(R.H. Herron)
Hey! MagKnits is live! And I got to actually hold Mariko’s cup prototypes, and they’re AWESOME. I know what people are getting for Christmas this year…..
* And Em’s pre-Oscar commentary is FABulous. I hardly mind that I FORGOT to TiVo it. I can’t believe I forgot. I thought about while I was drying my hair…. and then poof! Gone. So now I’m at work and will miss most of it. But she made me forget all that….
** Thanks for all the wonderful Welcome Home comments! They made me feel terrific!
Welcome to my new home! Have a cup of tea? Or you want some wine, like me? Okay. Sit down. Lemme show ya.
This is how I moved. One carload at a time, one hand holding the shit in the car, the other on the wheel. At one point it started pouring and my cell phone rang at the same time. (I didn’t answer, duh.) But I thought to myself, what the eff am I doing?
But it was worth it:
My kitchen, with its red walls. Those are some cold tiles, but I tell you, paint comes right OFF those suckers.
Standing in the kitchen looking into the living area. There’s seating behind the low bookcases and that table is only a temporary solution. LauraJune is giving me her old table, yippeeee! That orange thing is the beanbag Greta and I found at the Wonder Longs:
The below is also a temporary solution. Another good friend is donating his couch to the Rachael Cause, and then I’m going to slipcover them both in another shade of Venetian red (note the Ikea table):
Now turn around, and look back toward the kitchen. These bookcases will get filled up attractively at some point. And the larger couch will run along it, too, leaving the bottom shelves as hidden storage! That was clever Christy’s idea. And the log-cabin is an old quilt top I made and never sewed INTO an actual quilt. Apparently it was waiting for me to move into this place to be used as a runner.
But I know this is what you’ve been waiting for. May I present the yarn center? (The yarn fills BOTH bookcases.)
And a close up:
That’s not only Noro Kureyon from the Boys, but my first attempt at spinning below it, in the purple. Don’t look too closely. I LOVE having so much yarn visible in my house.
And part of the bedroom here. A place in the open for the sweaters, and an old chair (aka cat seat) that I love.
Back in the living room, I have to show you what’s outside the side window. This thing is under the outside light, and at night it simply glows. I adore it. This is George:
Bought myself an orchid for the kitchen. How do you keep these alive?
All the art on my walls, with the exception of the Venice map in the bedroom, is my own (mostly prints of Italian photos). But this is one of my most prized possessions. Mom commissioned a friend of ours to paint this for me from a photo I took a few years ago. Even now I like to go back to Venice and look at the red boat (it’s always parked in this same spot at night….):
All right, that’s enough. But I HAD to show you what I’ve been up to. Now I can focus on Cromarty again….
Thanks, darlings, for visiting me!
*oh, and I just got hit by someone in Denmark searching for “glass you silly ass glass.” ???
My sister Bethany’s funny today.
Photos tomorrow… I promise(ish).
But for now, just a couple of questions to answer:
Em wanted to know about organizing. Oh, girl. Lemme tell ya. You remember I didn’t want to use boxes. Whatever. I got over that OCD tic and filled my car with boxes from BevMo. I managed to fit eleven (11!) boxes in, and then I got stuck on a new OCD tic (I swear, only when I’m moving am I this nutty). I didn’t want any more boxes. I was determined to move with just eleven (my fave number) boxes. Why? I dunno. It just sounded cool. “Yes, once I moved with only eleven boxes.” ‘Cause THAT will wow my friends and neighbors….
But what it translated to is that I would pack the boxes, move them to the new place, unpack them, and put everything away, all in order to take them back and fill them up again. So I am already unpacked and organized. Can you stand it? That’s the only way a nervous little cat like me can move. Last night, I really DID put my feet up on the table, sat on the sofa, watched TiVo, checked email, and knitted on Cromarty. I stayed up too late having that much fun.
And speaking of cats, La Brainy asked me how the cats were doing. They’re doing just fine, so Mom tells me. I took ’em home down south last Tuesday. They ADORE being at Grandma’s house, and I didn’t want them anywhere near the ripping apart of their home. They’re neurotic enough, and I’m usually balanced enough to calm them down. But a crazy me married with a move would have sent them right up the wallpaper, and there wouldn’t be enough tuna in the world to get ’em down. (Digit’s paw is healed now, no limp at all. Faker.)
Okay, now this is cool.
I know Craig! THE Craig, of Craigslist. This is (obviously) an exaggeration, but hell, he saw my blog through referrers and quotes me on HIS blog. That’s too cool.
I was going to erase that second “cool” and type something better, something more clever, but look, I’m on hour thirty-two of being awake, with a 1.5 hour nap fit in last night between (old) house cleaning and work, so there’s no being smart/witty today.
Only this:
I am done moving. Hall-ay-joo-yah.
My new place looks fabulous.
I’ll show pics later, maybe Saturday. I can’t imagine getting more motivation right now.
My DSL works.
My TiVo works.
It’s pouring, off and on, great shakes of thunder and lighting, somethin’ we don’t get much of round here, so it’s good sit-on-my-couch-and-knit weather. And I’m SO excited to do that, eight days after officially starting the move. Gonna knit. Yep.
I am done moving.
I am so glad.
(But you do deserve a picture, so here’s a Before shot. That over there to the right by the chair is where the yarn center was destined to plants its fiberous roots and grow. After’s a comin’.)
Oh, and Wendy’s post yesterday (Wednesday) killed me. I swear, darlin, I WAS packing and moving and cleaning and sweating and SWEARING a hell of a lot. But I’m done. Done done done done done…..
I am ashamed (again) of the leader of my country. Doesn’t it make you sad? That he would push for such discrimination?
Too angry and saddened to write more about it.
Thanks to a neat little Typepad feature, I wrote this yesterday before the DSL shut off and I’m probably unpacking as you read it. I did so much! I’m almost done! I want a maid to clean the place!
Really, I had no idea so much dirt was in my house. I have NO idea where it came from, I’m sure it wasn’t from me or the cats, it was carried in by dirt gremlins, and I don’t want to clean it. But after checking a maid service, I now know that I HAVE to clean it. So I’ll do it next week. After I’ve unpacked in my new home.
Oh, and god bless Craigslist. It’s worked for me again. I had a thought, while packing detritus into bags – I knew I wanted to donate my usable crap to a good cause, but I was getting mighty tired of lugging stuff around. I also had about seven (seven!) trash bags full of garbage. Straight up unsalvageable stuff. And that wasn’t even counting the recyclables. So I posted a note on CL saying “You can have my stuff if you take the garbage, too.” I had run out of garbage cans outside, y’see. As soon as I posted, I started getting the calls. Everyone sounded okay, but one stood out – just something about his voice. So I told him to come on over. He took ALL my crap, cheerfully, and will sort it out later. He supports his family this way, selling other people’s leftovers, and he seemed decent and kind and sweet. He reminded me somehow of my dad, excited to dive into bags of unknown junk, sure the treasure is right underneath the next layer.
And listen: My crap filled the back of his utility pick-up truck. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE? I live(d) in a 300 sq foot apartment with NO space. I am a wonder, something to behold. Now I have to go over to the new place and pull the same kind of Hide The Shit magic.
Can I tell ya? I just want to knit. Cromarty misses me, is singing to me, even now…..