling. The previous occupants were pretty good at hiding all the flaky paint etc. with their furniture and of course our furniture does not hide the flaws. We'll probably have to paint our lil man's room before we head to the U.S (so it can dry while we are there). Also the second floor bath needs a new paint-job. The other problems we noticed were that the previous occupants took a closet with them, revealing an unpainted part of the wall and exposed the concrete (?) floor. Also they had bent the kitchen counter-tops when removing their appliances.

The renovation company came today to replace the missing closet and fix the kitchen counter-tops so this place is already looking a lot better. Here's some photos of the house, pre-renovated.

The living room is pretty spacious. It has a beige wall paint, which we might just keep

Dining area is painted yellow and I kinda like it, so we might keep it as well

Kitchen. The counter-top got fixed today and the cabinet below removed to make room for the dishwasher.

The bedrooms. The master bedroom is painted blue and we'll keep it that way, but the smaller bedroom needs new paint

A nice-sized walk-in closet :)

The entrance

Side yard. There's also a backyard, but both of them need some serious work during the spring.

Lots to do, but I think it'll turn into a nice enough home :)

p.s I'm getting married (again) in less than a month! :)