Works for Me Wednesday is hosted by We Are THAT Family.

I want our apartment to look nice, but I don’t want to spend very much money on it. Whether we get to go back to our house in Texas, or whether we stay here in New Jersey, we won’t be living in this apartment for very long.

Here are some ways I’ve found to make our home cuter on the cheap.

Instead of a pile of dirty rags in the kitchen, I throw them in a basket I got from the Dollar Tree. You could also use a basket with a liner in your kitchen’s colors.

I covered the plastic jar Henry’s dog treats came in with pretty scrapbooking paper. Instead of looking at a picture of a strange dog, I see cute paper in colors that match my living room decor.

This is a cereal box covered in scrapbooking paper and a little Mod Podge. I use it to hold bills and forms. I would like to attach it to the side of the desk, but I’m not sure how I want to do that, yet. Maybe velcro so I can still take it off the desk and dump the papers out?

How do you decorate your home on the cheap?

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I wrote before about wanting to decorate our apartment, but not knowing if I should bother since we could be moving when our lease expires. I decided to do a little bit of decorating without spending much money.

I made this from a frame I got at the Dollar Tree. I got the idea for this easy, inexpensive wall decor here. It looks great in our guest bathroom.

I made this from a wooden plaque I got at Michael’s for $1.99. I had some brown paint and scrapbooking paper on hand. I was a little disappointed that the ink on the Bible verses smeared when I used Mod Podge, but I guess it kind of makes it look Shabby Chic. And for that price, for temporary home decor, I’m happy with it.

What’s your favorite, inexpensive way to decorate your home?

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Continuing on with the virtual tour of our New Jersey apartment…

As you enter our apartment you face the washer and dryer.

If you turn left, you go up to the kitchen and living room. If you go down and to the left you go to our bedroom and bath. But if you go to the right, you go to our office/guest bedroom.

Those bags in the corner are full of books people let me borrow!

And here’s the guest bath.

I was thinking of doing paint chip artwork in the bathroom. The walls are just so white and empty!

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Here are pictures of the bottom floor of our apartment. It’s kind of a strange setup. You come in the front door at ground level, but our lowest level is also on ground level with the parking lot because we’re on a hill.

It’s so much cooler on this floor.

Henry’s kennel is enormous.

Yeah, I know my curtains are too short. My plan is to get brown valances and use iron on adhesive to attach them to the bottom. Remember our inflatable headboard?

You can’t see it, but the painting I did in our house in Texas is on the wall opposite the headboard.

Now that David’s contract job has become a permanent position, I really want to nest and decorate, but I hesitate to do too much because we’ll probably be moving when our lease is up. Maintenance can’t even caulk a bathtub properly, and we’ve had to call the police three times on our neighbors for domestic disturbances. If you were only going to live another six months in an apartment, would you attempt to decorate?

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Life in Jersey is different. It only took six months, but I think I’ve finally made two friends. I’ve been doing a lot of knitting.

I haven’t done much decorating in our apartment, but now that David’s contract job has turned into a permanent position, I feel like I can make it a home. Here are some pictures of the third level.

View from the stairs…

Turning left at the top of the stairs to enter the kitchen. I have two pantries!

I should have cleared off the table before taking a picture. At least you can see that David has kept the bonsai tree alive.

You can see my knitting stuff is all over the place.

Viewing the whole long room. More knitting stuff in the rocker. And oh, look! Henry’s rope toy has been shredded to pieces.

Here’s our fireplace with the fall garland I made.

Well, that’s the third floor. Stay tuned for the second floor, and decorating updates!

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We’ve seen two of our new doctors. I really liked my nurse practitioner and all of the staff in the office. David’s new doctor’s office smelled like cigarettes. Not a good sign.

Also, during his physical, he did not have to give a urine sample or blood or even so much as lift up his shirt. The nurse took his temperature, blood pressure and weight. The “doctor” looked in his ears and nose. She then had David fill out the form to get his records from his old doctor. Then she looked at David’s lengthy list of medications and offered to refill whatever he wanted.

Yeah, that’s really not a good sign. I guess that’s how people are able to abuse prescription drugs. We’ve just never seen a doctor so negligent. We will definitely keep looking for that one.

David is still loving his job, and I’m still hating New Jersey. I think I didn’t adequately prepare myself. Everyone was so positive about the move. Friends kept saying, “It’s going to be great,” and “You’re going to love it,” and “You’ll get to see so many interesting things.”

That’s not been the case for us so far. David’s arthritis is actually better than it was in Dallas. I’m not sure if it’s the decreased humidity and more stable weather or if the Humira is really kicking in, but he is better overall. Still, he’s working a lot, and evenings and weekends he has to rest and recuperate. Maybe with summer coming he’ll feel really good and we’ll get to go see all the sights, but I’m not counting on it. (I am counting down the days till my brothers visit. And our trip back to Dallas in August. And Christmas.)

I don’t like it here. The people are not nearly so friendly, even in churches. The standards of cleanliness and appearance also seem to be lower, and I’m not just talking about the doctor’s office smelling like cigarettes. I sent a letter to the corporate office of our apartment complex outlining the dirty carpets, dust-caked light fixtures and mud in the washing machine. They sent a response saying they were “sorry the apartment wasn’t up to your standards” and we would get $50 off this month’s rent.

Anyway, I just wasn’t prepared for it to be this bad. David is really happy, so I’m trying to be content and not complain. I mean, praise God, David has a job! We have health insurance and food to eat. I do count my blessings. I also have been singing that song, “When I die, I may not go to heaven. ‘Cause I don’t know if they let cowboys in. If they don’t just let me go to Texas. ‘Cause Texas is as close as I’ve been.” It’s probably blasphemy for a Christian to sing that, but Texas really is as close as I’ve been.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen that I had to call the police on my neighbors. Domestic disturbances seem to follow me here. My neighbors have horrible, obscene, hours long screaming fights every so often during the day. Friday, I head a loud slam in the middle of one of these. I wasn’t sure if someone threw an object into the wall or the other person into the wall, but I called the police. I was fine with giving them my name and address. I was impressed with how quickly they arrived.

I was NOT impressed with them knocking on my door asking which neighbor it was when I’d already explained this to dispatch. I had to practically slam the door in the officer’s face when his partner started knocking on my neighbors’ door and they opened it. I don’t want my neighbors to know it was me who called the cops! Hello? Even the police aren’t as good up here.

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The 730/365 Declutter Challenge is hosted by Amy at The Finer Things in Life. Click here to read more about women decluttering their homes.

I didn’t really do any decluttering in April. We moved from Dallas, Texas to South Jersey. Half of our things are still in storage back in Texas. My goal for this month is to get the office organized. I don’t think I’ll be throwing anything away or giving anything away, but I’ll focus on controlling the clutter.

One of the main issues is that our storage solutions in our house don’t work in our apartment. We used a lot of over the door shoe racks to organize cables, scarves, gloves, etc. Most of our closet doors in the apartment are folding doors, so this won’t work. Also, we left most of our furniture with drawers in storage.

I’m not really sure what to do. I bought this book shelf at Goodwill and it’s helped. Maybe I could add storage baskets for David’s computer stuff? But, money is tight. (Lord willing, we’ll have renters for our house in Texas starting June 1.) I hate to spend money and buy more stuff especially when we we still have a ton of stuff in storage. I’m trying to be creative and make do with what we already have. Any ideas?

Maybe I’ll keep looking by the dumpster. We’ve gotten two free lamps (including the one in the above picture) that people trashed. Our bedrooms and living room don’t have overhead lights so the lamps are a necessity. Maybe my neighbors will throw out some really cute baskets!

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Well, okay, they’re not really secret confessions since I’m putting them on the Internet, but here are some confessions.

1. I always show myself as offline on Facebook. I don’t like instant messaging. I’m not really sure why.

2. Not one person in New Jersey has commented on my accent. A cashier at the grocery store was chatting with me, and I told her I’d just moved from Texas. She asked me how I liked New Jersey and I told her things had been fine so far (no need to tell her how stressful the first two weeks were) and no one had even commented on my accent. She said, “Keep talking and maybe I’ll notice it.” I felt so un-Texan. She couldn’t hear my accent?

3. I was drinking a Diet Pepsi while I wrote this.

4. I’ve been knitting like crazy. With no friends, what else am I going to do in this town? Family, you all know what to expect for Christmas this year.

5. David and I have a ridiculous amount of clothes. We got rid of tons before we moved. I’m determined to get rid of more. We like them all. They all fit. We wear them all. It’s just that we don’t NEED this many outfits.

6. I did do a good job of clearing out our shoes before we moved. As much as I love shoes, I think I’m about to get rid of a shoe rack. Gasp! We have an extra one.

7. David and I are so tired. Not sure why. We slept a lot this weekend. We went to bed early last night. But we hit the snooze button for thirty minutes this morning. Maybe it’s mental?

8. I have ideas for at least three books, including a children’s book, but I can’t get them out. It’s not writer’s block. I can write. I’m just not happy with what I’m writing.

9. My 8th grade reading teacher told me I should write novels. My college English professor tried to convince me to switch from a culinary arts major to an English major.

10. Henry got to us when we were weak! Right before the move, when we were so busy packing, selecting movers, saying goodbyes, and making travel arrangements, Henry started getting on our bed in the middle of the night. We were so tired we didn’t care. Now, he sleeps on our bed every night. We’ve got to break him of this. Just as soon as we stop feeling tired.

11. I really want to read the Twilight books again, but I probably wouldn’t do anything else for a week once I start, so I’m going to wait until the apartment is a bit more organized.

12. I’ve known for years exactly how I want to decorate my little boy’s room. I saw an idea in a magazine. It’s easy, cute and inexpensive. Hope my future son likes it.

13. If I wasn’t married to my husband, I’d buy dishes like these

instead of these and these.

David, the computer programmer that he is, keeps things modern. Here’s a direct quote, “Why would you buy something old? It looks like it’s broken. I can provide you with nice, new stuff!”

He doesn’t get Shabby Chic. But then, he doesn’t decorate with Stars Wars memorabilia anymore…

14. Can stress make you lose weight? I’m not sure why, but I lost weight moving to New Jersey. I wasn’t trying, and we weren’t eating very healthy there for awhile, so I’m fairly certain this weight loss is not the good kind. It’s kind of like losing weight from food poisoning.

15. After the rude an unprofessional manner with which the apartment complex people treated us, I bag Henry’s waste and put it in the trash can closest to their office. Hey, they want us to pick up after him…no problem.

Are you on Facebook? Click “Like” on A Young Wife’s Tale. Also, I’ve had some articles published over here. Come check them out!

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Well we survived our first week in New Jersey. If I were to give you directions to our apartment here, the final step would be to turn right between the liquor store and the dry cleaners. We’ve made lots of Chris Farley jokes about living in a van down by the liquor store this week.

This first week was rough. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you know that our movers were late, they damaged my piano, they didn’t even deliver my piano bench and they only sent one mover, so my father-in-law had to help. There was also a lot of trouble with the apartment complex.

We are having a lot of trouble driving. Things are just so different here than in Texas. There are no u-turns, and if you miss your exit, you can’t just pull off at the next exit and loop around. We have a Garmin on the way.

I think I had a pretty good attitude before we left Dallas. I was staying positive and thinking of this as an adventure. Now, I honestly can’t wait to get back home. I’m counting the days until the lease is up on this apartment as I’m furiously scrubbing everything.

Tonight David wanted to get away from the boxes and mess, so we drove to the nearest Apple store. It was in a nice shopping area complete with a White House Black Market. David saw a Chipotle and said, “We’re not in h***!” Yeah, it’s been that bad. We just hadn’t seen anything nice. Mostly we’ve seen places where I wouldn’t drive after dark.

I’m really looking forward to visiting a church this next Sunday. Perhaps that will help us feel more at home.

David likes his job a lot. It’s a company that was outsourcing their IT department, and is just now bringing it in house. This is a wonderful opportunity for David to code and create the way he wants to, not just the way things have always been done. We are so thankful that God has provided him with employment. Also, we are grateful David’s arthritis hasn’t been too bad this week.

Thanks for all your prayers! We still haven’t found renters for our home in Texas, so please continue to pray about that.

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Saturday we arrived in New Jersey. David’s parents picked us up at the airport. They had driven up in our car with Henry. They really love their son. Henry was happy to see us, but he seems to have really bonded with Grandma and Grandpa. I hear he got to drink coffee and eat french fries.

David’s father has a lot of hotel rewards from his business trips, so we’re staying in a hotel until the movers arrive which could be as late as Friday.

Our hotel doesn’t allow dogs. We tried to board Henry at Petsmart. He would have been able to play with other dogs and run around, but apparently our vet didn’t keep him current on his Bordatella shots. We’ve been driving around with Henry in the car. It’s raining. Henry is also shedding really bad because of the climate change and stress. The car is filthy. At night, we’re sneaking Henry into our room. Yup, sneaking in a 65 pound dog.

Saturday when we went to our apartment, the heat wasn’t working and it was dirty. It was not a great first impression. Today, Monday, the apartment still hadn’t been cleaned and the heat was still not working.

While we were in the office, one of the complex’s employees started to tell us about the area. “I don’t know if you had good malls in Texas, but we have two nice ones nearby.”

I replied, “Yeah, we had malls, but we had to ride our horses to get there.” His eyes got so big. Poor guy. I guess he’s never heard of North Park, The Galleria, Firewheel Mall, or The Shops at Willowbend.

I walked through the apartment today with the leasing agent and the complex manager. They acted like there wasn’t anything wrong with the place being dirty. I was very glad my in-laws were there to back me up.

David’s first day of work went well. Not much to report there.

I owe my family and my friends Sam, Maegan, and Pat a huge thank you for all their help as we moved out of our house. Thank you so much to my parents for letting us stay with them in Dallas once our movers picked up our stuff. Thank you to my in-laws for all their help here in New Jersey.

Keep praying that we find great renters for our house!

More later.

A Young Wife

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