Sewing project progress: pink checked dress muslin, part IV, plus mysterious heartburn pain

Bad night yesterday. Went to the urgent care center to get my unhappy belly and chest pain checked out, and basically just got told to watch for signs of it worsening and was sent on my way. But I've been having heartburn-like pain in my solar plexus setting in in the evening for the last four days, pain that doesn't respond to the typical heartburn measures of Tums or Pepto or even ibuprofen. I wake up pretty much fine in the morning, but it's bad enough that it makes it hard to get to sleep. The doctor doesn't think there's anything really wrong with me that isn't just going to have to run its course, but because I felt okay when I was getting examined, like an idiot it didn't occur to me to ask what to do about the pain. So last night was spent tossing and turning because it hurt too much to relax enough to fall asleep.

Anyway. On a more positive note, I fitted my pink checked dress muslin and sewed up the side seams. Now, if I'd been doing this right from the start, I would have had a good way to transfer markings from the pattern onto my material, and then made minor adjustments to the basic pattern suggestions based on my own body measurements. I plan to do better in the future, as I have requested the tracing wheel and transfer paper that captainecchi* suggested for Christmas gifts. For now, I decided to kludge it. I held the dress up to myself and pinned it along my sides to make it conform to my shape. Then I unzipped it, took it off, rezipped it, and faintly connected the pins with a line of pen. I took the whole thing to the machine and sewed the sides, using those marks as my seamline.

Once sewn, I tried the thing back on. Damn if it didn't fit half bad! My kludgey method actually did make it conform pretty well to my shape, keeping all the darts and things in the right places. I made the skirt a little too narrow on the right side, making it impossible to pull it over my legs, but I just ripped it out to the hip, repinned it, and sewed it more carefully. Turned out fine. Imperfect, especially since the fabric is so thin it sometimes clings to the outline of my bellybutton (tacky, tacky, tacky) but overall not that bad. Much better than my first disaster of a dress attempt, which was so rushed and stupid that I can't believe myself.

I wasn't sure how to take a picture of this, since I don't want a shot of me wearing it until it's finished, but I couldn't think of any good way to display how it's sewn up. So I just draped it over a chair and took an oddly angled shot of it just for illustrative effect. You'll have to trust me that it makes sense until it's done.

Next step is to put in the facings and sew up the shoulders. That is seeming to be trickier than it first appeared.

Also, on another fabric-related note, what do we think of this?

On a whim I draped my sheer white striped curtain that I got at the thrift store over the empty curtain rod holders on my office window. It's just thrown up there, so I'd have to figure out how to arrange it more carefully, but do we like the idea? Does it work in that place? I do find myself wanting to put curtains up where the windows are bare...

The newest addition to our little family

My grownup corner is no longer in quite the same state it used to be. My beloved butcher block is under the window now, while my collection of copper pots hangs on another wall. But it sure does look lovely against the blue wallpaper, and the adorable little spice rack that blendedchaitea* made is a charming companion for it. And doesn't the newest addition to our little copper family look nice? :-D

I'm beginning to think my journal needs a "home decor" tag, given how often I write about it lately.

Vanity table finished!

I just had to post a close up of how lovely it turned out. The varnish just makes it glow. I am so pleased.

Bedroom vanity, Mk2

I wasn't planning to post about this again twice in one day, but I'm just so pleased!

I hung the mirror on the wall with monkey hooks and a length of 18-gauge mirror wire. Monkey hooks are cool, they're meant to be hand-pressed into drywall and slide up behind so that a tiny little hooked tail sticks out of the wall for hanging supported by a long, upward-curving top. I placed the hooks just a smidge lower than I meant to, meaning the table has to go just a little bit in front of it, but it still looks very nice. Even, too! The wire allowed for fine adjustment.

What pleases me most of all is how the table came out. A while ago morethings5* very thoughtfully gave me a bag of various wood stains and sealants. This was just the nicest thing for me, as I have a deep love for the look of stained wood and have used them for a number of projects since, like the coffee table in my living room. For this one, I compared the samples on the labels of each color of stain to the wood of my bedroom set, but found none of them really matched. So I decided to try combining them by layers to see if two together might work. I first used a ruddy color called Sedona Red and allowed that to dry. Then I layered over it with a much darker shade of Walnut. I had to bring it back upstairs to compare it with the frame of the mirror, and look at the result! It's a damn near match! How about that? :-D

I am ridiculously pleased. All that remains now is to seal it with a nice protective polyurethane finish. There's a couple of those to choose from in my lovely gift from Jonathan. Then I will have a perfect bedroom vanity! I love house decorating stuff.

Bedroom vanity, mk1

I got my new little table!

It fits perfectly, the right width to use the space without crowding it and just deep enough to be useful without blocking the doorway into the office. Right now the mirror is just sitting on top of it and looks to be all right, but I'm a little nervous of it just perching up there unsecured. If the table got knocked, it could come crashing down. So I should probably attach it to the wall anyway. I think I will try to do that today. Wish me luck that I don't damage the wall.

Also, I mentioned I wanted to stain this table. It's totally unfinished so I think I'll try to make it match the wood of my bedroom furniture, which you can see here in the frame of the mirror. It's actually a nicer piece than I thought from the seller's photo, so if I take a little care it might actually come out quite nice.

Conqueror of chores

Yesterday I was the Chore-Accomplishing Powerhouse. I've been very busy with more external responsibilities (work, school, directing Merely Players) that I haven't felt very much like spending my remaining energy on stuff around the house. But I finally made myself call the neurologist and get an appointment-- that I wasn't putting off, I just kept forgetting and never remembering until after office hours --and getting that out of the way lit a fire under me. I cleaned my bedroom, changed the bedsheets, put together my new office chair, repacked my fabric basket, vacuumed the carpet, cleared out all the stuff I'd been driving around in my car, stored the new banquet tables I bought down in the basement, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, took the air conditioner out of my window, and threw a roast in the oven for dinner. A lot of this stuff has needed doing for a while so, now I'm glad to have gotten it out of the way.

But I'm still not done. I started painting away the little spots of remaining orange paint on the trim in my bedroom, but never had a chance to finish. I need to keep taping up the blue and get that all covered up. I also need to get around to hanging my big mirror. I've been a little tentative because I don't want to damage it or the wall, but I think I know what I need to do. I have monkey hooks and I bought the stud finder app on my iPhone that valleyviolet* recommended, which might be enough, but I wonder if it wouldn't be helpful to get some eighteen-gauge wire to string it up with. Also, I think I'd like to make that corner of the room a bit more functional. As it is, both mirrors are in my bedroom, while the dresser I'd previously also been using as a vanity is in my office, making getting ready in the morning a bit awkward. Usually when I leave I have just tossed my hair brush and everything onto my bed, which is not as organized or neat as I'd like. I much prefer everything to end up in its proper place. So I've decided that once the mirror is hung I'm going to place a little table beneath it to make that spot into a real vanity. I've been checking out Craigslist and eBay to find something that might serve. The trouble is that spot is in the narrow space between the wall and the door to my office, so I can't put anything there that's so wide it will interfere with egress between the rooms. But I found a little thing that I think will work. Doesn't look like much now, it's a cheap, unfinished half-circle kind of table I'll be picking up on Saturday. But I kind of like that because I can stain it myself and choose the color. I bet I can make it look nice.

I don't have anyplace to be this weekend, so perhaps a run to the hardware store is in order, and I can spend the rest of the time seeing that this stuff actually gets accomplished.

Practicing buttonholes

I used altering the shower curtain as an opportunity to practice my buttonholes. What I had to do to make it fit my shower is cut off one of the top corners at just the precise angle, but that got rid of the little hemmed holes intended for the rings along that edge. Since they were basically just buttonholes, I figured I could put in new ones if I made them like buttonholes. My machine has an automatic buttonhole foot that is supposed to just make them for you. I must have made a million test holes and screwed with the machine settings about eight different ways late into the night, but by about 3AM I made just about as pretty a buttonhole as you ever did see. See how nicely it came out on the curtain?

The next challenge was cutting them open. As you can see, the stitches are pretty close together and I was afraid of tearing them. What I ended up doing was very carefully pressing my rotary cutter down between the two edges and not trying to extend the cut much farther than that. It worked nicely, and I only damaged the edge of one buttonhole. Not too shabby, eh?

The curtain is a little too wide for the shower, and the bottom drags on the floor. Some trimming and hemming will be in order. And I must get nicer hooks to hang it with. But it fits nicely into the oddly-shaped space, so I'm pleased with my carefulness and the quality of my work.

Assignments loom...

Well, this weekend was not as productive as I intended it to be. Entirely too much of it was spent in the Depression Pit, with the rest of the time not being quite as productive as I hoped it would be. But I did get some of my list checked off. I bought a can of white paint to touch up the white trim in my bedroom, though I haven't started painting yet. I bought a new iron, which works great and I think will improve the quality of the seams I sew. I got a nice new blue-and-white striped shower curtain to replace the hideous plastic fish-print one we had in the upstairs bathroom. The shower has a sharp downward slant due to the ceiling shape on one side of it, so I have decided to cut the curtain to fit the space and sew new openings for the hooks. It will be a good chance to teach myself to make buttonholes, as that's basically the sort of openings the curtain originally came with. I haven't quite cracked how to use my machine's automatic buttonhole attachment to make attractive-looking results, but I've been working on it (unfortunately late into a sleepless last night, and the machine was apparently so loud that I must apologize because it woke up blendedchaitea*. So sorry, dear, won't happen again!) and I think I'm starting to get it right. Didn't get my kitchen knives sharpened, though, which has been on my list for a long time now. And I didn't get near as much homework done as I should have.

I kind of worked myself into a corner because I decided to not think about my poetry assignment packet until I was done with my playwrighting one, which was due a while earlier. Problem is, I didn't even really look at the poetry assignment until that point, and the due dates were closer together than I realized. So the necessary books for it were ordered later than they should have been and I have to go into crunch mode again. I am quite nervous about this one; on top of having to mark out scansion on a piece of text from the readings, something I have never been good at despite all my experience performing iambic pentameter, I also have to write eight pages of a "play-poetry" in verse. Gah. I'm terrified it's all going to come out all wrong and the professor's going to be like, "Do you know what iambic pentameter is at all?" And of course there's my classic problem of never knowing what to write about when I don't already have an idea going in.

On one final school-related note, I got back my adviser's feedback on my first packet submission. Mostly positive, I am relieved to say, though I made some really stupid errors that I am embarrassed and kicking myself over. And I totally misunderstood the "writing subtext" assignment, for which I generated this scene. I blame using that damn Hemingway piece, "Hills Like White Elephants," as my model. Because the characters in that do actually talk about their problem at least a little even though they never actually say what that problem is, I guess I thought my piece would fit the terms if my character just never flat-out defined their issue either. But that's not subtext, dumbass, which was the whole point of the assignment. She actually liked the piece in a vacuum, and complimented my ability to write dialogue-- a bit of a surprise, as I never felt my "regular" dialogue was ever all that natural-sounding --but asked me to redo the assignment. I am irritated with myself, but I feel like redoing it is justified. The moral of the story is never try to do anything that Hemingway does, because it's just going to be wrong. :-P

New workspace

Some of you may remember me talking about setting up a little additional workspace in my office, like getting a small table to put in the corner next to the door that would give me a little more surface area to work on than my somewhat crowded computer desk. I've been trawling Craigslist for the last couple weeks, and finally found something suitable in my price range that I could bring home. It's not set up to work at just yet, but here's how it looks right now:

It's made from what I would guess to be ash wood and measures about four feet wide by two and a half feet deep. It's at a height such that I can comfortably sit in at chair at it and my mini-fridge fits underneath it. I like how sturdy it is, and the neat little drawer in the front. I'm quite pleased with it, and actually was pleasantly surprised by how much workspace I could actually get to fit in this area.

I confess, I was not as meticulous as I should have been in regards to making sure it would fit the space before I bought it. I did take measurements for how much could fit into my desired area without interfering with the low closet or opening and closing the door, but didn't have them on me when the seller for this table responded to me. So when I said I wanted to come look at it I wasn't a hundred percent sure it was going to fit. Laying eyes on it in person for the first time, I was not optimistic; I was pretty sure it was too big. But the price was low and the seller was in Roslindale, which is a bit of a drive from Waltham, and I was more affected by the desire to not come home empty-handed than was totally wise, so despite my concerns I went for it anyway. I spent most of the drive home calling myself an idiot and brainstorming what the hell else I could do with the thing. But when I actually got it into the room I lucked out! In fact, it's about exactly as big as could possibly go there without getting the the way of the doors.

So I am pleased with how the whole enterprise turned out. This will be my sewing table, and my larp packing table, and the place I do any project that doesn't require a computer. I'm looking forward to having a designated space for that stuff so it doesn't take over my whole room.

My room at Illyria, now blue

My room is blue at last! Two days ago the wonderful acousticshadow2* came to help me finish painting, and brought the also lovely Josh Marcus along with her. EB is a really capable person, it turns out, when it comes to getting home maintenance chores done, as I learned when she was on the team helping me move as well as today. I'm impressed. She taught me a few things about painting a room that were really helpful, such as starting by painting up along the taped-off areas with a brush so you can follow up with the roller in the larger areas without fear of going outside the appropriate area. Josh was really helpful but going ahead of us as we painted, finishing up taping off all the trim that I hadn't gotten to yet. It took about four hours, but we got the entire room done by the end of the day. I am extremely grateful to both EB and Josh, for being so kind as to do all this work to help me out. Thanks, guys, I owe you one!

As I mentioned, the orange coat from before was not well-applied, so there was lots of orange bleed-over onto the trim, which I will eventually have to touch up with white. But I am pleased with how things look even now, so I think I will take a bit of a break and enjoy my nicer room for a while. Now I finally have the place cleaned up and back in order, which means all of you finally get to see what it looks like!

Here is my bed and nightstand in the corner. I like how the blue walls go with the blue in my bedspread, which is one of the reasons I chose it. It also looks nice against the dark wood of my bedroom set. Note the sloping ceiling, one of the more unfortunate features of the room, but that's to be expected on the top floor of a New England house of a certain age. The skylight is nice in that it provide a lot of light in a room that is otherwise a bit dark, though it also makes things quite hot if left with the shade up too long. (I had to brighten all of these photos to make them acceptably clear.) You can also see the neat low closet on that side with its shuttered accordian doors. It has a shelf and a piece of thick carpet along the bottom, and I actually haven't used much of it yet, but I expect I will as time goes on. My moose Romeo, more often called Moosey, who was a gift from Jared can be seen sitting in the place of honor on the bed.

Here is the view more or less from the door on the right side of the bed. Across from it is the smaller of the room's two full-sized closets, which I love because I have many, many clothes. That corner next to the closet was a perfect size to fit my small bookshelf, packed to the gills with show programs, English-major literature, cookbooks, and old notebooks. of mine. Horatio the beanbag mallard, affectionately known as Ducky (notice a pattern with me?), sits atop several decorative cigar boxes. I have decided to keep them there, though in general I have a preference to keeping my surfaces clear. I'm not sure the rug is necessary now that my room has a carpet, but it was in my old room and keeps with the theme of blue. You will also notice my mirror on the floor against the wall there. Now that I've painted I want to hang it there, but it is a very nice, heavy mirror that I don't want to risk breaking, so I may enlist the expertise of someone who knows more about wall hanging than I do. I am amused to notice that you can see Moosey's reflection in it from this angle.

This is what the side across from the bed looks like. This is what I mean about how the room has lots of bites and chunks taken out of it by the weird shape of the walls and ceiling. Now you can see both closets, including the larger one off in nook back there. That is also the room's only window other than the skylight, currently occupied by an air conditioner I almost never run due to the expense. You can also see the room's only real light, a tall lamp that used to be in the similarly fixture-less living room at Elsinore. It works well enough but is not bright enough for my tastes, and I am not fond of having to walk across the dark room to turn it on at night. I suppose I could move it next to the bed, but the door opens into that space and I'm worried about whacking it every time I come in. The wreath on the smaller closet's knob I idly made out of odds and ends of morethings5*'s costume while the talented hazliya* made him up a deer spirit in my kitchen for a photo shoot in the local woods. (I love how much art is in my life.)

On the only side we haven't looked at yet is probably my favorite feature of the place, the little adjoining room I have turned into an office. Here we look through the door to see the far wall and a little of how I have the place set up. Also notice that between the door to the office and the bedroom entrance is a weird little corner with a low-sloping ceiling that comes to a sharp little point. I am currently at a loss at what to do with this seemingly useless wasted space, so if anyone has any ideas I'd love to hear them. Maybe a little end table? One of those corner-shaped bookshelves? I wish it had an electrical outlet back there at least, to give me more options for what I could use it for.

Now we go into the office. On the far wall is this room's window, under which I have my computer desk. My primary computer is a desktop, all containing within the frame of that screen. I also dock my iPad on this desk, which also holds a box of odds and ends, my personal cable box, an external hard drive, the land line my dad insisted I have just in case, and Jared's high school senior photo (which incidentally I hate.) To the left of the desk is a table that holds my printer, with paper and important documents kept on the bottom shelf and various office supplies in the drawer. The chair doesn't roll very well on the carpet, so I am considering getting one of those plastic mats to put under it. I like working here, as the light and breeze from the window is very pleasant.

To the right of the desk is the old white leather armchair that used to be in the living room at Elsinore. When it didn't fit in the living room here, several people suggested I move it and the matching ottoman into my room. I am finding I quite enjoy having it to lounge in, so I am grateful for the suggestion. Next to it you will see another low closet with accordian shutters; this one is much fuller than the other one, as I use it to store my shoes and boxes of things I want to hang on to but don't necessarily use all the time. Again note the sloping ceiling, which can be a pain even for a short person like me. You can also see here the dark teal color of this room, which I can't say I love, but I don't really mind, so I am saving myself the work and not bothering to paint in here.

Here is the corner between the office door and the accordian-shuttered closet. It's a bit of a random mess right now. I decided to stick my mini-fridge right here, with its crate of random personal snack or kitchen items on top of it. You can also see that I've turned this into my "sewing corner" with my mini-ironing board, iron, sewing kit, fabric basket, and katiescarlett29*'s apron draped over my self-healing cutting mat. I'd like to have a little work table here on which to do projects like sewing or packing larps. Just need to find one I like that fits here. Maybe it would have its own chair too; I wouldn't mind having another little chair in here in case a guest needs to sit at the desk or table.

The last thing I want to show you is the space on the other side of the office door. This is my long dresser, where I keep the clothes that I don't want to hang up. Ideally this would be in the bedroom area rather than the office, but it's so long and the walls are so oddly shaped that this is the only place it would fit. I don't love having it partially under that really low part of the sloped ceiling, but again, I didn't really have a choice for where it was going to go. It just makes it a wee bit tough to use without kneeling, and the mirror in the other room used to live on top of it but now it won't fit. It's a shame, I liked it there. On top of it you will see my jewelry box, my perfume box made out of neat old cigar box that has little drawers in it, the beautiful bone china teaset Jared gave me as a housewarming present when I moved into Elsinore, and a silver tray with some frequently used beauty products on it. Again, I tend to prefer my surfaces clear, but I like having that stuff out because it's either pretty or I like the convenient access. Next to the dresser is another large lamp that used to be in the living room-- it's not great, worse than the other one in fact, but in the meantime I'm just glad for a little extra light.

And that is my room! I love having the space for living and doing things. I am really happy with the color of the blue paint. It's still technically unfinished, as things will need touched up. But now I can start putting things in their permament homes, and hanging my pictures on the walls. I will be very happy when I'm totally settled in, and I think I've made a good chunk of progress with the help of some lovely friends.

Current status of Illyria

I have begun painting my bedroom. I have taped up most of the white trim, covered my workspace with tarps and dropcloths, and cracked open my gallon of 100 Acre Morning blue. It was harder work than I remembered it being, as it's been a while since I actually painted a room. The paint goes on well with both a roller and a brush, though during the initial coat a second stroke tends to slightly displace the paint laid by the first stroke, exposing little patches of orange beneath the nice new blue. I have found that if I wait for the first coat to dry and then touch up the imperfect places, I get nice solid coverage and probably won't have to go so far as putting on a second coat. Given the very weird shape of the room, with all its odd angles and bites taken out of the shape, it's hard to estimate how much I have finished, but I'll say I've gotten about one quarter of the way around the room. Not bad progress for one evening's work alone. If I can get that much done each day I should be finished by the end of the week. I'm thinking I'll have to touch up the white trim too, though. The orange paint looks nicely done on the walls but must not have been applied with well-placed painter's tape, as the trim often has orange bleed-over on it. I'd like to fix that up as well. I plan on staying here for at least the two years of graduate school, so I want it to look nice.

In regards to other aspects of settling into Illyria, thing seem to have worked out. I have been cooking quite a bit in the kitchen, and it's just as nice as I hoped it would be. There is a ton of counterspace, a luxury I haven't had in years. The appliances are lovely-- having a dishwasher makes cleanup so much easier, and I love the gas range. Not as big a fan of the gas broiler, I've discovered, as compared to electric, but that's a small thing. I also was happy to discover that there was enough room in the spacious kitchen to keep my baker's rack, which though now a bit barer than it used to be I really like having around to hang certain tools and produce on. Here is how it looked this morning before I left for work.

I really really like it. Unfortunately I like the living room a lot less. It's tough to condense from a larger space into a smaller one, so in an effort to maintain a certain amount of seating the room ended up a bit cramped. I'm also not a fan of how the washer and dryer are in a closet in the wall, meaning nothing can be put up against that side. But we've sort of worked out a compromise, and I suppose it's comfortable enough.

I will post pictures of my room once the painting is done, and I've finally got the place the way I want it.

Things to do this week

Looking at my calendar, for the first time in quite a while I see a free and clear week with no commitments on the schedule. This will be nice, as I have a number of things I'd like to accomplish this week.

First of all I intend to spend quality time with Jared, who after a long week where we barely saw each other due to his work schedule then spent the weekend in New York visiting kamianya*, so we haven't seen enough of each other lately.

Next I would like to get going on the painting of my bedroom. As I mentioned, the place is a pretty brain-gnawing bright orange color, way too intense for the room I spend most of time my at home in, so I decided to paint. I bought a gallon of a nice light blue shade, a color Disney's paint line calls 100 Acre Morning, which I chose because it has a primer already built in. I'm hoping that will completely cover the orange without requiring a dozen coats. My dad put a package of paint supplies in the mail this morning with the intent of my receiving them tomorrow, which means I can spend the week working on it. Anyone who'd like to drop by to lend a hand, your company would be much appreciated, and I will of course repay your efforts with home cooking.

Thirdly, I must prepare for my upcoming residency period for starting grad school. I have only one week of classes to attend, but it will be intense. The residency schedule looks to be grueling, a solid block of classes from 9AM (or 8:30, in some cases) to 6PM for nine days. It's been two years since I was last in school, and certainly even longer since I had to pay that kind of attention for that extended a period. Hope I'm up to it. I also need to make sure I've done all the preparation and signed up for all the things I should have this week. I'm a little nervous, as I'm seeing things that I don't know how to take care of right now, but I guess I can send e-mails to faculty and ask for direction.

Those are my priorities. I am not totally ruling out any other sort of activity, but it will have to be fitted in around these.

Illyria progress



Here follows a somewhat disorganized brain dump regarding the current state of the move-in.

Things seem to be evening out at my new house. There is still plenty of unpacking to do, but there is now new carpet in my room, and my bed, with its cut-up-then-rebuilt box spring, is set on its frame and made. I'm a wee bit afraid of putting too much stress on the box spring by taking it off the floor and onto the frame, but it seems stable, at least for now, and I desire to have the under-bed storage space.

The order of today will be to go home after work and lunch and continue unpacking. I have brought all of my personal boxes up to my room by this point, and the kitchen table is rebuilt. Now things must be put in their proper places; I won't be really comfortable until that's done. My landlord said I can store unused things in the basement (a typical unfinished, slightly musty New England basement) which is nice at least for the stuff I'm not concerned will mold or get damaged by damp, so I won't have to be crowded by my old microwave or my baker's rack until I figure out what to do with them. The living room will have to be thinned out, as it's currently holding more furniture than it comfortably fits, but that means I have to decide whether I'm tossing out my old white leather arm chair, or I have space for it in my bedroom, or if I just want to wrap it in a tarp and put in down in the basement.

Appointments also happen today. Cable and internet set up was scheduled to happen this morning, though due to work I couldn't be around for it. Hope everything goes smoothly for the roommates in my absence. I also have to get to Elsinore to let in the rescheduled cleaning crew at 6PM. Not looking forward to that, as someone will have to stay with them while they clean, which could take a long time. I'll have to bring my iPad or something to work on while I wait.

My room will be very nice when I am finished setting it up. After remeasuring, I realized my stuff would fit better in the divided upstairs bedroom after all, and blendedchaitea* was wonderful enough to switch back with me. Which I am happy about, as that was the room I really wanted all along. I have decided to use the larger part as my bedroom and the smaller compartment as my little office, where I will have my computer desk and I think a little table to do other project work, like sewing and larp packing and stuff like that. I've always wanted to be able to say "If you need me, I'll be in my office." I have two closets for clothes, and two other low ones in the wall, one I plan to use as a cubby for my books, and the other for shoes and whatever else.

The room has only two problems. One, it has no light fixtures. I will have to invest in some serious lighting, as I strongly dislike rooms that are too dark. Not sure what the best kind would be, so I'll be doing some research, and taking recommendations if anyone has them. And two, the main room is painted an intense, Home Depot orange. Not an ugly color, I guess, but not one I want all over my walls. So I have secured permission from the landlord to paint. I am thinking I'll go with a nice light blue, which would work with my wood and my bedding. In the next week or so I plan to look at paint chips and choose something, then lay down tarps, break out the painter's tape, and maybe have a little painting party. As always, anyone who would be interested in helping is welcome, and will be compensated with home-cooked food.

That's all for now. I am eager to get home so I can continue getting the place into a liveable state.

Move accomplished

Well, the move is concluded. It took hours and hours, and had many more wrenches in the works than my careful planning aimed for, but thanks to the efforts of many lovely, hardworking people, my stuff is in my new place. I have a ton more to do to get things in order (thrown off by having to wait for things out of my control, like new carpets getting laid AFTER I had to move in, and the cleaning service for the old place losing my reservation, grumble, grumble) but I am determined to get through them. I don't want to get into any more detail of the struggle, as just thinking about it all stresses me out, but I am determined to move forward productively from here. I would just love to call attention to my wonderful, generous friends-- Bernie, bronzite*, laurion*, lightgamer* , acousticshadow2*, ninja_report*, marigumi*, john_in_boston*, niobien*, Prentice, Emily, Michael, and jh1230* --who gave their time and effort, and I will be making them all an excellent dinner in thanks.


Now I have to go collapse.

Moving to do list

- Engage moving truck - DONE

- Pack things in kitchen - DONE

- Pack things in living room - DONE

- Pack things in bedroom

- Pack things in basement - DONE

- Cancel current NSTAR account - DONE

- Cancel current oil account - DONE

- Arrange for final oil fill - DONE

- Call Formal Oil AGAIN re: final oil fill because it doesn't seem to have happened yet - DONE

- Call National Grid to make new gas account - DONE

- Fax ID and proof of residency to National Grid - DONE

- Confirm all things are in order with National Grid

- Cancel Verizon account - DONE

- Engage Comcast account - DONE

- Buy Groupon for massively discounted cleaning service so old landlord doesn't gouge it out of our security deposits - DONE

- Arrange for my cleaning service to come to the house

- Send out plan for lovely moving helpers - DONE

- Throw away massive amounts of trash and recycling

- Pick up keys from new landlord on Saturday

- E-mail old roommates about moving out finalizing - DONE

- Send old landlord information about cleaning service, key dropoff, and ask for security deposits to be returned within the legally proscribed thirty days

Gah, so much to do, so little time to do in it...

Moving plan!

I thought I'd post my moving plan here well in advance of things, in case anyone is interested in showing up to help, or provide moral support in the form of cooling beverages or delicious snacks.

The date of the move is Tuesday, May 31st. Because the only time I was able to secure a moving truck rental was 2PM, things will be beginning early. Let's say 3PM is the official start time, and I plan on working until it's finished, hopefully before the 9PM deadline when I need to return the truck. I know that some of you will be unavailable during the day, but any time you can come is very much appreciated. If you could let me know when you expect to show up, that could be useful for planning. Like, I can plan on moving the heavy furniture pieces when I'm looking to have the most people present.

We will be moving the furniture contents of a living room, a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a small mountain of boxes. My goal is to have everything ready to be picked up by you lovely folks and placed directly onto the truck or the appropriate car, so hopefully there will be minimal need for you to help with packing or anything like that. I may need some minor help with furniture disassembly, though, and I may assign people to some light cleaning tasks if no one minds.

I will be providing dinner in the form of some kind of takeout on the day of, and then everyone who shows up to help is then invited to a real, home-cooked "Thank You for Hauling My Stuff Around" dinner at my new place (Illyria, 51 Morton Street, Waltham) at 7PM on Saturday, June 4th.

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask. And please let me know when you think you might be coming so I can make a plan. (I do so love making plans.) If things have changed for you and you don't think you can make it, no worries, I appreciate the thought anyway.

Thanks so much, everyone. Your help is very much appreciated, and I will repay you with deliciousness the weekend after.

Antsy for the move

More and more my thoughts turn to my move at the end of May. I was always looking forward to it, but now I'm getting downright ansty for it. I think it's more wanting to get everything squared away more than actually feeling pressed to get out of my current situation and into the new one. God knows I like things taken care of, so I've already begun preparing for it and making my plan. I've been collecting boxes for the last several weeks, mostly those from office supplies delivered to my work; my bedroom is becoming quite cluttered with them. Unable to hold off any longer, this past week I started actually packing. My goal is to have everything already packed up and ready to be moved onto the truck by the time all my helpers come on the 31st, so things go as quickly and efficently as possible. Though I do want to get that stuff done ahead of time so I'm not scrambling at the last minute, the problem is that everything I pack now is something I can't use for the next several weeks until the move. So limiting my ability to do advance packing is the fact that I don't want to have to do without a large chunk of my stuff for that time. My clothes and my cookware, for example, are two significant chunks of my possessions, but I know the minute I start sealing that stuff away in boxes I will be vexed with pressing need for it. So I've confined myself to getting my bookshelf squared away, and the contents of my drawers that I like to have on hand but don't necessarily use every day. I wish the weather would at least straighten itself out, so I might be able to decide I don't need one sort of clothes or the other. I've also already begun tranferring my utilities account away from Elsinore and, where I can, to the new place. But beyond that, I feel like as eager as I am to get this taken care of, it's too early to do much else.

It also speaks to my desire to take stock of my possessions and get rid of as many as possible. I culled some junk out of my drawers, and found a handful of books I'd just rather get rid of. I should probably go through my clothes and figure out what I don't wear anymore. I recently gave away a bag of stuff to the thrift store, but I feel like there's got to be even more I should be getting rid of. *Sigh* There's going to be so much stuff to move. All my furniture, all my boxes... gah. I guess the enormity of that is making me want to find some way to do it in pieces starting now, but practicalities are thwarting my anticipatory efforts.

Moving: call for help!

You know what's the best part of having friends? They ask you to help them move, yaaaaay!

So as I have mentioned, lovely friends, I will be moving out of Elsinore at the end of May and into what is now officially Illyria, a new residence about the same distance away from Brandeis on the other side. Originally the plan was to split the moving between two days, packing up the U-Haul on May 31st and then unloading everything in the new place on June 1st. Unfortunately the truck is only available on the 31st, so both the loading and the unloading will have to happen in the evening of that day. Harrumph. I suppose that will have to be that. I suppose I will try to have all of my smaller possessions (clothes, books, cookware, etc) already moved in before then, and then have only the sizeable furniture pieces left to move during the time I'll have the truck.

So I am asking for any lovely friends who might be available in the late afternoon and early evening of Tuesday, May 31st to lend the strength of their backs to moving a significant chunk of furniture to be taken to my new place. Someone who is comfortable driving a ten-foot truck (over a distance of about a mile) is particularly welcome. More details will come closer to the date when I make a firm plan on action. To entice you to come, all those who contribute are then invited to what will be my inaugural dinner party at the new place on Saturday, June 4th in thanks for the help.

So, if you are inclined to be generous, or just want in on the reward dinner, e-mail me or comment here letting me know that you're available to help. Thanks in advance for your assistance!

Housing next year

So after much stress, much wrangling, and much worrying, at last I have my housing situation figured out for next year.

After three years there, I am finally moving out of Elsinore. Though I was pretty contented with what I could do there, it really is time. The landlord is impossible to deal with, the heating bills in the winter have been insane, not to mention a host of sundry other little annoyances that add up to a fair-sized pain. So, especially when it became clear I was not going to find suitable roommates to fill in those who were definitely moving on, I decided it was best to move on too.

So now, with lovely friends blendedchaitea* and my current roommate Emily, I will be moving to the other side of Brandeis to a three-bedroom apartment on 51 Morton Street. (Emily is going to be a graduate student at Brandeis next year, so staying close to the school was necessary for her.) This is, interestingly, also about a block away from Albion, where Steph, Plesser, April, Lenny, and Jenna will be living next year. Features of this new place that are a definite improvement over Elsinore are the wide driveway (no need for stacking and therefore constant carswapping), TWO bathroom for THREE people, a huge kitchen with plenty of counter space, new appliances including a dishwasher, significantly cheaper heat and electric bills, and only having to share the place with two others instead of four. I actually have enjoyed living with all of my current group of roommates, but more people means more crowding and more mess, which I will be glad to have to deal with less.

Also, it looks like I will not have to be compromising on bedroom space. I was initally interesting in this really neat-shaped room upstairs with cool nooks and crannies and a whole separate space with a door almost like a walk-in closet for where the bed goes, but after some measurements were taken I realized my bedroom furniture was probably not going to fit. So Rachel will have that room, and I will have the sizeable downstairs bedroom that will more easily accommodate all my stuff. It's one odd feature is that it doesn't have a closet so much as a storage space, of good size but unfinished inside. I am actually okay with that, as I am confident that if I laid down a piece of carpet and got moveable clothes racks I could basically make it into a pleasant little walk-in. I've always wanted a walk-in closet, so that should work out nicely. Also, as it is on the ground floor, that means the ground floor bathroom is basically mine when we don't have guests.

There are some downsides. As it is only a three-bedroom, there is considerably less common space. That probably means while dinner parties can still happen, the big parties I have every now and then probably won't fit. That makes me sad. Also it will probably mean having to get rid of some of my furniture, seeing as pretty much all the stuff in the commons spaces is mine. My baker's rack, for example, may not have a home (unless I repurpose it into a shelf for my planned walk-in closet...). The washer and dryer are coin-op, though I am grateful enough that they are on-premises that I don't really mind. It will also mean something of a raise in rent for me, which I am hoping with my new job won't be quite so burdensome, but we'll see. But the positives outweight the negatives by far for me. I will really miss living with Charlotte, Jane, and Ryan, all of whom someone managed to overcome my hermit tendencies to make me actually enjoy being roommates with them, but I am very excited to live in this new place with Rachel and Emily.

It's going to be kind of a relief to me, to be honest. All it needs now is a name. I myself am partial to "Illyria," but I would also be amenable to Rachel's idea of "Arden."