Day Four Hundred and Fifty-Seven

The Lockout

In the year and 3 months Adam and I have been renting, we’ve never had any issues with our keys. We’ve never locked ourselves out. Not once. That, I’d say, is a pretty decent track run. But yesterday, our luck ran out. And for an entire hour, we sat outside the apartment at dusk, waiting for our landlord to rescue us from our blunder. Hoping that maybe we accidentally left our windows or slider doors unlocked, we tried breaking into our own apartment. But c’mon. If you know me, you know that I don’t leave anything unlocked. Not even when I’m sitting on my couch in the middle of the day, four feet from my front door. I barricade the two of us in and everyone else out at all times. Because I’m a scaredy cat. And I’ve been like that since I was young. Yesterday, it didn’t help me out one bit.

An hour later, with the keys finally in our possession, we got on with the errands we were planning on running before we realized what we’d done. While I did some Christmas shopping at Costco (where I learned that they don’t take credit cards…total buzz kill) Adam offered his professional Plasti-Dip services to a fellow teammate. Together, the two of them spent a few hours spray-painting the side mirrors and the JEEP logo on Dan’s Wrangler Unlimited, which were all originally black. They’re both pleased with the outcome and are already planning on other items to dip next. Oh geeze. What has my husband started?!

Day Four Hundred and Forty-Nine

The First Evergreen

Our tree! Our tree!! I begged Adam to let us begin Christmas season, but he was being quite Ginch-y about it. He tried telling me that we'd get our tree in two weeks. Uhm, what?! Two weeks and you might as well just skip Christmas altogether! So, I Cindy-Lou-Who'd him (whatever that consists of), and he caved in! I'm SO excited! Our first REAL Christmas tree (we had a palm tree last year). It's perfect!  

We stopped by Home Goods on our way back to the apartment in search of a tree skirt. We didn't find one...but we did find each other :)

Turns out that our apartment is really small. Ha! We figured that out even more so when this 7-footer entered our home. But we don't care! It's so much prettier in here now! No decorating last night though...instead, we watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Adam was one happy boy!

And best part of yesterday: It was Grama's birthday!!! Happy birthday Lovely. I love you so much!

Real quick: I've been asked about Plasti-Dip before and after pictures. This is before he painted the badges and top tail light.

And this is after. He also did the handles to the toolbox, but I haven't taken any pictures since then (I keep forgetting). Specifically for my uncle: this stuff isn't spray paint, rather, it's plastic. It does come out like spray paint though. One coat gives whatever you spray a light tint. The more and more coats you apply, the darker it becomes (Adam applied something like 5 coats). Also, if it turns out poorly or you hate the look, it just peels right off. 7 bucks will get you a can at Home Depot...and they have many colors to choose from too. It's cheap, easy, and looks good. Can't beat that! 

Day Four Hundred and Forty-Seven

The Spray and the Real Estate

In a matter of just a few days, it's possible that our entire truck will be dunked in Plasti-Dip. Adam is all about this stuff. He's spraying it on everything now. It's spread to the levers of the tool box to the third tail light on the very top of the truck. When he said he wanted a black truck, I guess he wasn't kidding. 

Because we live in such a densely populated condo complex, we're getting a lot of attention for the spray paint. We've made more friends in the past three days than we've made in 4 months here. (I'm not exaggerating when I say that literally nobody says "hello" around here. So the fact that people are talking to us now is incredible. Haha). I'm liking this Plasti-Dip stuff!

Since arriving home on Monday, we've done nothing but try to readjust to Florida life. It's not been going well. We're still both sick and losing weight. Eating is a chore and sleeping is all we'd prefer. (Yes, we're going to the doctor, Mom). SO, when we were invited out to our church's championship softball game yesterday, we were excited and looking forward to a change of pace. Unfortunately, we lost. But getting out of the house was all that mattered to us!  

I spent the entire rest of my day yesterday scribbling notes and cramming my brain with anything relating to real estate auctions. I felt like a college student all over again. Only this time, I was actually interested and desperate to know more and more about what I was learning. Imagine that! Come Monday, I think I'll be attending my first auction as an observer and from then on, who knows!

Day Four Hundred and Forty-Five

The Plasti-Dip

Adam is all about "mods" right now. At least they're the inexpensive type at the moment. "Mods," or modifications, can get a bit spendy, but Adam is being a good boy and only changing the truck little by little. So far, he's replaced the antenna, leveled the front, and put some sticker stuff in the side panels. Not too bad. In the future though, he wants to get different bumpers, tires, and step ups...but that won't be for a VERY long time! Yesterday, we went to Home Depot and bought this sort of spray paint material called "Plasti-Dip." With it, he sprayed the three badges on the back of the truck, essentially "blacking them out." He said it would look better. And actually, it does! He's got good taste when it comes to his truck :) Now, Instead of the blue Ford logo, it's solid black, as are the F-150 and Raptor tags.