May 30, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 0 Comments
Well, I just may have a little bit of time to post before the older of my two nieces wakes up from her nap.
Of course, I say that and my brother-in-law and I just heard a sound that might be her making noise! Well, we’ll see what happens.
From the last time I posted, there are a variety of small things that have happened. Texas Seestor took Friday off of work and we went ahead and took my nieces to daycare. We drove to check out Mom and Dad’s (almost) house. They close on it within a week, if I’ve got my timing right. It is a really fantastic house; the backyard is particularly spectacular. I will just have to take photos of it in the future instead of trying to describe it right now.
Then we headed to my apartment. One of the main things we accomplished were getting the mirror up on the long dresser. For some (annoying) reason, the driver did not attach it! I’m definitely lodging a complaint with the moving company about that.
We also took and assembled the table and chairs that were originally one of my grandparent’s (?), then Mom and Dad’s, then Texas Seestor’s, and then in her attic until now.
They also did some unpacking and rearranged some of the packing material and boxes to make them easier to store.
Another advancement on the moving front is that today, I picked out a TV at Best Buy! Mom and Dad bought it for me, and Texas Seestor and Trainwreck contributed some of the cost too so that I could get a special package that was available just for the holiday I think. It is quite a bit larger than I’d planned, but Dad was particularly concerned that I get a big enough TV that if in the future I am in a larger place (condo), then it will be big enough for a larger living room. At some point, I will have to shop around for a clothes washer and dryer too. I’d like to look at multiple stores and see if I can find a good deal.
speaking of, maybe I should check online and see if Sears has any sales for the holiday!
more later!
May 28, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 3 Comments
dining room and edge of kitchen as taken from the living room
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living room taken from dining room corner
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master bedroom
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master bedroom closet
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guest bedroom, which is currently holding my office furniture that I will take to school
May 27, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 1 Comment
Hi!
I’ve been trying to write a short blog post for the last 4 or so days in the morning. However, when I’ve had the energy (morning), I haven’t had the time; and when I’ve had the time (evening), I haven’t had the energy.
I have a draft of one that I may post later when I get to finish it.
For now, here is the synopsis:
Mom and I made it to TX on Sunday in time for supper! That means, of course, that my two nieces actually were awake, instead of being asleep.
Monday found us taking care of my baby niece who had run a fever in the middle of the night. And as I was prepping to go down to my apartment to get the keys, the oldest niece came home with a fever too. So, I stayed home and played with her. Boy, that was a hardship!
Monday night, Texas Seestor and I went to Target to use my 10% shopping spree card that expired that day. I really lucked out that it was good until after I’d arrived. I saved a huge amount of money.
On Tuesday, it was my turn to feel crappy. I slept for about 45 minutes before lunch, and then probably 1.5 hours after lunch. At that point, since my belongings were going to be delivered on Thursday, I figured I would go down on Wednesday morning, get my keys and start cleaning. However, around noon, the driver for my move had called, which I’d missed. I got his call around 2 pm. His message indicated that he wanted to deliver my belongings on Wednesday as early as 7 am! eek! I still had to get the keys to my apartment!
So, I gathered my paperwork and drove to my apartment. I timed it again, and it seems to consistently be 45-50 min from Texas Seestor and Trainwreck’s home. Anyway, I made it before the office closed.
My first impressions were that the garage was tiny, the hardwood floors looked nice, they’d freshly painted everything, and there was new carpet in the bedroom! The windows also had wood blinds instead of aluminum (as advertised on their brochure – I’d forgotten and had used that to remind myself of the situation with the window coverings).
They’d left me a gift bag of a couple of bottles of water, some muffins, napkins and plates, a Schwann’s pizza in the freezer and a 2L of coke in the fridge! And then, this was the funny part, all over the apartment were brochures and freebies from local businesses. For example, each bathroom had a toothbrush and travel toothpaste sitting next to the sink with the business card of a local dentist. And the bathroom had a thing about wickless scented “candles” and paint-your-own pottery. The kitchen was covered with guides and stuff.
I drove about 5 blocks down the road and signed some papers for my insurance before THEY closed. And I hung out there for a bit trying to decide where I might put furniture. I had brought a tape measure with me, so I measured out the living room/dining room area again, which I knew was going to be the tough part.
That night, after supper, I came to the conclusion that my two overstuffed arm chairs were not going to both fit in the living room. But, fortunately, my master bedroom is huge and I had room to put one of them in there.
On Wednesday (yesterday), I arrived at 7:10, because I was running late after making my lunch. I forgot how much time it takes to make lunch, since I’ve just pulled a lean cuisine or smart one out of the freezer and a yogurt out of the fridge everyday for about 3 years as I’ve headed off to work!
Anyway, I started by re-cleaning the areas where I knew the large furniture was going to go. I started with the inside of the windows, then base boards, then I swiffered the hardwood floor and vacuumed the carpet. Then I had time to do my damage/fix-it assessment before the movers arrived.
I had just started cleaning the kitchen when the driver arrived.
For the next couple of hours, I hurriedly unpacked 3 boxes that were about 3 feet tall (4+ cubic feet) and 4 or 5 boxes that are 1.5 cubic feet. These boxes contained my breakables, and the driver had asked me to unpack them before he left so that he would know if anything broke. You see, something had gotten broken when they were packing and two doors of our home had gotten scratched. So, he wanted to be more aware of any damage before he left.
It was quite exhausting, because for those 2.5 hours or so, I was working as fast as I could without breaking anything. I’m sure that I got my exercise for the day with that and the cleaning!
After they were done unloading, I collapsed on the couch and called HB to discuss the door damage among other house stuff.
uh oh. I hear my niece and this is about when they let her get up for hte morning (6 am). Gotta run! More later!
May 22, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 5 Comments
Not much time to post. I need to do some stuff while I eat breakfast today.
They arrived yesterday at 3:00 and left at 8:00! When the driver walked through initially, he said something to the extent of “oh, this will go really fast.” The boxes Did go fast (as expected), but the furniture took much more time!
HB and I had our last supper together out on the deck; it was pizza from my favorite pizza place. Meat lovers + green olives = awesome. The dining room table was covered with about 1/3 of my breakables and was thus unavailable. It was nice. Both of us were pretty exhausted. But it was nice.
I can hear him snoring as I write this; I will miss that – it is comforting.
He picked Mom up from the airport since the movers got done so late.
My calves really ached last night; driving will be interesting! But it will be fantastic to sit. I haven’t sat down much for the past 2 days; although I will admit that I snuck in a nap on Thursday. 
Well, gotta go. More from the road if the internet is decent.
Otherwise, I’ll “see” you in Texas!
PS: I can’t quite believe that I’m going to see Texas Seestor and Trainwreck tomorrow!!! And then my nieces on Monday morning! (they will be asleep when we arrive)
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
May 21, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 1 Comment
The movers come today around noon. So, I have a bit more time to finalize packing details. However, I have to scoot and make a good checklist.
I leave you with these gorgeous purple irises that I planted 2 years ago and never grew buds last year but bloomed YESTERDAY! I can’t resist putting them in the large size even though it is going to potentially look weird on your screen.
May 20, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 1 Comment
That is what the edge of our kitchen and dining room looked like at about 9:30 last night. I had just finished splitting the tea; it is on the counter. This photo also documents my version of organized chaos as I pack.
This is what inspired me to pull out my camera.
Can you believe that we own all of that tea???
And can you believe that all of that tea fit into the left side of the cabinet that is above it? ( see photo above) Yes, it took up the WHOLE left side, and we really didn’t get to the stuff behind the first couple of layers much. We really needed a lazy Susan for tea, or a nice pull out rack like Texas Seestor has in her kitchen cabinet – of which I am quite jealous! I guess I will have to find a poor man’s version of a nice pull out rack. Maybe some sort of desk organizer…
… well, I’ll have to think about that.
That or I’ll have to make that one of my arts and crafts projects for the summer. Now, there is a thought!
As I was pulling this tea out, it was like discovering old friends. I had forgotten that we had all of those Tealuxe paint cans of tea from when we lived in Boston! I actually found the paint can opener that we had to use to open them in the silverware + tea utensil drawer. Speaking of the tea utensil drawer, I found 3 large metal mesh tea balls, 2 small tea balls, two tea squeezers (one for home and one for school – from my grad school advisor). And that doesn’t begin to include my collection of tea pots, spoon rests or teaball rests, and mugs.
Anyway, I should explain one thing about the massive stack of tea – particularly the tower in the back. Dad worked with a woman who had a connection to Bigelow (I’m not sure entirely of the connection anymore – I think she might have worked there part-time), so we ended up with a ton of tea for free from her from Bigelow.
As for the rest of the tea, the canisters are all different flavors of Republic of Tea teas. Some of them had special edition canisters, like Memoirs of a Geisha for the Cherry Blossom tea which is renamed to be called Spring Cherry Green Tea, or the red Zen Dreams canister for Passion Fruit Papaya – my second favorite tea. Or is Blackberry Sage my second favorite tea? I suppose they are tied for second.
In the end, splitting the tea wasn’t too terrible. There are things that HB purchased for himself that I never liked anyway. And we had two of a fair number of teas – especially those Bigelow boxes!
Pulling out the mugs earlier in the day was also like discovering old friends. I have mugs from as far back as high school freshman year that were given to me by friends. I remember who gave me, or where I purchased, almost every one of them. I have even kept a chipped one that was such a favorite for so long that I’ve never been able to put it in the trash – I purchased that one, but I’m not sure where. That would be one of the few that I can’t recall where I got it.
And here are some more photos I went ahead and took as long as I had my camera out.
This is where I stood all day Wednesday. Packing paper in front of me, box being packed to my left, towels and blankets used for packing to the far left on the couch and chair, office paper and newspaper behind me, and for a while, I had bubble wrap to my right until I used it all up!
I felt compelled to take a photo of all of the utensils that I’m taking with me after I split them. That was sort of odd too. We have only one of some things, so I tried to keep track of the things that I will need to buy. And I started a small list for HB of things that he will have to buy, if he so chooses.
Well, I’m nearing the end of my cheerios and Home Depot is now open. I used up the last of my tape making the box to hold all of the utensils plus other stuff last night. That makes 4 rolls of scotch packing tape (purchased) and 3 rolls of cheapo brown tape from Atlas (free). I’ve probably been over generous with the amount of tape I use, but I’d rather use too much and have the boxes stay intact than use too little and have the bottoms bust out. So, off to buy tape I go. Maybe I’ll take some more photos. I’m finding them sort of funny to view.
May 19, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 1 Comment
Well, I have two full days left to pack – today (Wed) and tomorrow (Thurs).
I have moments where that continues to frighten me, and moments where I feel that everything is under control, and I can get it all done.
Yesterday, I had a migraine from not running my humidifier the night before. I forgot, because I was dithering about what to do about the windows in the bedroom. I knew that if I left them open, the mold issue would not be a problem (see the previous post), but the bedroom would also be freezing if I did that. How fortunate that I still have my electric blanket on the bed! (not for much longer though! It will be packed!) This also reinforces my idea that I will likely have to take my humidifier with me for the drive and for any location where I don’t have one next to where I sleep until my stuff gets unpacked at my apartment.
In the end, the timing worked out that I had scheduled an oil change yesterday morning. I pretty much went there, got the process started, and then went to the waiting room where I took my super-strong migraine medicine, leaned my head back against the wall, put in my earplugs, and tried my best to doze. After a while of that, I took advantage of their free snack bar and ate a bag of pretzels, two Grandma’s soft chocolate chip cookies (yum!), and a cup of green tea. That mostly did the trick and I was able to run a couple of key errands, have lunch and start getting back to packing after that.
I found all of my stuff under our two bathroom sinks. I have a full trashbag of stuff to pitch! They look bare underneath; it is actually really satisfying.
I also split the towels and bath stuff, split the sheets/blankets/linens. And then packed up the bathroom stuff using some of the towels as padding. I’ve been struggling with the choices of bathroom sets. I had thought that other than our current bathroom sets (which are already his and hers, because we’d already turned each bathroom into our own), I would take the blue set with me and leave the forest green here. But last night, as I was falling asleep I was thinking about how the forest green towel set, while it is obviously really dark and doesn’t have a soap dispenser or tissue box, also really compliments my thinking about the potential coloring that I may choose to use for the main living room. I’m really leaning toward turning it into a room with pale green highlights. I also have those pillows and bed runner that Texas Seestor and I made a couple of years ago, which also has greens in it. I’ve seen some beautiful paint schemes at Home Depot and I’ve been hemming and hawing about what I want to do with the living room. I may not paint, but it is at least giving me ideas for colors that work well together. I decided this morning that I’ll take the forest green set with me after all. Thankfully, I didn’t pack much of the blue set yesterday when I was choosing towels for padding!
My plan of attack for today is to split and pack the kitchen. I have no doubt that I will also find a trash bag’s worth of stuff there too. And I’m not even going to go through the pantry much. I’ll just pull out a bit of the key stuff. The cost to move stuff is $0.40 per lb. So, there will be times when it actually will make sense to take some things with me. And other times not. It is good that HB has been out of town since Sunday. I’ve sort of made a mess of every room, and there is a fair amount of maneuvering that is necessary right now to get around. That will definitely become the case with the kitchen.
The one good thing about the kitchen is that because his half will still be here, we won’t have to use disposable utensils and dishes. I’m using one of his coffee mugs, bowls, and spoons as we speak.
In other news, I didn’t wear a respirator at all to be in the house yesterday and I am fine. I continue to keep the air system (furnace and a/c) off and all of the windows open. The house is closed off to the downstairs and I didn’t open the door at all yesterday.
Once again, I feel very one with nature. It makes me want to reconsider keeping my living spaces open more to the outside when the weather is conducive. But we’ve always kept it closed for allergy purposes. I’ve had problems in the past when taking an allergy pill everyday; after about 1.5-2 weeks, I usually start getting headaches.
Finally, do you remember how the whole reason I got started on this losing-weight thing is because my shorts had gotten too tight? Well, now they are too loose to look decent on me. So, I ran into the farm store where I bought my Lee jeans and picked up two pairs of Rider Lee shorts. I would have gotten more, but my goal is to reach a body size that is more like Sandra Bullock in “The Proposal,” which means that I might, and that is a BIG might, still drop down one more size. Why Sandra Bullock in “The Proposal”? She is also small-chested and small-waisted, so it might be somewhat doable, unlike the rest of the Hollywood actresses who have big chests. We’ll see. I plan to start exercising once I move, which means that I won’t be able to use my weight as a guide anymore. I expect to start building up muscle. Although, I think that my packing counts as light exercise right now. My muscles certainly say so!
I haven’t weighed myself in a couple of weeks, because things have been sort of crazy. That is the one downside of using the Wii to keep track of my weight. It takes about 5-10 min to do it. Frankly, with all of the eating out I’ve been doing, I imagine that I’ve either maintained my weight, or gained some. This would be another reason why I’ve been hesitating to do it. I know that if I were really following the weight watchers methodology, I’d be choosing lite fare at restaurants. But I can’t quite bring myself to do that with all of my goodbye dinners. I’ll go back to being more careful once I’ve moved. Plus, I’ll more than likely be eating out with Texas Seestor and she will be a good influence on me!
I guess that is it for now. I should clean off space and start the kitchen. ugh.
May 17, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 6 Comments
We have had a water disaster at the house. When HB went to pull my stored belongings out of the crawl space, he discovered that about 1/8 of it had standing water. We never knew it had gotten bad down there, because I think the last time we went in was when we stored the Girlie-girl’s stuff after she had died over a year ago (March). it looks like it has been bad for quite a while, because – get this – there were mushrooms growing on a sleeping bag! How absolutely disgusting is that???
In the end, even with claritin, I started having a pretty concerning allergic reaction. I’ve known from allergy testing years ago that I’m extremely allergic to mold.
I would go stay at a friend’s house until it is all over, but I have to pack. *sigh*
When I got home from church yesterday, HB had thought he had finished all that could be done and he left on a business trip. In his defense, neither of us had realized that I would continue to react quite so badly. I thought it would lessen once we got the wet stuff out of the main part of the house. Luckily, we have amazing neighbors, and the neighbor was willing to close up the downstairs space, put 2 more fans down there, open up those windows, get all of the wet crap out of the garage and to the end of the street, AND move my empty boxes for packing into the house. After opening every single window in the house (including the one without a screen!) I got out of the house to give it time to air out. That is actually when I had lunch out at a restaurant yesterday and did my Home Depot run.
So, I got respirators at Home Depot that are of the same rating as I’ve used in the lab to prevent reactions. I had never realized until about four years ago that modern respirators are not necessarily those huge, gas-mask-looking things that they show you in chemical safety videos; instead they are basically similar to a regular surgical/home repair mask, but with a filter on the front. Maybe you already knew this, but it was news to me when I started wearing them.
Anyway, it is pain to use them, because the straps are too tight. I may have to rig up some sort of tie system instead of the current elastic bands. I wore a respirator for the whole day, and ate supper on the deck. I feel very one with nature right now, because I hear every little bird chirp.
Right now, I’m eating breakfast inside, because the house has been opened up since about noon yesterday and my throat seems manageable. But I will work upstairs this morning (the rest of the house is sort of cold), and I will go back to wearing a respirator. We have service people coming this morning.
what a disaster.
I’ll manage; it is just one more thing to deal with that I really hadn’t expected!
Note: all but some of my college lit books (mainly my Russian literature) was okay. We had mostly moved the most important things to the far side originally. And some of our stuff was in plastic bins. My advisor for grad school had a water problem in her basement, which helped me realize the importance of using plastic bins when possible and NOT boxes. So, that was excellent.
I guess we will have to stop teasing Texas Seestor for her habit of buying storage bins every time she needs to put stuff away somewhere! I will be taking on that habit. Although, she had told me once that she read that one should never put books in plastic. They actually need to breath. I imagine it is because the paper has a certain amount of moisture in it. I will see if I can buy dessicant for the other stuff. I am hoping that Home Depot or somebody sells small packets.
May 16, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 0 Comments
I got an email on Flickr a while ago that one of my photos from the Austin zoo (below) was on the short-list to be included in the Austin Schmap guide. It is sort of a searchable guide and map with extra info. I think it could be a really fun way to find new things to do once I’m in TX.
I just got a new email that said that it was accepted and is on their latest version!
I haven’t quite figured out if it is only accessible on an iPhone or what, but here is what it looks like for someone who pulls it up on an iPhone.
click here to see it
Notice the photo in the upper left is one that I took and get credit for! If you click the photo it takes you to Flickr and my photostream! Is that cool, or what??
yippeeee!
May 15, 2010 - Posted by danielle- 2 Comments
One of the things that J and I were talking about at supper was colors (of all things). We started discussing how we remembered colors getting retired when cerulean came out. I looked up some stuff on wikipedia and found some interesting info! Of course, I have artistic leanings, so I love colors.
Here is the link to the following info.
One of the things I told my friend, of which she was unaware, was how they used to have a color called “flesh” that was basically the skin tone of Caucasians. Here are some of the more interesting renaming of colors:
- flesh became peach
- indian red became chestnut – it was originally named for a color used in India, but school teachers reported that children thought it referred to the skin tones of Native Americans
- Prussian blue became midnight blue
They actually give you the RGB values if you want to choose them in photoshop (I think that you can type in the values, anyway!). Coolio!
Here is the retirement party that I am probably remembering that I found at this link:
1990: Eight Crayola crayon colors– Maize, Raw Umber, Lemon Yellow, Blue Gray, Orange Yellow, Orange Red, Green Blue and Violet Blue– are retired into the Crayola Hall of Fame in Easton, Pennsylvania. Emerson Moser, then Crayola’s most senior crayon moulder, also retired after 37 years. After moulding approximately 1.4 billion crayons, he revealed that he is actually color blind.
color blind???? How is that possible???
What a cool factoid to share with my Bio students when I talk about genetics and vision!
I think that I liked violet blue and green blue and was sad to see them go. But otherwise, I hadn’t used the colors they retired all that much.
I also really like these new names:
2003: Four more Crayola crayon colors– Blizzard Blue, Magic Mint, Mulberry and Teal Blue– are retired into the Crayola Hall of Fame, but are replaced by four new colors– Inch Worm, Jazzberry Jam, Mango Tango and Wild Blue Yonder.
Makes you want to go buy a box of 64 doesn’t it?
