Author: erinreeve

A few days ago, I realized that the ren faire is coming up (in May).  I also realized that I really wanted to wear a new costume this year.  If you recall, last year I made a green cloak to wear, and had a white maxi dress underneath.  Well THIS year, I’m planning a little more.

After perusing Pinterest, and googling things like “renaissance faire costumes,” “plus size corset,” and “how to make a belly dance skirt,” I think I have decided what I’m going to do.

Basically I took what I liked out of these designs below, and drew up the sketch below that.

I’m super hopeful about it!!  The plan is to get fabric from thrift stores, and make a really poofy skirt.  I’m not AS sure about the top jumper part but if I can find a long dress at a thrift store, I should be able to modify it — add the drawstring portion, hem the sleeves, etc.  I may end up just buying the shirt because I bet that would be easier than making one, and possibly less expensive.

But, anyway. Will update with progress.

omfg.

we’re going to start doing the almost-exclusively-vegetarian thing soon and I went to Aldi to get some bread, cheese, veggies — stuff for sandwiches this week.  I got back to work and made the sandwich, including about half of a jalapeno pepper.  I figured it’d be spicy but not too bad.

and now the inside of my mouth hurts and the outside of my mouth hurts and my left eye hurts, presumably where I somehow briefly touched it after cutting the pepper.

the only reason I’m still alive is probably that I pulled off half of the jalapenos on the sandwich after my nose started running.

still waiting on the endorphins to kick in.

 

We’re both getting new phones.  Stephen’s camera had stopped working, and his battery would die basically any time and without warning.  My battery is getting to that stage too, and I’ve had this phone for probably 2.5 – 3 years, so figured it was time for a change.

So I ordered this amazing cover for it (which hasn’t delivered yet, and doesn’t look exactly like the picture because I neglected to take a screen shot of the website before placing my order, and these are custom covers).  I’m sorta more excited about the cover than I am about the phone!

Anyway.  Stephen tried to pick up his phone yesterday but they were having issues connected it to his AT&T account…and so I’ve just been remembering how much easier getting a new phone used to be.  Like, all you’d do is take your SIM card out of your old phone and put it in the new phone.  And bam.  Now though, after you activate the phone, you have to plug it up to iTunes and get it to sync…which, come to think of it, might be easy for people with newer computers and newer versions if iTunes.  Maybe that’s my problem.  I don’t remember what version I currently have, but it’s not the newest.  And it can be sort of a pain to update because my computer (a PC) isn’t really super fond of iTunes.

BUT whatever, like I said, I’m mostly excited about the case.

We FINALLY have both of our old houses clean and empty, and the utilities turned off, and everything wrapped up.  Yesterday I went by my old Henry Ford house one last time, and… I could write a whole post about it, but I’m at work and will need to focus on working here shortly, so won’t do that.  But I really loved that house.  I’m glad to be moving on – literally and figuratively.  I mostly enjoyed my life in that house; some years were better than others, but I grew a lot and learned more about life and about myself while living there.

But!  I’m very excited about getting settled in our new house.  We keep making more progress every day, even though sometimes it feels like two steps forward and one step back.  But now we can focus 100% on unpacking and organizing and decorating, so I expect things to start coming together quickly.  We’re both starting to feel anxious about the boxes still hanging around the place —- this is what the living room looked like last night when Stephen started unpacking his bookshelf.

So there’s plenty of potential……buried underneath boxes.  But!  Progress!

Anyway, I’ll post more pictures as soon as there’s more to look at.

Well.

We are 98% moved in.  Stephen is turning in his house keys today, and I have to turn mine in on next Tuesday.  I still need to schedule for my water/electricity to be cancelled that day, too.

I took the last two days off to focus on unpacking and cleaning up Stephen’s house (which we knocked out yesterday).  In the new house, the bedroom and kitchen are mostly unpacked, the bathroom is totally unpacked, Stephen’s office is getting there, and the living room is half-way live-in-able.  The library hasn’t been touched yet, unfortunately….

Tonight we’re going to see a play, which is cool, but I would really like to be able to just focus on unpacking more!!  And this weekend, Stephen’s sister is coming to visit, so I’m sure she’ll be ok with helping clean up my old house, but I don’t want to spend all weekend unpacking if she’s here.  Sooooooooooo.  It’ll come together, next week.

 

• Take down the canopy in my bedroom
• Take down the curtains around the house
• Take down the shelving unit in the dining room closet
• Throw all the other miscellaneous items into boxes
• Pack jewelry
• Take down all wall art…
• Take apart bed frame
• Pack medicine cabinet and stuff in shower
• And shower curtain
• Pack up stereo/CDs/xBox/etc

 

I seriously cannot wait to be settled in.  I do not like living with a bunch of boxes.

OK!  So we’re going to sign the lease on the aforementioned house next weekend, looks like.  I haven’t moved in such a long time that I’m not sure if I remember how to.

• Transfer electricity (or cancel my account if Stephen wants to use his)
• Same with water
• Contact Piedmont Gas to put the gas in my name
• Cancel my AT&T wireless since Stephen has a better monthly rate
• Tell post office to forward my mail
• Change mailing address on periodicals, bills, etc etc etc

What else?  I’m not sure.  But I’m looking forward to moving and having everything nicely wrapped up.  If anyone thinks of something I’m missing, I’m all ears!

So we are now 89.6% sure that we’ve found a place.  We filled out applications and gave them a security deposit on Saturday, so now are just waiting to hear back from them about when to finalize and sign the lease.  It’s in East Nashville, it’s a little more expensive than we were hoping (but so was everything else, so…), and it’s a little bigger than either of the houses we’re currently in.  Has a walk-in closet in the master bedroom, two smaller bedrooms, a huge back yard, a garage, two wine coolers, a non-functioning fireplace, hardwood floors, etc etc…..

They’ve already taken down the ad or I would link it….but I was able to screen cap these pictures from Google street view.  Not the best pictures, but, well, gives you an idea….

Exciting!!!  I’m really hoping that everything works out and we’re able to move in a couple of weeks.  Keep your fingers crossed for us…..

 

OK so, like I mentioned, we’re moving.  We both live in normal-sized houses that are full of stuff, so we’re going to try to find a new place that’s possibly a little bit larger…but at any rate, we’ll be downsizing.  I started packing up my dining room last night and omg, so much stuff.  And I don’t even HAVE that much stuff in the dining room.  Also I didn’t pack any of the stemware.  Actually, the several boxes that are now on the floor mainly just contain games and DVDs, come to think of it.

We don’t have a place we’re moving to yet – but are going to get on that immediately.  I have spent a little time looking around at homes for rent in Nashville, and seriously everything is so much less affordable than it was the last time I moved.  I’m hoping we don’t end up in an apartment or in Murfreesboro.

Also, I’m being reminded of how much I do actually hate moving.  There’s the stress of finding a place that’s a) affordable, b) close enough to work etc, c) allows cats, and d) that you actually LIKE….plus on top of that, there’s the stress of packing up all your shit and borrowing someone’s truck so you can make several hauls to the dump to throw out all the stuff you realize you don’t need (and in my case, the stuff you haven’t thrown away yet because you don’t have a truck)……and it’s just not super fun.  Don’t get me wrong – I’m definitely excited about living with Stephen and moving to a new place.  I’m just looking forward to all of this being completed, and being able to unpack and settle in come March.

So anyway, tonight I’m thinking that I might start tackling the library.  I’m going to get rid of at least some of the National Geographics (they make great scratching posts, apparently), and clean out the closet in that room.  Maybe go ahead and put the instruments into their cases.  Oh yeah, and I need to sell that speaker.  Could make a decent hunk of cash off of that which would for sure help with stuff like security deposits…..

*sigh*

If anyone wants to help me pack, or help move later in the month, I will buy you beer and pizza.  Just throwing that out there.

I’m having book issues, people.  I have too many books that I’m trying to read.  I need to prioritize.

First priority is Elizabeth Strout’s new book My Name Is Lucy Barton.  Bought this book yesterday because she’s coming to Nashville to do a reading next week, and I want to get it autographed, but I also want to have read at least some of it before going to the reading.  I may have said this already, but Olive Kitteridge was one of my favorite books that I read last year and the mini-series was superb.

Second on the list should be finishing Foundation and Empire which is the second book in the Foundation Trilogy.  I have been slowly making my way through the trilogy for a while now, and I definitely like the books, so I need to buckle down and at least finish this second book before I keep reading more books.

Also on the fiction list is Elizabeth Strout’s The Burgess Boys.

As far as my nonfiction list goes….I need to finish The Witches by Stacy Schiff, which I actually put down a few months ago and find myself missing from time to time.  I’m also making my way through Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich — it’s an absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking book and I love it.  But I like it in moderation because it’s so devastating.

Stephen got me The Story of Alice by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst and that is definitely high on my nonfiction priority list, but I can’t decide if I should finish The Witches first, since I already started it, or what.

I can’t forget Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me either — which I started several months ago but found difficult to read and engage at work so I put it aside to read when I could focus on it.  Which means basically that I need to start over.

NOT TO MENTION all the other damned books that I haven’t even STARTED yet.  OMG I am not allowed to buy ANY NEW BOOKS for like five years.

UGH now I’m feeling overwhelmed again and might just go back to drawing.