Mr. Clean is my hero!

I have talked in person to a lot of people about my love of Mr. Clean's Magic Eraser, but last weekend, I cleaned the linoleum floor of my new apartment with it and am in love again. I took photographic evidence of the amazing-ness of this product. You know how linoleum has those grooves in it where dirt gets trapped? You can mop all you want, and it's not gonna get that dirt out. Well, Magic Eraser? No problem. See below.

Before

After

Music Updates

I am on a blog kick today. Maybe because I have been spending so much of my time looking for apartments and then looking for furnishings for said apartment that I have run out of time to blog and/or things to blog about.

Well, some people read this for random info about me. Some people read this for info about music, and since I have acquired a lot of music recently, I figured I'd share. Rather than writing long reviews about just a couple of albums, I'm gonna try to give a quick overview of what I'm really liking lately.

First, Islands - Vapours. I know, I know. This came out last year. One of the tracks was on my Best of 2009 list. But I am just now really listening to the album as a whole, and man, I love it. I am not sure why I wasn't obsessed with it last fall. Maybe because I was instead obsessed with Fanfarlo and then with the new Yeasayer. Regardless, I'm making up for lost time. Some favorite tracks are obviously the one I put on my Best of list, but also: "Vapours," "Shining," "On Foreigner."

I'm going to see the Morning Benders and Broken Bells play a show together on Wednesday, which I'm pretty excited about. Stay tuned for a review of the show maybe next weekend if you're interested. I loved the last Morning Benders concert I went to, so I'm expecting good things.

Broken Social Scene - Forgiveness Rock Record. This brings me back to my favorite BSS album, You Forgot it in People. Lots of good meshing of melodies.

Gayngs - Relayted. This is a "super group" of sorts, with people from Bon Iver, Megafaun, the Rosebuds, Solid Gold, POS, and more. The album kind of has an old R&B feel to me, but I mean that in a good way... Different members take bigger roles in various songs, so it's a little varied overall as an album. I like: "Ride" and "No Sweat" the best, but "The Gaudy Side of Town" and "The Last Prom on Earth" are also worth a listen.

Hot Chip - One Life Stand. This is another one that I had sitting around for a bit before I really listened. Also, like Islands, I loved their first album and felt "eh" about their second. (ok, technically I'm referring to the 2nd and 3rd albums for Hot Chip, not the 1st and 2nd, but did anyone listen to Coming on Strong, Hot Chip's debut album?) But this one is great. The video for "I Feel Better" is amazingly weird. There's no song quite like "And I Was a Boy from School" or "The Warning," but it's good in a new and different way.

LCD Soundsystem - This is Happening. Pitchfork just put this on their Best New Music list. It's pretty great. A little inconsistent overall, but "Dance Yrself Clean" and "I Can Change" are a good place to start. "Drunk Girls" is the one that got all the hype early on via the internets, but it's actually one of my least favorites on the album.

The National - High Violet. This also made Pitchfork's Best list. It's classic music from The National, but a little more consistent as a whole, I think.

The Rest - Everyone All at Once. So I actually wrote about this last November. But apparently I loved it then and promptly stopped listening to it. I rediscovered it this week - and my thoughts have not changed.

Wow, scrolling through my iTunes list, I am finding a ton of music that I haven't mentioned. I'm not going to get into it tonight, but if you've come across something and aren't sure if it's worth your time, I might have an opinion. So let me know if you have review requests.

The "Before" Shots

In a few months, I'll be able to post the "after" photos, but I figured that I would go ahead and post some before pictures of my new apartment.

Living Room

Balcony

View from the balcony

Study off the Living Room

Looking into the study

Kitchen (minus refrigerator)

Bedroom closets

Bedroom

Bathroom (obviously)

Separate shower stall

Tub is pink. I know it doesn't look that pink in the picture, but it's pink...

More Decorating

To follow up from the rug post...with a bit more information and ideas.

The couch will probably be one of these colors

• Rice
• Stone

I am looking at a bunch of pillows on Etsy to get ideas. Not sure if I'll find ones similar cheaper at Target or other places around town, but I've found some really great things on Etsy.

Whether I go with green or yellow on the rug, I've thought of doing some brown/white pillows with either the green or the yellow from the rug (or maybe navy/white or brown/white instead of black - I'm clearly up in the air about this). I like these:

Imperial Trellis Designer Pillow

White Black Circle Designer Pillow

Phyllis Pillow

Tied up Pillowcase

Tatami Pillow Cover

Navy Lattice Work Designer Pillow

Vintage Pillow

Oval Geo Print Pillow

Decorating Help

Ok, I need help, readers. I am rug shopping for my new apartment. I don't want to spend a ton of money, but I need something for my living room since there are wood floors. I found some $7,000+ rugs that I am in love with, but until I make a lot more money, that's just not going to happen.

I want something with a kick of bright color - either a green or yellow - because I am going to have pretty neutral furniture and want to be able to just add the color in the rug and pillows.

So here are the front runners. Let me know what you think because I'm having a hard time.

1. Martha Stewart Bloomery Sunflower Rug

2. CB2 Shatter Rug

3. Pottery Barn Moorish Tile Rug

4. Pottery Barn Green S

wirl Rug

Old Music

Apparently it's reunion tour time, as Pavement, Soundgarden, and A Ha are all touring right now. Yes, I said A Ha. The 80s band. I actually just realized I have no idea if it's a reunion tour or if they never broke up. All I know is that I heard it referred to as a "Farewell Tour" and thought, "oh, this is my last chance to see A Ha perform live." And then I realized that all I would want to hear them play would be "Take On Me" over and over again. Probably not worth the ticket price...

Healthy Eating

I just read about a Vanderbilt University medical students who had to go 5 days eating on the amount of money the average person on SNAP (aka: food stamps) receives (about $3/day or $1/meal) - but they also had to track calories and nutrition online to be sure they were also eating healthy. "The purpose of this experience is to help medical students better understand the patient's perspective on the challenges he/she faces to maintain a healthy lifestyle given certain financial restraints," says Lynn Webb, assistant vice chancellor for health affairs.

I think that this challenge would also be beneficial for our government officials to undertake. A large reason why our health care costs are so high in this country is because our country is overweight and eats horribly. Part of this is due to cost and convenience barriers to eating healthy. You can propose all the health care reform in the world, and you are not going to lower health care costs if you do not address this issue. It's great that Vandy med students will be sensitive to the challenges that their patients face, but how about getting politicians to do something to change those challenges rather than just having sensitive doctors?

(Note: I recently had a conversation with one of my supervisors at the hospital where I work who noted talk about unhealthy eating/lack of exercise/obesity being one of the biggest reasons health care is so high. The other reasons? Expenses for care of elderly and terminally ill patients. And medical malpractice. These reasons are not data-driven, by the way. Just based on conversations with hospital administrators.)