daunted

I am surrounded by boxes and empty closets.

The kitchen has been cleaned and the refrigerator is spotty-spot-spotless. I have even placed a beautiful bowl of locally grown grapes inside. They are quite dazzling.

Billy and Francine are camping out in the bedroom as is our happy headboard. Mister built a bed out of boxes so we could estimate the size and remaining floorspace until our brand spanking new mattress arrives. As I type this however, he is outside the homestead building me a platform bed that has "bookcases" along the bottom. He's kinda cool like that, even when he reprimands me or dusting without the crazy mask on.

After three hours of being surrounded I managed to dust and clean all the windows and accept defeat at an idea I had to cover pretty gift wrap with clear contact paper to line the kitchen cabinets. I might have thrown a wee bit of a tantrum and I might have been all crankified.

The crankiness didn't last. How could it when I find things like this in one of the thought-to-be-empty closets and boxes full of robots and kitsch?

today...

I discovered that falling jacaranda blossoms sing much like fat raindrops on a summer's day. The pop, plop, pop kept turning my head and I saw them...purple blossoms falling from the sky, lazily floating down in no hurry to their surrender. If only I had my camera with me.

rainbows finished

I made these for a one year old's first birthday. They were snuggled into the goodie bags for the babies. I think maybe I should have snuck one home for myself. Adorable! 

one in every color

introducing...

The New Tiny Casa!

living room & kitchen

I took these pics before we moved our plethora of doodads and boxes of kitsch into the space. At first it seemed quite daunting to think everything would fit. We know that everything came OUT of the tiny casa which was tinier than our new space but after living for more than a year without our stuff it would seem our stuff now freaks us out.

living room

This new space was built in the early 1950s and is so plentiful in closets and cabinets we can hardly contain ourselves knowing we can sort out doodads and kitsch so as not to become weighed down by it all. My goal is to further purge which will be difficult. Most of the objects I have been tightly holding onto were tightly in my grasp for the idea of more space someday. Mind you, not a whole lot more space but something akin to another bedroom or craft space. It doesn't look like the mister and I will be having that anytime soon and as much as I fell like at 40 I should be able to have "moved up" in the world of apartment living, I'm okay with letting go. I don't think I want to dig into my pocketbook of could-bes and let its emptiness color my world. As my friend Amy recently said to me...I'm going to embrace the life I have.

hall storage!

bedroom closet

bedroom

 

And do you know? It's a pretty good one. This life that I have.

friday's confessional: july 22

Sorry folks, I have no energy for a confessional today unless you want me to wax poetic over my love of So you Think You Can Dance and/or America's Next Top Model. I may not watch any other reality shows but I can't seem to turn my head away for these two. I even find myself jazz walking around the homestead during the commercial breaks. I'm THAT dorky. I do love to dance though. I wish I had stuck with it.

Now that we're moving into the new tiny casa, we're finding that the more realistic rent (meaning NOT what we were lucky enough to pay in L.A.) may be keeping us from any technological-ness. We have a phone that actually plugs into the wall (recently purchased for two smackeroos) and we may have a boxy-boxy television that will hopefully accept our digital box but there really isn't any extra moolah for internet or cable. Cable I can totally live without but internet? Aack! We're looking into all the cheapy solutions, but in a town, on a street, shoulder to shoulder with college kids we may be hard pressed to actually get any speed out of anything.Thank goodness there is a 24 hour donut shop not too far from the new casa that offers up wifi. I wonder if I could get a job there?

This random assortment of pics includes our new-old phone which I will be doing something to and our new-old chairs which the mister will be doing something to. Actually, he already has as they were purchased black, so he has been sanding sanding sanding away at them for a week now.

Pics of the new tiny casa coming soon, soon, soon!

epic chaos

Yesterday seemed to have been sponsored by the word CHAOS. I do believe I sat on my rear in front of the computer for far more hours than I care to admit. There were emails upon emails to write and answer. Important phone calls to execute, anxiety to be battled and jobs to be applied to.

In between coordinating a walk-thru time with our new landlords and working on two craft articles, I battled it out with the U-haul guy regarding drop off time for our truck which he cut drastically. I also kept mr. a-go-go in the loop, applied for three jobs, researched allergies and mattress info, nursed a newly hatched butterfly, uploaded photos to flickr, edited photos from the last two days, shared a sneak pic of the apartment on facebook and for fun, created an imaginery registry on Pinterest. I also managed to get all my magazine subscriptions on their way to the new address...I think.

It was even busier than it sounded and thank goodness for creating that fun list, otherwise the day would have been extra chaotic and stressful. An a-go-go girl needs a little pretty in her life, even if it is all pretend.

After I finally managed to get myself out of that blasted chair, I had successfully coordinated a good time for our walk-thru and got the U-haul guy to give us back all but one of the four hours he tried to take away. As for the butterfly...I'm not sure she made it but here's to hoping nature took care of her, one way or another.