Trying to remain home-ful

The manf and I moved into a shoebox last July when we arrived in Portland. I had been searching for pads months ahead of time in a method that had become a habit for me: all of my previous apartments nationwide save the first had been selected sight unseen via that vile man Craig and his list. And it worked out for me every time. Not.

This one isn't so bad, to be completely honest. It's totally furnished down to the colander, it's by a major highway and lots of big transit stops and it's within walking distance of two grocery stores and Mt. Hood. It's just wee. And kind of on the pricey side for its wee-ness. We only planned to be here for a month, two tops, but when the job market only graced the two of us with one 20-hour-a-week gig we kind of got stuck. See, when we move we'll have to go out and buy everything down to the colander, and that's a whole lot of things 20 hours a week ain't gonna buy you.

A couple of weeks ago, though, the universe suddenly aligned. I got bumped up to 36 hours a week. My angelic coworker offered to sell me a whole slew of furniture, including a bed and a lovely pink pullout couch, for $150. The manf got a part-time gig slanging books and he was also accepted by a temp agency. I immediately rolled out Operation: Find and Secure Chez Neenuh (and Manf) 2.0.

After crawling back to Craig and enduring one misfire (the apartment was great but it was in a neighboorhood where all the storefronts had 80s signage that had faded to that depressing blue color), I found it: The Apartment of Dreams. Large, lots of kitchen counterspace, a soaking tub, steps away from my favorite SE Portland haunts... sigh, it was beyond. We told the landlord we were in lurve and put our current landlord on notice. Two days later, we got the devastating news that the apartment had gone to some tricksy hobbit who had arrived but 10 minutes before we had.

Since then, even after securing another month of lead time from the landlord, I've been a bit overwhelmed. The Apartment of Dreams set the bar so high that I fear I may not ever be apartmentally satisfied. A dear friend named Katherine-Kat turned me on to one tool that is helping me get through this mo' betta' than I would have otherwise. It's called Pad Mapper (www.padmapper.com) and it uses Google Maps to plot out where Craigslist apartments are located. Since we want to move to a very specific 'hood this has been a godsend.

So here's hoping for an apartment that is more like a palace, with an abundance of amenities and without a price to match.