My House is Trashy

                  
So, sh*t around my house is falling apart. When we got home from Italy, my dryer wasn't working right. I felt like the heating element was starting to go out a few months ago. It was taking longer to dry than normal. I was hanging clothes all over the house.

It reminded me of when we first got married and we were broke as hell and sometimes I used to do laundry in the bathtub because we had 0 dollars to get quarters to do laundry. I would ring the laundry out and hang them all over our apartment. Isn't that the saddest thing ever?

I pulled out the dryer and unhooked the hose and cleared it out. I recently had cleaned the link trap that left the house so I knew that wasn't it. It helped a little bit. I still had to run 2-3 cycles to get the laundry dry. My husband said he would replace the heating element. Weeks went by. I just dealt with it. It took FOREVER to do the laundry and my electric bill is probably going to be $500. Finally I flipped out, "I can't do this anymore! Help me!"

My husband must have gotten the picture because he ordered the heating element that evening. He was busy replacing it this weekend. Guess what? The laundry was hotter but it still wasn't dry. Damnit! We debated back and forth about it. "We're going to have to get a new dryer."
"No. Everything works fine. It has to be an airflow issue," I replied.
So I decided to get on my roof and check where the air leaves the house and there was a damn panty liner almost completely blocking the opening.

A new one, in the wrapper. It must fallen in the lint trap somehow. My kids are always throwing crap on top of the dryer. I was so annoyed. That one panty liner caused me a lot of pain and heart ache. On the upside, now that I figured that out AND we have a new heating element, my clothes are drying in  20 minutes. I am sooooo happy about it.

The rest of my house has also been kind of shitty. Here are some examples:
Living room- it's too dark. We painted it when we moved in over 6 years ago, we had to patch an area and the paint match was not an actual match so it's just been ghetto for 2 years.
Baseboards- they are dirty. I clean them monthly but they need to be repainted. Someone took a crap on them. Just kidding-it looks like it though.
Hallway- the paint is scuffed and the switch plates are dingy and probably would give you a venereal disease if you touched them.
Front storm door- doesn't even close all the way, there is something wrong with the hinge and it's unfixable. The aluminium is scraped and the glass is cloudy no matter what products are used. The weather stripping is missing. It's a piece of sh*t.
Down spout - The clips that connect it to the front of the house broke in April. My husband ghetto-rigged it by tying it to the porch with BLACK show laces and said, "I'll fix it this weekend." That was months ago.
Porch- the paint is peeling. It looks horrible.

Last weekend, I had a flip out. "I can't live like this anymore." So, I went to Lowe's and got a bunch of sh*t. I painted my living room, got a new rug, curtains, throw pillows, we replaced the storm door, I touched up the paint in the hallway and kitchen and painted my baseboards, I replaced the mirror in the bathroom and replaced all the switch plates, I painted the porch and filled the downspout and got some new hanging baskets. It looks so much better. I am so happy.

There is still so much to do. The rugs upstairs need to be replaced, I would love to redo our bathroom and get new counter tops in the kitchen. It still has the original air unit and roof, so that will be coming. I will forever be battling the pet dander. When these pets die, I am not getting new ones. Maybe just a hairless cat and I can sit with and pet like doctor Evil.

                      
                                                        Me, in 10 years

My house is little - only 1,600 square feet and as mentioned before, it's kind of shitty but I do love this house. It has charm. I like the bay windows and the arched doorways. I like that it's cozy. It's cute. I never want to move out of it.

We moved SO much in the early years of our marriage. From New Jersey to Oklahoma, from Oklahoma to New Jersey, from New Jersey to Texas, from Texas to Oklahoma, from Oklahoma to Indiana, from Indiana to South Carolina. That was in 6 years. When we moved into this house, I told my husband the only way I was moving again would be into a nursing home.

Even if we won the lottery and came into millions of dollars, I still wouldn't move. My millionaire ass will be living in my little, shitty house. This is home.