Staycation! (Long post)

      What do you do with an extra week or vacation and no burning desire to go anywhere? Clean, of course! Ok, ok, I know that's not everyone's answer, but that's what we decided to do. We have a 10'x10' storage unit that we've been saying for a while needs to be gone through, and over the winter, things had sort of piled up around the house, so we blocked off a random week to deal with it. 

     For once, I remembered to take before shots of the mess to be tackled, and it looks like a pretty typical storage unit, full of just stuff. 

     We packed for a full day excursion, and arrived Monday morning at 10am, set up a table, and started pulling stuff out. That weird thing in the middle that's wrapped in plastic is a weaving loom my mother got me quite a few years ago. It is absolutely my retirement/"when I have time and room" plan, but I'm not ready for it just yet, and we can't stack anything on top of it. 

Greenhouse/ craft area

     For the last few years, I've built a small but useful greenhouse under the back porch to keep potted plants over the winter. It was cramped and simple, but it did its job, and gave my gentleman somewhere covered to smoke in nasty weather.

     Unfortunately, because it was small and just closed in with 2x4s, the smoke would largely come back in the house with him when he re-entered, and then slowly seep out all the sides... including the one where the air intake for the HVAC sits.

Brilliant stupidity

     The past week had been quite busy, with applying for jobs, helping out friends, and buying, selling, and moving stuff around inside the house. It's slowly coming together, although there are still boxes here and there full of less important things that we'll get to... eventually. For the most part, however, things are where they ought to be, and we've been able to turn our attention to things we want, but don't have (but can still afford: sadly, a brand new yacht is not in the works just yet). As such, a trip to Ikea was made, and we got to break out the tools to set up new stuff.

     One of the things I have always wanted is a nice, big, sewing table. It's very annoying to try to lay out a seam for flat sewing when the wall is only 5" past the sewing machine, and the table you're working on is flexing under the weight and vibrations of said machine. Unfortunately, most heavy, solid tables are also ridiculously expensive, so when I found a series of choose-your-own table tops and legs at Ikea, I was thrilled that the large table tops were a) solid, b) cheap, and c) fairly lightweight still! For $26, I got a 60x30" table top, and four adjustable legs were a grand total of $14. Considering you can't find an adult-sized work desk for less than about $100, I was in heaven.

FTP 51 - Home

     Finally getting things together, but even when it's not finished, a home means a lot to the people living in it. What stories are you making, wherever you are now?

Counting down: 4 days

     This past week has been a frenzy of packing, taking things to the thrift store, taking things to the dump, saying goodbye to people, and preparing for the move that will happen this Friday. My mind isn't doing much better than last Monday, which is not the greatest, because I have my last final exam today at 4pm. I think I know what is needed for it, but the way my brain is(n't) working lately, I'll be lucky to find the right language to work in when I get there.

Though my confusion is from mental exhaustion, not pot.

Chatting with strangers

     I’ve never really figured out what the standards for my shyness are. Generally speaking, I don’t like talking to people from whom I need a favor, and I abhor talking about money (I am a horrible haggler). I’m not fond of socializing in large groups of people, and I have a low-level dislike of humanity as a whole. Yet, when I’m standing in a line, or waiting for a plane to take off, or just randomly passing people on the streets, I have no problem chatting with them and starting up a friendship. Perhaps it’s the level of engagement that’s involved, I don’t know. But I am continually fascinated by how much information and background you can get from a totally random person just by saying hello.

     This past week was spent looking for a place to live with my gentleman after I graduate. We looked at a couple different places, and finally settled on one that, while not perfect, is acceptable. After we gave the go ahead for the agency to hold it for us, we took some time, driving around the neighborhoods and shopping areas nearby, to get a feel for what there was. One of the things that I saw and really liked was what looked like a neighborhood pool, basketball court, and community center not two blocks away from where we will be. Curious, I asked Angel to stop in so we could inquire about rates and suchlike.

Spring Break

     Spring break started, for me, this past Thursday. Given the usual irregularity of plane tickets, it turned out that leaving early would save me a couple hundred dollars in airfare, so I sacrificed a day or two of work in order to get the lower prices. The flight was bumpy as all get out, but at least it didn't snow, rain, hail, sleet, freeze, or otherwise get delayed. Sometimes, that's all you can ask for.

     The past few weeks have been pretty stressful with graduation looming over me. I try to be one of those people who plan ahead and are prepared for anything, so having an abrupt end to the entire way of life I'm used to is a bit unnerving. This weekend helped that no small bit, just by my gentleman and I being able to find an affordable place to live. It's not our dream place, of course, but since I don't have a job lined up yet (and therefor don't know where I'll have to commute to or what my income/ budget will be), we opted to err on the safe side. Still, it's a nice, open place that is roughly the square footage we were looking for, and in a gorgeous neighborhood with lots of walking/ biking paths, so no complaints!

Not over yet.

     So apparently my downward spiral hasn't quite hit bottom yet. While the official days for the seminars are over, we still have Russian classes next week- not a huge deal, as they're only in the morning, so we get the afternoon to go explore. I woke up yesterday with a scratchy throat, however, and today has been an exercise in finding paper products once I burned through my pack o' faux kleenexes to try to contain my leaky nose. As of 10pm, I have sinus congestion, a headache, and if I try to talk, I start coughing. I suspect that tomorrow will be spent in bed, or walking in the house so I can get some exercise without coming back with a pocket full o' snotrags.

     Yes, I made that one, specifically for how I feel right now. I am beginning to suspect that one simply cannot have a good visit to Russia- it's not allowed. Despite trying put the best face I can on everything, I think I'm done. Can't wait to get home, or at least back to a country where they know what cleanliness and sanity are. 

Perfectionism and 'thank you's

     Have you ever been around a perfectionist? Once of those people who have to have everything just so, and have to be always on top of things, always on time, always exactly the way the think it should be? While I do have perfectionist leanings (what, my GPA is 3.8??? Unacceptable!), I have learned to calm down a bit overall. Perfectionists are rarely happy, because the world is not exactly so, and there will always be conflicting ideas of what needs done. Perfectionism assumes a certain level of expectations. If you fall below them, you will be criticized; if you meet them (however ridiculously high they are), well, that's to be expected. There is no such thing as going above and beyond, because perfect is the limit, so do not act surprised when you are not complimented or thanked.

     One memory that sticks with me pretty clearly is one day when I was a child, probably 8 or 9 years old, I decided to help my mom out while she was out of the house. I knew she didn't really like vacuuming, but with three kids, two dogs and a cat in the house, it was a chore that needed done on a pretty regular basis. So I dragged the vacuum out, hooked it all together (this was before upright, single-piece vacuums were common), and managed to get all three levels of the house done before she made it home from whatever errands she had that day. I even remembered to clean it out, rinse out the basin, and put the vacuum away, and was feeling pretty proud of myself.

Compassion and attitude

     When I first moved out to Colorado, it was after roughly 25 years on the east coast, at least 15 of which had been in the DC area. I had learned how to drive on I-95, and most of my road trips had been through New York and New Jersey. Living in Northern Virginia, you can go from shotgun-toting, chickens-and-rusted-trucks-in-the-front-yard areas to million-dollar neighborhoods with security cameras and locked gates within a half an hour. Everyone keeps to themselves, and if you have to interact with others, it's best to establish a pecking order as quickly as possible, lest someone think you're just another hanger-on to the DC area.

     Moving out to the midwest was a massive culture shock, probably because I wasn't expecting it to be. When you go to another country, you expect things to be different- new language, new culture, new everything (except McDonald's and Starbucks). Moving across the country, however, I had expected things to be roughly the same ol same ol. Perhaps some new hobbies, different scenery, but America is a mixing pot- a homogenous society, right? Right?

The two stooges- my maintenance team

     When I first moved into my current apartment, I was thrilled to finally have my own place. It was the first time in my life I'd gotten a place without roommates, and I was tickled pink that I could do exactly as I wanted. Naturally, the excitement of having such a blank slate meant that I let a lot of minor inconveniences go, but as time wore on and I got accustomed to my own company, I started fixing up some of the more troublesome ones.

     One thing in particular that required some pretty speedy fixing was the shower head. I realize that, living in a hispanic neighborhood, I tend to be taller than most people here, but when I moved in, the shower head was literally at chest height. Very handy for cleaning the rest of my body, but absolutely heinous for things like washing my hair and face. When my parents came out this past summer, they helped me change the shower head out for one of those handheld, flexible ones. The height of the new head put the water coming out about 1" above my head- not perfect, but better than before, and I didn't have to kneel down to wash my hair. A livable situation, so I moved on to other projects.

No fun for tall people...

Testosterone, utilitarianism, and estrogen

     As a brief interjection, Happy New Year's! Here's hoping that 2012 brings us better news than did 2011. That being said, on to the real thoughts of the week.

     Since I moved in to this place, almost a year ago, I haven't done much in the way of decorating, aside from hanging the few pictures that I had either brought with me when I moved away from my ex's place, or clocks that I had bought out of a chronic need to know what time it is. Moreover, since I'm living off of student loans and a recently-acquired part-time job, my budget for niceties has been, well, nonexistent. So I have the bare necessities for living, and that's about it. For a variety of reasons, however, I decided to get curtains for my bedroom this week, and that's when the trouble began.

Utilitarian, but pretty plain.