Unfortunate Events

Firstly, let's check in to see how my mother's day flowers are doing:

Huh. Apparently they need sunlight and water. Let's hope my kids fare better.

For many months now, we have been having neighbor trouble. One of our neighbors smokes all the time, and the walls here are thin enough that the smell permeates our apartment and makes it reek. Well, one day when Jordan was here visiting, he mentioned the smoke smell and we told him that our neighbor smokes cigarettes all the time, to which Jordan responded "That's not cigarettes that's pot." Greaaaaaaat. For awhile, I didn't really want to do anything about it because I was afraid if we reported him, the druggie neighbor would come kill us in revenge. But, eventually, we couldn't take it anymore. So we talked to management. And the security patrol of our building. They all told us that they would keep an eye on it, but there's pretty much nothing they could do. So we figured we could live with it for the next few months, and then move out when our contract was up at the end of July. Then, one day, the smell was so incredibly bad that I couldn't take it anymore. We called management one last time, they told us one last time that they couldn't do anything, and then I took drastic measures. I called the police to see if there was anything that could be done. They said they would send out a cop. Of course, by the time he got here, the smell was already gone. But he also said there wasn't much he could do either (which makes me wonder why they even bothered sending anyone out and didn't just tell me that on the phone...). But he was a really nice guy, and stayed and talked to us a bit. He asked how long we have been here, and we told him we moved in last August. He asked how much longer we had until our conract was up, and we told him at the end of July. And then he told us to move out of here as soon as we could. Apparently, the cops are here all the time. Apartment break-ins, car break-ins, wild parties, and drug dealers. He said one time the police were in hot pursuit of a guy, and he ran back here into his apartment. When the police got in there were piles of marijuana and cocaine all over the place. The cop even said he and his wife lived here when they first got married, but they moved out after a month because of how bad it was. And that was 20 years ago. Needless to say, we went out as soon as the cop left and bought this:

The cop also mentioned that because we are in the very back and on the third floor, that has probably helped to keep us safer. We definitely feel like Heavenly Father has been watching out for us and protecting us. We have felt like Stonehedge was the right place for us to live at the time, but we also feel like that time is definitely up. It wasn't hard to make the decision to get out of here when our contract is ended.

This began a strong apartment-hunting effort. The problem with Salt Lake City is that if you want to live somewhere safe, you've got to pay for it. There are nice apartments in better areas, but they are quite expensive. This was discouraging for awhile. But we now have 3 different options, and just hope that one of them works out!

But let's end with a more positive image: Josh enjoying a dinner of chicken cordon bleu.