Temporary Housing

Wow, it's hard to believe it's autumn already. And it's hard to believe I actually went a whole month without posting anything. It's not that I don't have anything to say. I do think of posts while I'm lying in bed nursing at 2 a.m. or when I'm trying to convince Kiddo to eat his dinner, but I just don't ever seem to get around to it. Sadly, it's not because we've been out living it up doing fun summer stuff. Not only have I had a difficult time trying to put our life on a schedule (& still haven't managed to do it yet!), but we also had to put most of our belongings in storage and move out-of-state in July. Daddy-O's job with the state was just a two-year contract for the duration of his graduate program, and with this crummy economy and a very corrupt state government, there was no money to create a permanent position for him in the department. In fact, there have been several layoffs of formerly "permanent" employees this summer. So, while he sends out resumes and applications galore, we're staying at my Mom's old mobile home to save money. She and Bob are here to work at the Temple on the weekends, which is a great thrill for Kiddo. The rest of the week it's just the 4 of us.

I told the Daddy-O that it reminds me of when I started college-- since I was waiting to see which school would offer me a better financial aid package, I didn't get my housing application in until very late Spring. Thus, the dorms were all full. However, the U of I knows that not all of those kids with reservations will end up staying at school, so they put the "extra" students in "temporary housing" until rooms become available for them (in my case, 6 weeks). This amounts to throwing five sets of bunk beds, about 3 dressers and 4 or 5 desks into a floor lounge and throwing as many as 10 girls (or guys) in the one room. Instead of paying the full rate for a dorm room, they charged us $2 a day for the time we were in the lounge. Being one of nine very different girls in a small space was fun for about the first week, when you feel like you're in camp. After that, it's pretty darn annoying. Not that it's annoying to be here! Yes, it stinks to be in limbo, waiting for something better to come, but at least we're staying with people we know and love. And Bob brings homemade bread nearly every week. YUM!

Also,

• We don't have to use a key to go to the bathroom, which was shared with, oh, 40 other girls.
• There are no boys upstairs bouncing basketballs at odd hours, or alarm clocks going off for an hour in the afternoon because they're all at class.

AND, we don't have any roommates who:

• are so clueless as to leave a pizza with onions out for two days straight (and then wonder why the room smells).
• hog the one phone line for hours (this was before everyone had cell phones. NONE of us did).
• have enough changes of clothing that she doesn't have to do laundry for over a month (in the blazing hot late summer, no less), thus resulting in a huge pile of dirty clothes right next to MY bed.
• as we later discovered, changed her sanitary napkins in the ROOM rather than the restroom!
• use the phrase "wicked f*ing cool" hundreds of times a day.
• invite a loud, obnoxious male friend to stay for the weekend who then got so drunk he peed himself and soaked the mattress.

Yeah, those were some good times... is it any wonder why, when the housing office called (the day after the aforementioned male left) to tell me they did have a room but it was a single, I eagerly asked, "WHEN CAN I MOVE IN?!?!?!"