Saturday, September 10, 2011

New Craft Space

All right, I am admittedly a terrible blogger.  I just can't keep up.  This is one of the many, many things that I say, well if I just set aside time and...and it just doesn't happen.

I think I ought to bring back my planner from college.  I had this awesome/obsessive planner that planned my day in 15 minute increments.  Because truly, I am horrific at time management.  For example, it is 11:27am and by this time I was supposed to have gone to Wegmans (can I just tell you how much I love Wegmans?  I get the whole classy supermarket experience, but pay way less than I would at Safeway or Giant or certainly Harris Teeter.  Win:Win), Target, Ulta and gassed up my car at Costco (because the cheap gas prices pay for the membership).  But what have I done?  Let's see.  I decided to make blueberry pancakes (although I really did cheat and just used "just add water" mix and just added a cup of frozen blueberries) and I finalized my meal plan for the week and created my shopping list on Wegmans.com (because it prints out the locations of all my products, saving me time and temptation from buying things I just don't need).  Saturdays just underscore my need for an ADHD intervention.  Oh, and I listened to music on YouTube.  Although, most of that had a purpose, which I will get to later.  In my defense, I've been battling a headache traveling along the side of my head and down into my eye and the side of my face that no amount of quiet or caffeine has seemed to alleviate. Anyway...

What was I planning on writing about?

Right.  My new crafty space.

So I have a fabulous husband.  I mean really, I do.  Sorry to brag, ladies, but I only speak the truth.

He is way into his hobbies.  And he does have quite a list.  Not that he does all of them all the time, but he sort of flits around between beer making, photography, music (well that one is all of the time and while I am biased, Josh plays kick-ass guitar), etc.  Those are probably the big three, but he's always telling me what else he'd like to get involved in.  So he really does value hobbies, which is sweet.  And I appreciate that he doesn't think that my love of all things crafty is silly or a waste of time.  So for our anniversary, he built me this gorgeous set of shelving/cabinets in our basement followed by a HUGE counter/table.

 Almost finished cabinets...

 Desk in progress...can you believe he designed all of this himself?
 Finished desk (minus lighting and electrical elements)
 HUGE workspace!!  I have never had this much space for my crafts.
I am so excited to use this space.  I just have to finish unpacking/cleaning the basement so I don't feel guilty about my time.

By the way, how do people get everything done?  I feel like I'm just running in circles all the time.  Commute, work, commute, make dinner, clean the house, go to bed.  Do it all again.  And I don't even have kids.  15 minute planner.  ;)  j/k  I just have to prioritize things better and waste less time.  

Easier said than done.  Oh well.

Oh!  And listening to the music.  So the hubby is in a band (classic and southern rock mostly); it's actually one of the outreach elements for our church and they're going to let me sing a song or two with them in the upcoming months, so I was listening to/learning some of the contenders.  So it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Anyway, I think I will go and attempt to accomplish some of those things I was planning on and clean the basement a bit so I can actually craft some again.  :) 

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

End the R-Word PSA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T549VoLca_Q

This made me cry seeing it on TV.  This is something that is so close to my heart.  I don't mind this word when used correctly, as a medical term or in its sense as a verb, but never as a derogatory word.  But people don't understand how hurtful it is as an everyday slang term and that it is, in fact, a slur.  Glad to see more public acknowledgement of that fact.

I'm Back!!! My Year Thus Far in Short Form

Okay, so it has been brought to my attention that it has been some time since I have posted.  This is not untrue and I highly appreciate that someone noticed that it's been awhile.

Things have been a bit busy lately.  Thankfully, though, it's been the good kind of busy.  When I think about this time last year, well, I quickly change the subject in my head...  (finishing up your last year of teaching, getting ready to get married and preparing to move halfway across the country two weeks after your wedding, well...you get the idea).

So here is a short synopsis of my year thus far...(plus a bit of the end of last year).  I will give you details about these later, but here's a good starting point, since I should probably be sleeping right now.  :)

November:
Make the commitment to become a home owner.  Get a real estate agent, pre-approved loan and a realistic picture of what you can actually afford.  Visit lots and lots of houses.

December:
Visit a lot more houses.  Get discouraged (because, you know, that's what I do) and wonder if I will ever find something I love in my price range that doesn't require tons of fixing up (because our budget just doesn't cover that).  Visit a house that looks extremely promising on the internet and leave said house wondering if a dead body is buried in the backyard.  Or the walls.  Or conceivably both.  Still kind of awaiting that call from our agent stating that, in fact, a mass murderer lived there.  Needless to say, that wasn't the house for us.  More on that later.

Find a house that is perfect.  Put in an offer and realize that it's a short sale.  (Tip: short sales are the devil.  Avoid these at all costs.)  Try to not get my hopes up about the house and fail miserably.  Await the bank's counteroffer anxiously.

January:
Still waiting for the bank's response to our offer.  Oh wait, it's $25,000 more than our offer and completely out of our range (plus, in my opinion, way more than it's worth in this market).  Counteroffer the counteroffer.

Bank comes down $5,000.  Still not affordable.  After much deliberation, decide that the bank is stupid and leave their offer.  (House is still on the market, btw.)

Decide not to look at any more short sales and do regular sales or foreclosures only.

Apply for "promotion" at work.  Get "promotion" and become part of the full-time working populace again.  (Details to follow later.)

February:
Find a new house and fall in love.  This is not a short sale.  :)  Put in an offer.

Offer accepted.  Yay!!!  Get home inspection.

Home inspection fairly normal.  Negotiate based on home inspection.  Offer is acceptable to all parties.  Schedule date to sign all the papers.

Have car accident.  My fault.  Stupid, stupid, stupid.  Fortunately, no one was injured and the other person's car was hardly damaged.  My car is all better now.

Pack, pack, pack.  ::Ugh::

March:
Become first-time home owners!!!  Move in with the help of amazing friends.  Unpack, unpack, unpack.

April:
Unpack some more.  Attempting real organization for the first time in my life (will write some posts with tips that have been working for me) and am unpacking slowly to try to actually find a place for everything.

I think something else happened in April...see where my mind has gone?

Oh yeah, I chopped off ten inches of hair and donated it to Pantene Great Lengths.  I am now sporting a pixie hairstyle.  It's taken some getting used to, but I do think I like it.

May:
Decide to apply for new jobs.  Can handle this job (it's so easy, it's not even funny), but continually realize that this is not a permanent solution.  Update resume.  ::HATE::  Revise resume.  Revise again.  Start drafting cover letter.  Decide that writing cover letters might be a good form of torture.  Pull job requisitions.  Get extremely frustrated with the entire process and the fact that a lot of people seem to think that I should just go back to teaching because it would be "so different in a 'normal' school."  Um, thanks to the lack of respect for teachers and the brain sucking thing called No Child Left Behind and the fact that wealthier parents are also crazy, just differently crazy, I'm going to say that this is probably not the case.  But I digress...soapboxes, I know.

Random neighbor hits car and runs.  Not major damage, but my bumper is cracked.  Still need to schedule an inspection for it so insurance company will fix it.  Neighbor kids, however, are awesome and wrote down license plate.  Called police and filed report.  Still awaiting next steps...

Whew... It's been busy.  But good busy.  We're really happy and healthy and we're getting ready to celebrate one year of marriage!

Josh has proven that he is extremely handy since moving into the house.  Maybe he could teach handy husband lessons.  :)

Also, because I'm nerdy, I've decided that I'm going to start my Etsy business, learn to quilt and write some blog articles about organizing and crafting.  I like to use this to update my friends and really just write about everything that's going on (isn't blogging so therapeutic?), but I LOVE tutorial blogs and I would love it if I could eventually be the writer of one of those, too.  Yes, I am boring, but I'd like to think I'm a fun and funky kind of nerdy boring.  Yes, I know that this is definitionally impossible, but, quite frankly, I don't much care. :)

And now, I am going to attempt to go to bed, even though I have had entirely too much caffeine today and am not sure that this is going to be a manageable task.

Goodnight!