Moving Melancholy.

I'm back.
I've had a helluva weekend.

Saturday was moving day, wherein we employed all able-bodied men-folk to help us empty our storage unit, and relocate large pieces of furniture into our home. The incentive? Burgers and beer. It worked, and now we were (almost) totally moved in.

While we were moving one of our new neighbors came by to introduce herself and her kids - Joey and Jenny - and bring over some cookies. JUST LIKE THEY DO IN THE MOVIES.
Joey looks to be about 3, and Jenna about 6 months. And, when I saw them, my uterus started screaming "I WANT BABIES!"
The little boy carried the cookies and went to shake Mike's hand, but Mike asked for a high-five. He said please and thank you and he was SO GODDAMN CUTE. Anyway...

On Sunday, after being exhausted of moving and finding that our old TV and TV stand were atrocities in our house...we decided to make some ill-advised purchases and bought a giant, honkin' flat screen.

I researched a little, and we decided to shop around - my mom suggested Costco, and we borrowed her membership to go look. Within 10 minutes of walking into that glorious store, I decided we MUST. HAVE. A. MEMBERSHIP. And so we do.

OMG you guys! Have you been to/do you love HUGE club stores? They are the epitome of mass production and excessive consumption...but if loving them is wrong...then I don't want to be right.

While we were there, we got our obnoxiously big TV (because Mike said it was "the best deal"), and I also picked up Wii Fit Plus! I'm pretty excited about it. I haven't set it up, or even taken it out of the box yet...but I will. I will. Does anyone have one? Do you like it? Does it do any good at all?



Beyond that...we're slowly but surely moving in...and I'm learning that large life changes, particularly those that come with complete upheaval, make me mildly depressed. Not terribly, but enough for me to notice an increase in lethargy and general malaise. I've gone to bed at about 8pm since we've moved in, been closer to tears than usual, and I have no desire to talk. I realized all this was going on last night when I went to bed. It's kind of a bummer, but I'm certain it'll get better as the house becomes livable and my life feels organized again.

A survey for Friday

I was tagged by Melina of Owl and Peacock for a survey. And as I have no energy to create anything new, here goes:

1. What books are on your favorite shelf?
>> All 7 of the Harry Potter books. I've read the first 4 six times, and only twice for the remaining 3.

(image from weheartit)

2. What DVDs are on your favorite shelf?
>> Lost in Translation, V for Vendetta, Closer

(image from weheartit)

3. What are your two favorite cookbooks?
>> Williams-Sonoma Bride & Groom Cookbook: Recipes for Cooking Together, and it's not a cookbook, but it might as well be - tastespotting.com


4. Select 1-3 recipes you will cook for your special guests:
>> Stuffed Peppers, my parent's Caesar Salad, Lemon Cornmeal Shortbread Cookies

(image from McCormick.com)

5. What will we be drinking that's available?
>> Champagne cocktails (I <3 champagne) and Sam Adams

And 5 Random Facts:
1. I used to wear slippers almost every day during my senior year of High School. For a while I carried a blanket around with me so it was more comfortable to nap during study hall.
2. I could fall asleep at 7pm every night. I love slumber.
3. I created the "I Make Boys Cry" tshirt for Hot Topic. Swear! I saved the emails.
4. I've only every owned Dodge cars. I've only liked one...my Stratus.
5. Mike was one of the 4 "Hot Boys" on the 8th grade basketball team who I thought would never speak to me. Little did I know that he was a shy, shy nerd who didn't talk to anyone.

In the vein of wanting to know more about you:
1. RaeLeigh at Big Sky Girl
2. Mandy at Manderz Musings
3. A Green Teacher at Green Fires
4. Callina at Gingerbread House


Also - if you've emailed me...I'm so so so SO sorry it's taken me so long to respond. I'm going to write you back. Swear on a bear.

Have a wonderful Friday and an even better weekend.

Moving

Hahahahahahahah
Gross. I look like a zombie this morning.

I failed to wash my face before bed last night, and now I look like the dead, reanimated. Gross. Hahahha. But I couldn't help but share.

I've been totally neglectful of emails, and tweets and blogs lately because of the whole closing on our house. There were a bunch of last-minute sagas that I can't bring myself to relive yet, but we DID end up closing. On Friday. So all the papers are signed, we aren't as poor as we thought we'd be (pleasant surprise), and we painted the bedroom (pictures to come). This is the first time I've logged onto the interwebs since Thursday...crazy.

We closed on Friday and then started cleaning. Most of the skin on my hands has melted off thanks to bleach, paint, Goo Gone, nail polish remover and floor stripper, and along they way, thanks to the same chemical cocktail, most of my brain cells are dead and I can't breathe. WORTH IT.

The spiders that previously occupied the house are in turmoil because we're removing their nests, but sorry dudes, we don't want any squatters.

I've been off work since Friday in an attempt to try to clean and get our house set up so we can live there, but we're not quite ready yet. The bedroom is painted and cleaned and my parents bought us a fancy new Queen bed, and we slept there on Sunday night. But for all intents and purposes we can't live there yet.

The appliances, all 6 of them, are getting delivered on Saturday, and hopefully hooked up by the end of the day. We're also hoping some of our man-friends will be able to help move couches and futons and dressers and tables. I'm putting a rush on this because I still want to host a little Halloween get-together.

Additionally, Sunday night, after we've gotten our room set up, and we're getting ready for bed, I started crying, and crying and crying. I should be happy! Overjoyed that I am finally sleeping in the house we've been chasing and laboring after for so long. But I felt so guilty and grateful to my parents. My mom was at the house ALL WEEKEND painting and cleaning and removing stains, and my parents bought us a bed. ALL THIS after housing us and feeding us for over 8 months. I don't know how you can adequately thank someone for that. I felt sooo indebted.

And here's the thing about my family. WE love each other, and we know it, but we don't really hug, and we don't really say sweet, lovey things. We express love by being there for each other, asking questions about their day, and just generally expressing interest in our lives. We spend tons of time together, and drink daiquiris/bloody marys together. But we don't say "I love you", and that works for us. So, here I am, unable to really put into words how MUCH I love and appreciate the work and time and money my parents have put into us...so I had a meltdown. A sobby, snotty, hysterical meltdown. And the fact that I was sobbing, the first night in our new house, made me feel even worse because Mike was trying to make me feel better.

Eventually, I calmed, after many reassurances from Mike that my parents know, and are happy to help. And finally! FINALLY! We were able to sleep in a house alone, and enjoy the quiet that comes along with it,

Pioneer Woman Cooks!

Holy Cannoli.

Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, is going to be here:
Chicago – Skokie, IL
Thursday, November 19, 2009
7:30 pm
Barnes & Noble
55 Old Orchard Center
Skokie, IL 60077

That's like 10 minutes from my work. Less than that. 7 minutes. Oh. Em. Gee.
And I'm going to see her.
I'm going to go early (I get off work at 4...but I'll probably stay late), and then go get food, and see if I can have a face-to-face chat with Ree Drummond because I'll be there so early, and she'll be proud of how punctual I am.

If I play my cards right, maybe she'll say, "Ashley, I think you're great, and I want to adopt you so you can live on my ranch and learn to be amazing."

And I'll reply, "Ree, thank you so much for the offer! It would make me SO HAPPY to live on your ranch and learn to be amazing! I can't wait. Can Mike come? He would love to learn to be a rancher."

And she'll say, "Of course!"

And that will be that.

Shut The Front Door

Guys. GUYS!

I've been so busy and so swamped. But I have topics I want to discuss with you, and they may or may not include:

1) Ex Boyfriend boxes - OMG, I went through one (it was hidden in the back of my closet) this weekend and it was a doozy!

2) Things I love. I've been making this list for a while.

3) My hair. I know, I know. I CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT. I'm planning to write an open letter to myself, for the next time I'm thinking of cutting it all off.

4) Where I live. I want to take you on a photographic tour of where I live. This will probably have to wait until after we're moved/settled. I like sharing, and you guys sharing with me. It's REAL nice. I do wish we could all have dinner sometime, yes?

5) I want to dabble in the realm of a mini-vlog. I don't quite know if I have the courage to look right into the camera and speak, but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

6) THIS INSANE DREAM I HAD. Do you guys ever dream about tornadoes? I do, realatively often, and a quick Google search let me know that tornadoes are usually dream-manifestations of upheaval, or disruption - which is right on target. BUT, in this particular dream, there was a Jim Halpert/Mike hybrid who was with me and wanted to marry me. It was very bizzare. I had wedding rings on both hands and we were trying to get away from the tornado. This isn't my first Jim Halpert love dream.
I think it might have to do with this picture I found yesterday:

(Image from weheartit.com)

7) weheartit.com Have you been here? Have you seen it? Friend me. This website blows my mother trucking mind.

8) I'm trying to stop swearing. Son of a Biscuit. Mother trucker. Shut the Front Door. I need to adopt these.

8) OMGwecloseonthehousetomorrowWTF?!? It's been horrible. Which is why I haven't been around blogging or commenting. We were approved for our loan...with conditions. So we had to scramble all this week to provide proof that Mike was a student for all of 2007, and that a credit card that was flagged as an Identity Theft Risk was closed. It was really hard to get all that in a DAY, but we did it, and we're still on track to close TOMORROW.

An ode to Anonymous!

Dear Anonymous,
You left a comment on my biographical blog post - and mentioned working at MCC. You asked my favorite teacher - Mark Arctander. He was a painting teacher and a very talented artist.

I appreciate your comments and I would really like to talk to you. Please leave me another comment with a way to contact you!

As a matter of fact, anyone who reads this - email me. I love pen pals and emails to make the day go faster

Soon-Kitchen?

I've got a few things I want to blog about, but for the time being I am totally and completely preoccupied with the purchase of our new house.

We close in less than a week, and I want to make sure we are able to paint before we move all of our stuff in. Mike and I have spent two weekends at Home Depot, agonizing over paint colors, and dreaming about wood floors and granite countertops, and we've managed to figure out what we're doing with our bedroom. But the kitchen. Oh, the kitchen! It's a completely different animal!

So today, I've put together this little "inspiration board" of what we think we're doing.



The plates are our actual plates.
The white-ish buffet represents the white stain we're going to give the wood portion of our cabinets (the fronts are laminate, and we're hoping to replace them).
The colors are what we're both cool with.
The wood samples are what we eventually want to finish the floors with (Thank you, $8,000 tax incentive for first time home buyers!)
We want to put in little box shelving above the buffet that we'll use as a mini-bar
And the actual kitchen image is from Behr's website.

Unfortunately the countertops are white laminate. It's pretty ugly, but I figure we can live with it for now. But there are crazy tutorials online for refinishing your laminate counters...maybe I'll get daring someday.