Part 3 - Oh the places Mary has lived...

4) Another college apartment
After I transfered to Illinois State University, I shared an apartment with 3 other girls, and we spent a lot of time decorating and making it look as cute as possible on a college budget. This is also the apartment I lived in when I met a certain handsome college student named Tony who stole my heart talking about politics, Noam Chomsky, and Simpson episodes.

In this picture, you can see a young couple (we'd been dating about 4 months here) standing in my apartment kitchen. Notice that we decorated with our margarita and wine glasses? Aren't we clever and thrifty?

Here was our living room, with the girly white sheer curtains. That's me on the far left with one of my roommates. In this apartment, I realized that there are girls more OCD than I am, and that must have a stack of coffee table books neatly placed on the coffee table at all time WITH NOTHING ELSE ON THE TABLE OR THERE WILL BE BLOOD. Let's just say that we didn't always get along, but I had a lot of fun in that little apartment, especially since for the first time ever, I was known as the messy one. By the way, I have no idea who the other two guys on the couch are...

5) My first single apartment!

After living with girls for three years, I decided that I needed to branch out on my own, and rent my own single apartment. This is was the first time that I felt I had some say in decorating, and I starting cleaning/cooking/decorating for the first time. Of course, that's not to say that I was good at it. On the contrary, as the pictures here will show, I somehow decided that my bathroom, kitchen, and other rooms should have navy blue everything. And that naked women flying with bicycles is art.

Here's me and the boy sitting in my lovely rented furniture - nothing says comfort like decades of other college students living in your couches.

This kitchen was actually quite large! My mom bought me that crock pot while I was in college, and I actually used it to feed myself. I was so grown up...

What is going on with this bathroom? Don't worry, my taste did get better...