Archive for the ‘Home is where the heart is’ Category
March 5, 2008 in the late afternoon | 
Home is where the heart is, Rants
I have a beef with you, Amazon. If you are going to sell products where color is a REALLY important factor in choosing which product you want, then you might want to try to use photographs that at least approximate the actual color.
Case in point. Fiestaware. I finally decided to bite the bullet and purchase some “real” dinnerware. We’ve been using hand-me-down Walmart plates for past 6 years, which do their job but aren’t very pretty or exciting. I like fiestaware because it has a reputation for being durable, but also it’s fun! and colorful! Yay!
It took me entirely too long to pick out the colors I wanted. I’m just obsessively crazy like that. I guess I could have just chosen one color and got a whole set of it, but that’s no fun, so I got multiple colors. 5 to be exact. Cobalt, Scarlet, Persimmon, Shamrock, and Sunflower.
With the exception of Sunflower (and possibly Scarlet since I haven’t received it yet) none of the colors look like they do on the site. The green is much darker, the orange is much lighter, but those I don’t really mind because they are at least close to what I thought they looked like. The issue is with Cobalt.
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February 27, 2008 mid-afternoon | Home is where the heart is, Personal stuff
I just realized we’ve been living here more than a month now. It’s weird because it feels like it’s gone by fast, but at the same time, when I think about living in Orlando it feels like a distant memory. Like it was years ago and not months ago.
It was certainly a pain in the ass getting here with all of three weeks to prepare for a move to a new city, but I think we made the right decision moving here. Brandon and I were driving home from Target the other day and he said (completely out of the blue) that he was (probably for the first time in his life) completely happy. I would have to concur.
We’ve been living together for a long time now and we’ve lived in a lot of different places, but none of those were places that we both made a joint decision to live at. It’s always been one-sided. Brandon lived in Savannah with me while I went to college (technically he was supposed to be going to college as well, but who wants to think about what a mess that whole situation was — and how we almost broke up because of it). Then I moved to Orlando with him so he could go to college. He never liked Savannah (though I would move back there in a second) and we both hated Orlando from day one. It was the only option for the type of school he needed to go to, though, so we didn’t have a choice. Then we wound up staying there for two more years out of his loyalty for that school and the teachers and students he worked with there.
February 1, 2008 mid-afternoon | Home is where the heart is, Personal stuff, Pet stuff
I would like to get into a semi-regular posting schedule again because I was doing so well in November and December, but I’m SO behind with work right now that I feel horribly guilty doing anything that’s not work related. I know, logically, that I can’t work 24/7 and that it’s unhealthy and blah blah blah, but I’m just so overwhelmed right now. I don’t know what to do about it. It’s actually keeping me from getting stuff done because I’m at the point where I have so much to do that I don’t even know where or how to start. So I go to Google Reader or PopURLs and procrastinate instead. Which only makes me feel more guilty. It’s a vicious circle I can’t win.
Blah.
As far as my living situation things are going well, though. Brandon finally built his desk last week, so we’re completely unpacked. My new sofa (which thankfully fit through the front hall) was delivered on Tuesday so we have a place to sit and watch TV (not that I watch much TV because I feel too guilty about it).
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January 24, 2008 in the early afternoon | Home is where the heart is, Personal stuff
Woo Hoo! As of yesterday I’m done unpacking. Didn’t I say I’d get it done in record time? I couldn’t not. Having boxes everywhere drives me crazy. I’m waiting for Brandon to build his desk, though, so there are still a few boxes left, but I’ve tucked them away so I don’t have to look at them.
I STILL haven’t gotten a refund for my damn sofa that wouldn’t fit, so I just ordered a less expensive sofa this time so I’d be under my credit limit. Since it’s less expensive I might get the matching chair and ottoman, but I definitely have to wait for the refund first and also to see if there is even room for a sofa and a chair. I’m hoping there is, because I’d like to have the chair. At least the new sofa will fit through the front hall, I measured to make sure. It’ll be here by next Tuesday. Brandon should have had time to set up his desk by then, so we should be totally done by next Tuesday.
January 14, 2008 in the early afternoon | Home is where the heart is, Personal stuff
Well, yesterday was our official move-in and as expected it sucked. Lugging a car load of shit up the stairs to our new apartment about killed us, so I don’t know how we’ll be feeling on Thursday when we have a u-haul full of heavy furniture. But we were able to fit a surprising amount in our car (thanks to fold down rear seats, I love our car!). We’re trying to take the heaviest stuff in the smaller loads so that we won’t kill ourselves on Thursday. We’re doing another car load on Tuesday including two of the cats. Then we’re picking up the u-haul on Thursday and taking the rest and last cat (shh, the new apartment management thinks we only have two). We STILL have to come back here on Saturday to clean the shit out of this apartment or they are going to charge us an arm and a leg. That makes 4 trips in one week. It’s only two hours (one way), but I’m already tired of the damn drive.
I just want this to be OVER. I still have so much packing to do, though. And boxes are freaking expensive! We’ve never had to buy boxes before because my boyfriend used to work at a store and we could take the old boxes their products were delivered in. We brought up all our books and I literally dumped them out on the middle of the floor so that we could bring the boxes back and reuse them. It’s going to suck having to pick up and reorganize my books, but I am NOT paying hundreds of dollars for some damn cardboard. It’s ridiculous. I brought the rest of the stuff in old Target bags. I knew there was a reason I was keeping those.
January 7, 2008 mid-afternoon | Home is where the heart is, Personal stuff
I can’t believe how fast this is happening. We drove up there yesterday and signed the papers for our new apartment. It’s about 50 times nicer than our current place (skylights, wood floors, nicer carpet, screened porch, fireplace, more cabinets and closets), though in some ways not as nice (no icemaker, horrible ’70s looking light fixtures, smaller bathroom, cramped kitchen, no ceiling fans). I hope we’ll like it there, but if not we only have to be there for a year. The management there seem nice and competent. I cannot even begin to tell you the shit our current apartment management has put us through, so it will nice to get away from those idiots.
We’re “moving in” next Sunday, but not really. Our plan is to take up one load in the car that day, then we will take another load on Tuesday and then on Thursday we will rent a u-haul and take the rest. Since my boyfriend will be doing most of the heavy lifting (and lugging it up to our 2nd floor apartment), he doesn’t want to kill himself doing it all in one day, which I don’t blame him for.
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December 31, 2007 mid-afternoon | Home is where the heart is, Personal stuff
Holy Shit. It’s crazy how you can be going on with your life and you think you’re the most boring person ever and you’re stuck and blah blah blah. And then one day, BOOM, everything’s different.
Let me take you through the last 5 days of my life:
Last Wednesday: My boyfriend has a phone interview (while driving to the movie theater, no less) for the job he pre-interviewed for before Christmas. He is unofficially offered the job right there. (Then we went to see Juno, which I LOVED and you should go see right now.)
Last Thursday: We discussed it and decided it was the best opportunity he’d gotten so far. The money is a bit lower then he wanted, but it’s still WAY higher than he’s making at his TWO current jobs. He unofficially accepts their offer.
December 2, 2007 in the late evening | Home is where the heart is
Confession time: I actually put all my Christmas decorations last week. It’s the earliest I’ve EVER put them up. I always felt like I should wait until December; like there was something wrong with you if put decorations up any earlier.
But I think Florida is infecting me. There’s the whole mindset down here of…wishful thinking, I guess? For instance, look at a map of Florida and you’ll find the highest concentration of towns that have “winter” in them. Winter Springs, Winter Gardens, Winter Park, there’s even a town near here called Christmas. I shit you not, they keep decorations up all year long. There’s almost nothing in that town but a post office and apparently everyone goes there to mail their Christmas cards.
Anyway, Floridians REALLY overcompensate when it comes to Christmas. It’s 80 degrees outside and doesn’t feel at all Christmas-y, so they do everything they possibly can to turn their houses into winter wonderlands. I’ve NEVER lived in a place where so many people plaster their houses with thousands of lights and giant plastic snowglobes and reindeer all over their roofs. It’s not just a few houses in the neighborhood. It’s EVERY SINGLE house within a 5 mile radius. And the decorations start going up on November 1st, they don’t bother waiting around. We went out to eat last night and I’d say that 60% of the houses we drove by were decorated, by next weekend it’ll be at 100%.
November 27, 2007 just before lunchtime | Home is where the heart is
Woo Hoo! The Great De-cluttering of 2007 is complete.
What is the Great De-cluttering of 2007? Well, when I got home from vacation a few weeks ago, I could not stand the sight of my apartment. I don’t know if it was living in a hotel room for a week with only the bare necessities or living out of a suit case or maybe it wasn’t either of those things. I just knew I wanted to throw everything in my apartment away. We have SO much stuff. We don’t even use half of it. And my closets and cabinets and drawers? Oh my lord. Stuffed to the brim with crap. I decided I was going to go through EVERYTHING and either give or throw away the crap we don’t use anymore. It’s taken me two weeks but I’m finally done.
