Tonight I came home from work to find a letter in our mailbox from the property management company in charge of dealing with us and our apartment on behalf of our mango-stealing landlord.

Our relationship with our landlord started well as we are absolutely stellar tenants in the rent-paying and property maintaining departments if i do say so myself, but has faced many challenges in the last year when we demanded some totally unreasonable things like electricity in the laundry room, an oven that actually operates, and repairs to the faucets that don’t just drip, but leak steady mouse-tails of water.
He accused us of keeping a pet against the mandates of our lease, a local stray-but-super-sweet cat. When we proved she wasn’t ours, but merely walks across our yard of her own volition, he went on to accuse other tenants in the building when she’s clearly just homeless and friendly.
It’s also been revealed though conversations with him that our landlord also harbors some opinions that make it difficult for us to regard him with even a modicum of respect.

So when I received this letter informing us that he’s declined to give us the opportunity to renew our lease when it expires in November? My feelings on that matter can be summed up with the title of this post.

I’m getting really angsty about renting. I feel like we’re at a point where we really should be buying a home and escaping the rental grind except whoops! All of the cities we would actually want to buy in are expensive like whoa. I know we’ll remain in the tenant boat for a while yet so dudes, I need some commiseration.
Do you have any terrible landlord stories? Tell’em in the comments or better yet, post them on your blogs and link to them so I can read them and we can have a bitchfest about these goddam deposit-stealing assholes together.

Jerks.

I know. I KNOW.

It’s been almost a month and it will likely be a couple weeks longer before my new computer and I finally meet.

UGH SORRY DUDES.

p.s. Just WAIT until you see the photos I took of the enormous green tree frog that the Mister found chilling in our mailbox. It’ll be good, I swear.

James Leland Day via Aubrey Road

In appreciation for dealing with all my total downer homesickness and life-pondering lately, here are the contents of my Tolix chair obsession file.

The Marais Chaise designed by Xavier Pauchard in 1934 for his company Tolix is a little bit industrial, a little bit European café culture romanticism and somehow both thoroughly masculine and feminine.

Made of galvanized steel, the Model A chair is lightweight, stackable, and incredibly durable.
It’s no surprise that Tolix chairs have become one of the most recognizable icons of French design.
The entire range of chairs and stools are still manufactured by hand in Autun, Burgundy.

Last year I considered buying some $30 knockoffs on the Bowery, and have certainly been tempted by the fakes on Overstock, but decided instead to hold out for the real thing.

Helt Enkelt via Splendid Willow

Alvhelm Mäklare via Luphia

Magnus Selander via Desire to Inspire

Bo Bedre via Automatism

Miha Matei via Style Files

Marie Claire Maison via Purple Area

Elisa Strozyk is a German textile designer and the genius behind these stunning fabrics made with laser-cut pieces of wood veneer.
Textiles, wood, geometery. So perfect.

I keep coming back to these images and trying to write about them without simply rehashing what other people have already said, but wow. I’m stuck at wow.

So inspiring.

Before we started mission:move around the globe, I loaded up 30 or so daily color posts knowing that my internet access would be spotty. I wanted to make sure people wanting content got just that.

I know, I know, preloading content is kinda lame, but I was moving! it’s stressful! and I didn’t want you to forget about me while I was gone so I did what I had to do.

Now though, obviously, all those daily color posts have marched through and it’s back to the actually-very-enjoyable blogging grind for the likes of me.

The problem is, I’m still coming across photos that I’d like to highlight. My solution to this issue is a new link in the Elsewhere section on the right sidebar; Tumblr.
The YikesMachine inspiration file on tumblr will feature more daily color style photos and whatever else I think it worth looking at.

Check it out y’all.

Maya Angelou is known for her incredible talent as a storyteller, a historian for minority women, and skill as an amazing writer and poet.
Just in case you weren’t aware, she was also an ass kicking mom and a raging sass-machine. I was digging around on the internet looking for the below quote about christmas tree lights and came across some real gems.

“I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.”

“Nothing will work unless you do.”

“I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.”

“Some critics will write ‘Maya Angelou is a natural writer’ – which is right after being a natural heart surgeon.”

This lovely hanging strip is made of a single plank of painted wood with evenly-spaced nails in it.
Cheap, easy and wonderful.

Photos from Emma’s designblogg