The remodeling job that left me horribly wounded and scarred turned out okay. The lampshades aren't the worst things in the world, and you can't really tell I glued the pillows together. I was looking at the place today and thinking about how much things can change in a year. Ryan went from being a hardworking student to being a hardworking cog in the corporate machine. I transformed from a student who perpetually skipped class to an unemployed bum. (No, seriously. I probably skipped half my classes. I sometimes wonder if there was a mix up and I graduated with honors while some student with perfect attendance is being forced to repeat senior year.) Check out the apartment transformation, though.

I snapped that first picture with my phone almost a year ago. We'd been looking at apartments all day, and all we'd seen was a parade of expensive, run down, and dirty places. When we saw our current apartment and heard how much rent costs (utilities included), Ryan showed the most emotion I've ever seen in him by bellowing out WE'LL TAKE IT and I hugged the wall.