daunting adulthood.

apartment hunting is stressful.

apartment hunting on a super tight two part time job budget is even more so.

my best friend hannah and i have spent our first year after college graduation living at home. thank goodness this isn't really taboo anymore.

but occasionally i still get the old favourites: "why don't you just move out?" "when i graduated from college i moved out right away."

yeah, well, when you went to college it wasn't forty thousand dollars like mine was, you weren't completely crippled with student loan debt (i am not but pretty much all of my friends, including hannah, are), and the economy wasn't ruined.

who ruined the economy? oh. that's right. the people telling me to move out of my parents' house.

i'm a little bitter.

i love living with my parents. since i've graduated from college we've become a lot closer, which i appreciate. my parents are very open and accomodating and basically let me do whatever i want as long as i keep up on my chores and let them know what i'm up to. my mom continues to cook for me, for which i am eternally grateful.

but i am ready to leave.

hannah and i approached each other with the idea of moving in together a while ago. we went to her house, ate some dinner, put on a harry potter marathon, and went to apartments.com.

hannah is an interior designer. she makes more money than i do and is willing to drop $600 bucks on a couch.

i, on the other hand, will stare at a four dollar pair of tights and think, "how often will i wear these? do they match at least five of my dresses? should i just wait until tights season? what else could i spend this four dollars on? i need to get gas next week. i shouldn't get the tights."

my dad makes four times as much money as i do and still thinks like this, and that is why we have a large house, four cars, and go on extravagant vacations on a school teacher budget.

i'm checking my privilege at the door. as my boyfriend constantly reminds me, "you're a spoiled bitch, you know that?"

yeah. i know. that's why i'm trying to move out of my parents' house.

hannah and i found an apartment that coincidentally is about a mile from my parents' house. all of the utilities except for electric and internet are included in the rent, and with us splitting it, would even out to less than $400 bucks a month for both of us.

completely doable with a few lifestyle shifts.

ISN'T IT BEAUTIFUL?!

we applied. gave them our pay stubs. they did a small background search.

then we got approved. they would let us know if something opened up in july.

for the next few weeks, my grandparents were constantly saying things like, "don't count your chickens before they hatch" and "something might not open up until three years from now, stop talking about moving out."

then, on my birthday of all days, hannah texted me and told me exactly what i wanted to hear:

THE THIRD FLOOR APRATMENT WE WANTED, THE ONE THAT FACED THE LAKE AND THE FOUNTAIN, HAD OPENED UP AND WOULD BE READY FOR US BY MID JULY.

did we pounce on it?

hell yeah we did.

so now it's set in stone. we have a moving week. we know when we will be getting keys. we are working on coordinating trucks. i'm trying to bring adam home for the week so he can help me move all my furniture because my parents will be in florida and won't be able to help me move.

i will have my own apartment! with hannah!

there are lots of things about this that aren't exciting but daunting.

i read an article called "how to grow the fuck up" the other week at work and it told me to keep track of everything single thing i touch in my house. every single thing i use.

don't have one of your own? better buy it because you will eventually need it.

list of important things emily still needs:

1. a vacuum.
2. a microwave.
3. an ironing board.
4. salt shakers.
5. measuring cups.
6. tupperware. (THE KITCHEN KIND, YOU PERV.)
7. lots of basic kitchen stuff.

i have pots and pans and cutlery and a dinner set, thank god. our kitchen has a bar and our living room doesn't have much room for a dining room set, so i acquired some cheap barstools from my brother's girlfriend's dad, who refurbishes that kind of thing. hannah is acquiring the couch. i have my armchair. the two of us will find money for a basic TV that can hook up to our netflix accounts, because with those, who needs to pay  for cable?

i've never had cable anyway. during the four years i had complementary cable in college, i didn't use it.

another daunting thing is groceries. my mother has hoarded food my entire life. we have a walk in pantry, two freezers, and two refrigerators. you cannot come to my house and say that there is not food, because we have enough to survive a nuclear war.

i am not looking forward to paying for my own food. i am not looking forward to opening my pantry and seeing how sparse it is compared to my mother's.

i am not looking forward to cooking. i do not cook. my culinary skills including reheating leftovers and making boxes of mac n cheese and then eating them in one sitting. (these are important skills to have. especially the mac n cheese snarfing.)

the whole experience is going to be daunting. 

but i am so unreasonably excited that i cannot handle it.

don't worry, there will be an update for when i actually move out. and then i can have my first blog post from my very own apartment.

i am adulting!