Motels Are Swell

It has been nearly 2 months since my last post. What have we been doing? Well, living in a motel, naturally! Actually, living in a motel is one of the most un-natural things to do, right long with beekeeping and drinking the water above the toilet in an emergency.

We have been living in a motel temporarily until our next place is finished being built. We were given some nudges to move by family and friends who suspected this particular motel might not be totally kosher, but it wasn't until the Police Forensics team showed up with an ambulance and a stretcher that we were like, "Oh, this is pig we're eating?" Prior to that nothing was obvious enough to warn us -- not the daily calls to the cops because people outside our door were screaming that they were gonna Eff each other up or kill someone, nor the smell of marijuana, nor the fact that I had seen a man arrested, and an 8 inch knife confiscated from his person. It took a confidential crime scene, one with a stretcher, before we got the hint. Hey, I don't live in denial, but sometimes I visit.

And that knife I saw confiscated? I don't mean the kind you buy at Target that looks like this:


I mean the kind that is more terror-inducing than David Hasselhoff on Dancing With the Stars, the kind that looks like this:



Like, no one should have a knife that looks like that except John Locke or Indiana Jones!

Still, even that knife wasn't enough to get us to admit that we were in a shady place. We were like, "But they have free Showtime! And the way the guy living below us always stares at us through his open window as we walk by makes us feel so safe. And that other guy who was kind enough to run after my car as I drove through the parking lot to escort me to my parking space, what a gent!"

Now we are nestled safely in a different motel. A much safer one (I promise Mom!). And hey, no Showtime, but hello HBO! And way faster internet, which is another reason why I am resuming blogging.

And that guy below us who always looked at us through his window, like a watchful guard keeping an eye on our cars among other things? Well I saw his face looking at me again from my computer today as I researched known sex offenders in the motel. Sah-weet!

Hobos-R-Us

By now most of you know that hobos are not just people; they are flesh-decomposing venomous Utah house spiders. Dan and I are very familiar with them. In fact, we've had to set up a type of treaty with them since they take up residency with us. It's kinda like vampires and werewolves (You really can explain all life's mysteries with one powerful book: Twilight): no one can prohibit creatures of the night from living close by, but we can at least set up a "Don't harm people" treaty. Since the hobos refuse to move out, we have rules that they must obey.

House Rule #18: "please do not kill us, cause us to wake up with a gaping hole where an eyeball used to be, make our legs look the the guy you got in the pic above, steal all the bedsheets or procreate in the bed you seemed determined to share with us."

That rule follows number 17, which is "If you come out where we can see you, you die," which follows rule 16: "If you come out where we can see you and we've had a bad day, we'll catch you in Tupperware, watch you slowly starve to death, and occasionally shake the container like a banjo." That follows rule #15: "If we see other, non-hobo spiders in the house we will not kill them in case they are feisty enough to kill you. Enter at your own risk."

Needless to say, our house is a spider-central. Just today 2 huge daddy long legs came in through the front door (didn't even knock) screaming "Sanctuary!!!" and all we could do was look at them, shrug our shoulders, and say, "Yep. And an all-you-can-eat hobo buffet." Cause if WE break House Rule number 15, then the hobos have the right to declare all out war and tomorrow I'd be missing an eye.

No joke the photographer of that picture happened to call it "Eyeless Hobo." How ironic!

We've lived like this for a year now. In the winter the hobos virtually disappear, but during the summer months it's hobo mating season and they are wandering around everywhere trying to find their soul mates (as if the little bastards had souls). We do what we can to combat them--set up V traps everywhere, leave certain lights on at night because they prefer to move in the dark, etc. But living with hobos has seriously traumatized me. Everywhere I go I see hobos:






Plus any other dark spot on our carpet that moves (usually ends up being a pillbug, which attracts these suckers):

Lucky us.

As I'm writing this I just glanced to my right and a hobo has broken rule #17. Time to lay down the law...

There :).

Anyway, we've managed. But luckily we are moving soon!!! First House Rule in our new house? "No hobos allowed!"

Making any Place "Home Sweet Home"

Dan and I have moved 10 times in 4 years. We've lived in Washington State, several cities in California, Minnesota, and Utah, from luxery apartments to basement apartments to apartments whereupon our first day of moving in we found an official letter on our door that read, "The serial rapist terrorizing our apartment complex has not yet been caught..." and then detailing his description, the latest person he assaulted (an elderly woman), and warning us of ways to stay catious (which I translated into "stay indoors all day with the blinds drawn and the doors locked. If you must buy food, starve. If your dog has to urinate, TOO BAD. If you open your door you WILL be raped.") That's how I felt living there, at least.

Moving so much has been both an adventure and a pain in my hASSle! (That's not technically swearing, right? Points for me.) We've experienced the feel of different cities like the lush greenery of Washington, the pristine buzz of Minneapolis, the dry desert beauty of Murrieta, CA, and so on.

We own a home in Lehi, but as it is quite large for the 2 of us (do the math. 1 large house + 1 husband who works + 1 wife who takes care of the home = too much house for Stephanie to clean without plotting ways to hire young children for cheap labor) we are fortunate to rent it out. It's an investment property, not the home we want to have a family and a life in. Currently we are tackling the idea of either buying a condo, or finishing our basement in our Lehi home and turning it into a separate entrance apartment and living there rent free for a few years while we save up to build our custom dream home.

So. In the meantime we have gotten very good at figuring out CHEAP ways to make rental spaces our own. In many rentals you can't paint the walls, so I realized that if I wanted a warm, inviting, colorful space without painting, and even without putting holes in the walls, I could buy lightweight Styrofoam insulating sheets from Home Depot, buy several yards of fabric to wrap around and glue to the sheets, and then get that thick double-sided tape to tape it up on the walls. The result has been turning these ugly-ducklings of rental rooms into..., well, maybe not swans. But definitely geese. Geese are a worthy comparison. Here's the result:




We used to move so much because of Dan's work. However, as Dan has been promoted and chosen a better company to work for, we now have the option of staying in one place for good! No more moving!