medium crazy

I have been such a negligent blogger.

That is because I have been painting. Oh, the painting. I am suffering from a case of Brush Wrist with a side of Roller Arm. Painting is much more slow-going than I realized. I feel I can now say that I’m a pretty good room painter. If you need any rooms painted, I’m your girl (in a couple months after I’ve finished my own house, that is).

Last night I had a dream-filled sleep, and I dreamed that I was painting. I’ve worn the same paint-crusted jeans every day for a week and if that’s not sexy than please tell me what is. But you know, there is something a bit romantic about working on your new house with your partner in life, even though you’ve been eating greasy takeout and wearing men’s undershirts everyday and your fingernails are all chipped off. Because it’s our house together and it’s fun.

Oh and our families have been there constantly, both to come by and see the place and to help us work. I love my family and M.’s and have often been grateful for them, but I’m extra grateful at the moment. Our place is a crazy work zone right now, and we’re doing the craziness now because we haven’t officially moved in yet. We still head home at night to our apartment. We officially move in this Saturday, and the house will be SO MUCH BETTER because of all the help we’ve had over these last couple of weeks. I have pictures but no time to post them at the moment.

I CAN’T WAIT to walk around our new neighborhood in the spring and have visitors come over now that we have a place to host. We won’t actually have a kitchen for about six weeks…did I mention that already? When we got into the house we ripped up the kitchen to pull down the unsightly painted brick on the walls. Then we realized that the cabinets were not only old but kind of gross and rickety and figured that as long as we had the whole kitchen torn apart, we should just replace the damn cabinets now because no way are we going to want to do this again a year from now.

And…I’m talking about cabinets, and I’m boring. SORRY. This is my life at the moment. It’s time consuming and wonderfully fun. It always felt unattainable to actually have a real home in my overpriced state and I’m HAPPY ABOUT IT.

I wish I had things to share not pertaining to cabinets and paint (our rooms will forever be known by their paint names, e.g. Moon Mist, Green Tea etc.), but I don’t. Free time hasn’t really been an option lately. Or as M. put it, wow were we lazy when we didn’t have a house.

Also, ever since we bought the house I’ve suddenly started getting an influx of questions about when we plan to have kids. To which I say, ONE THING AT A TIME PEOPLE.

Last weekend we started packing. Packing appeals to a certain type A part of my brain, so ultimately this was kind of a satisfying activity. Also I found some cool utensils in the back of our kitchen drawers that I forgot we had. However, our apartment is currently a mess with piles of boxes everywhere. Last weekend I also finally started reading the book that Meghan gave me for my birthday (last summer) and it turned out to be the kind of book that you read compulsively in a few lengthy sittings:

This book is just a really good, satisfying story, well-written, with characters you care about. I just really enjoyed the reading experience of it and highly recommend it. I imagine the TV movie will be happening at some point and I’m sure the book clubs are already all over it.

It may sound like I LOVE all the books I’ve read lately, but that’s partly because I’ve been trying to be selective about what I commit to reading. I’m trying to read things that have been recommended by people with good taste in these things. So far so good.

The compulsive reading of this book did take some time away from all of the urgent things relating to us closing on our house on FRIDAY MORNING. It really feels kind of surreal to me to think about walking into this house on Friday and knowing that it’s actually OURS. Of course, before we can walk into our house we’ll probably spend an hour shoveling out the mountains of snow that will be falling today. But still, OUR HOUSE.

Then early Saturday morning my family members will descend upon the house equipped with trucks, tools, and impressive handyman skills and we’ll begin the Update This House project. We’re not gutting the house, we’re just freshening it up. Ushering it into this decade if you will. Much paint will be involved as well as some sheetrock and tile. Before and after pictures to come.

I’ve taken four days off of work to devote some energy to the new house. I’m excited. So many good things have happened in my life in a year’s time and I’m very very grateful for them. To whom it’s relevant, I’m sorry that I haven’t been a very attentive or available friend much of the time lately. I’m not very good at balancing all of the work stuff with all of the life projects and finding time to take good care of all of my relationships. It’s a flaw of mine I know.

On the weekends we’ve been spending a lot of time furniture shopping. Hey you know what’s expensive? Furniture! I mean, I knew that, but now I REALLY know that. I thought I might be able to find some cool things on craig’s list so we wouldn’t be buying everything new, but I now know that people sell their stuff on craig’s list primarily because it’s not nice stuff. If it were nice stuff, they would KEEP IT. Plus I’m struggling with huge, difficult, almost unanswerable questions like “How should we arrange the living room??” and until I can answer those questions it’s hard to commit to the furniture. I think I may need to just relax until we’re in the house and I can stand in the rooms and think about it and oh my god I just realized how boring this is. Isn’t it funny how you can care about things that only a year before would have made you die of boredom? And even now on some level you hear the words coming out of your mouth, and you know that you’re now one of those people who you used to sit with at lunch who would talk about curtains who you used to listen to and think, “Oh my GOD why are we talking so much about curtains.” You’re that  person.

Anyway: Lost is back on! With an even bigger sense of urgency and suspense than usual because of its being the final season. Last week as the premiere was starting and I was preparing the living room (lights off, iphone ready for commercial break tweets) I felt so sad for M., who does not watch Lost, that I had to yell to him from the other room, “I feel so bad for you that you aren’t watching this!!” Obnoxious, right? Oh also I have rejoined the American Idol pool for this year. I might humbly remind you that last year I was the WINNER of the American Idol pool, which ranks with the greatest accomplishments of my lifetime. I’m trying to get M. to join the pool this year to add some healthy competition to our household. I can get why he would be intimidated by competing against me though.