I still love my reading nook

One of the conditions of me going to grad school was that we would no longer be able to buy our own place. At least not until I graduated and got a job. But when I have time, I revel in the torture of browsing for condos on realty sites. My other favourite exercise in masochism is watching Property Virgins, where young couples in the US buy 3-bedroom houses for less than the price of a single bedroom condo in Vancouver. My anxiety to get our own place has nearly peaked, and my dreams of being carried over the threshold into our own place when we're finally husband and wife have been quashed. Now before I sound like a big whiner (too late?), read on to see what I'm talking about. And keep in mind that I just finished blow drying my hair - you'll know what that means in a minute...

I have a tumultuous love/hate relationship with our rental apartment. I love that it's got three huge windows in the living room, but I hate that those windows have obnoxiously ugly blinds from nineteen-whenever the hell they built this place. I love that our bathroom is big, but I hate that its colour scheme is fuschia and baby blue. Yeah, the blue toilet matches the blue bathtub, but I feel like they clash with the pink tiles on the countertop. I love the hardwood floors, but I hate the crusty tiles in the bathroom that are no longer physically possible of looking clean even after you scrub them on your hands and knees for an hour. I love the size (for a one bedroom), but I hate that when someone from out of town visits we have nothing better to offer than a blowup bed. I love that we have lots of cupboards in the kitchen, but I hate that not one of them can fit an upright cereal box. I love that we can control the heat to our apartment, but I hate that our heaters have two settings: off and sauna. And the one last hate that has no love to balance it out...I hate that I have to turn off every light in the place before I blow dry my hair (except in the bedroom where I have to do my hair because the pink bathroom has no sockets) and still, even still, with just one light on in the entire place, the fuse blows. I know we don't have it that bad, but sometimes, when I trip over some shoes that don't fit in the hall closest on my way through the dark to fumble with the breaker again, I just really want our own place that doesn't have a million little hates.