Moving on up

One day when Adam and I were sitting in our tiny little basement apartment, one of us noticed something unusual in the corner, over by the little closet that housed the water heater.  Upon closer inspection, it was a mushroom.  It was growing out of our carpet!  The water heater leaked and the mud brown carpet near it was wet.  (Obviously we didn't go in that corner often.)

We later learned that years earlier, our apartment had flooded.  The carpet had been taken up, dried and then laid back down on fertile (apparently) soil left behind from the flood.

And you thought your first apartment was pathetic.

Good news though!  We were getting new carpet.  It was a pretty Berber.  Adam took the opportunity to give the walls a fresh coat of paint before the new carpet was installed.  (Looking back, it surprises me I didn't help him.  I'd grown up in a log house and didn't know anything about painting walls.  Now I'm the one that paints.  Weird.)

Here's a before shot of the carpet.  One Saturday while Adam was watching a football game, I painted a picture on our middle school cast off table.  Adam thought it was weird.  (If I could go back in time, I would say, "Get used to it," to that fresh faced young husband of mine.)

"What a lovely shade of carpet," said no one, ever.

With the new carpet and paint, our little apartment was suddenly a lot nicer.

Also, I was pregnant with Braeden and sick.  Miserably sick.  You know those people that are hardly phased by pregnancy?  I was not one of them.  I threw up multiple times every day.  I was a lot of fun to be around.

When I was just coming out of the worst of it, we went on a camping trip on the Oregon coast with Adam's family.  My hunger had returned with a vengeance.  When Geri offered me whatever I wanted in the cooler to eat, I took her up on it.  I felt great.  It was lovely to be hungry again.  I felt more energy.  Life was lovely!

Then when we were driving back to Provo, I started thinking about our apartment.  I started feeling sick.  Adam thought I was crazy.  (If I could go back in time, I would say, "Get used to it," to that fresh faced young husband of mine.)

I told him that the thought of going back to our apartment made me sick.  When we got home, I ate a bowl of Cheerios to settle my roiling stomach and promptly threw up.

Then I told Adam we had to move.

(Remember how we had brand new carpet and Adam had painted our entire apartment?  It was tiny, but still.)

Adam tried to convince me we could stay put.

I found out about an apartment two floors up in the same building.  I was convinced I wouldn't be sick there and I finally cajoled him into moving.

Adam painted the upstairs apartment before we moved in.

Because he is awesome, that's why.

The upstairs apartment was slightly (very slightly) larger and it had a lot more light and I was not sick there.

That year at the American Heritage Christmas party, some of the motherly teachers were talking to Adam and me about their pregnancies.  One of the teachers confessed that when she was pregnant, the color mustard made her violently ill.  Then Adam realized I wasn't crazy, or maybe he just realized I wasn't the only one.

When I became pregnant with Emma, Adam wearily asked me if we would have to move again.  I said, "Of course not."

What a strange idea for him to have...


My writing group has launched a blog!  It can be found at 6chickswriting.weebly.com.  I would love for you to read it!