Today I had the divine privilege of telling a Hawaiian that his daughter would not be getting her deposit back. First this man questioned by ability to confirm his daughter’s nullified deposit. Then when I told him that I could not (and would not) do anything to change it, he mocked my position as manager based on the fact that I would not take responsibility for his daughters lack of refund. So I politely bid him aloha, and suggested he say aloha to his moolah as well. Luckily this winner lives in Hawaii, so I don’t have to worry about him popping in to bombard me with any more of his twisted logic.

On the Upside, Summerwood Condos is over 90% full, he Civic has five new tires, and we got paid today. So Life is good.

Jon and I have been trying to think of the best ways to decorate our home, with things that are meaningful, we like, and don't cost us a ton of money!

Its somewhat of a catch 22, we definitely need our home decorated since we're guiding tours through it all the time.. but we haven't gotten paid (we get our check tomorrow). And of course- the better our place looks, the better it sells!

So we really needed some wall art, and we love the look of canvas photography and paintings.. but when we looked around online and at the stores they cost a lot more money than we wanted to spend. So we decided to make our own!
Here are our finished products:
The one above is Jon's! He had made a similar doodle with pen and ink on paper, and put the same idea in paint.

This one is mine. It looks a lot cooler in this picture because the background looks yellow.. really its just off white.

As we've been finishing off our music / hangout room, we decided we needed some super comfortable seating. Love sacs are expensive, but we found a brand that is the same concept but about half the price. It's called a monster sac, check out how big it is! We've been keeping it in our living room all weekend because its so comfy!

Jon and I are happy to report that before Monday morning, we figured that we were 2/3 full. By the end of today, 3/4 full! About a 10% increase in 3 days. We can't wait until we're entirely filled up so we can prepare for the 4 days of checkouts, cleaning, carpet cleaning, and maintenance- before all of the new tenants move in. Kendall and Mallory, our maintenance and cleaning managers have been the best thing that has happened to us! I don't know how the past managers even did it, there is so much that can fall through the cracks, and this couple helps us keep everything up-to-date. Last Saturday we went with them to see Dark Knight, they were great to have as company.

I'm proudly becoming a tough cookie! In only a matter of days :) I've happily threatened evictions (and not allowing tenants to re-sign), gotten tough on people with pets, charged late fees for not coming in with their late rent when they said they would!, and getting strict about contract rules. However, Jon is still the bigger man, and is taking all of the angry deposit phone calls for me. He has a good talent at being kind but not letting down his guard, and has the ability to take the tough comments and not let them get to him.

Unfortunately our bad smells in the kitchen area have not dissipated. The smell seems to move around.. and now it almost seems like its coming from the oven. The smell is haunting us. The carpet cleaners are coming next Tuesday, hopefully they can help us out!!! (moms, if you have any ideas why in the world there would be a move-able smell that we think is cat pee, but cannot identify, please let us know what to do! thanks)

Today was Rachel and my first day flying solo. Finally being able to take the reins gave the both of us renewed vigor to make our new place seem more like home. Rachel decided that we should purge the office of excess flowers, candles and an archaic, non-functioning computer, while I decided to purge the living room carpet of the mephitic cat pee. As a result of our ambitions, I spent nearly two hours with the Bissell carpet cleaner scrubbing the corners of the stained carpet with the fervor of someone who despises the scent of urine as an accompaniment to a nice dinner. After work, Rach and I went to Target and bought a proper stand for our television, and printed out four wedding pictures to put in our frames.

We finished off the evening with gourmet s’mores , the ingredients for which came in a package from my thoughtful mother. The smores were excellent, made with Trader Joes Cinnamon graham crackers, organic dark chocolate, and vanilla marshmallows, toasted slightly over one of our office candles.

It has been a while since we've written, but we have been very busy! Our new job keeps us active from 10 am to 4 pm, truly never a dull moment. Jon and I appreciate being busy and feel a lot of success from the work we get done. However, we are never even close to finished by the end of the day! And while we're glad we've had a couple of of weeks to train with the past managers, there are now too many cooks in the kitchen. While we wish they hadn't left us with some problems, we hope things will smooth out in a couple of months. In other words: we are looking forward to the day when the people who are mad at us are actually mad at us for things we've done. Every day we have a new story, I wish we could tell them all.

Last night we had a double date with James and a new interest of his. We went to Trafalga and played some mini golf and arcade games. Then we did "iron chef" where the couples are given an ingredient for a dessert and can't spend more than $7 to make it. Our ingredient was marshmallows, so we made our own rendition of s'mores. James and his date made a weird version of rice crispy treats. We found its funner to be creative rather than make something totally delicious. It was a fun night.