Circling back

Ben and I went looking at some other apartments today, hoping to lower our rent and/or improve our lack of amenities. We came away with the knowledge that we have the best priced decently nice apartment around. To pay less, we'd end up in the student ghetto where I have spent plenty of years already. I'm in no hurry to return. To get what we have or better, we'd end up paying $100-400/month more.
So we don't have off-street parking for both of our two cars, therefore we occasionally get towed when we can't find a legal space to park w/in 1/2 mile (wish we only had one car, but they're not worth selling or trading in...we're running these into the ground). We don't have a washer or dryer, so we have to barge in on our moms to do laundry (which is a bit embarrassing at almost 30 yrs old). Our kitchen is terribly designed and we have no counter space. We don't have a yard to plant in. Our landlord is a lazy drunk, so fix-it jobs take months (or sometimes 1.5 yrs).
However, we do have a pretty nice sized place. It has lots of windows, and is up on the 3rd floor, facing away from the street, so we feel like we have a good deal of privacy. We have central heat and air, which turns out to be way more efficient and cheap compared with our friends who don't have central air. We have a gas fireplace in the winter, and we're located very centrally downtown.
I mean, ideally, we'd be able to spend the extra cash to have some amenities and peace of mind, but all in all, we have it as good as we can get right now. Sometimes I have to go through the motions of trying to change things to remind myself why I am where I am.
Despite not having a yard, though, I planted 4 window boxes and put them on the front stoop. I'm pretty excited about them. I hope they work.

[fuzzy picture of Parsnip in front of my little seedlings before I transplanted them into their window boxes]