A Thousand Words

This upcoming move has been the definition of annoying. Since this is our TENTH move in FIVE years, you’d think we’d have it down, no? Well, for various reasons, this move has already reared its ugly head as the bastard of all moves.

Lemme back up. A couple of weeks ago, Heids and I welcomed Michele “Buck Lynn Sue Seivert” Rauch as our third roommate. This meant we needed a bigger place which also welcomed pets. So, we found a wonderful, cute house with hardwood floors, a porch, and a backyard. So, after four years of living in Seattle, we are moving back to the Eastside. Even though I’ll miss living so close to Downtown, and the quirky character of Seattle – I’m excited to be back in Bellevue. I love the house and most of all, it will cut my commute down from 9 songs long…to probably 2 songs long.

Right around the same time we gave our notice to move, our apartment building got sold. Word ’round the apartments was that the new owners were going to convert all of the units to condos. Heids and I were both glad that we got out of there before that happened. So, a couple of weeks go by and we still don’t know who the new landlord/management company is. This starts to be a problem because we need to know what to do as far as move out goes. I called our old landlord and she finally was able to get ahold of the contact info for the new people. I call our new guy. No answer. Leave a message. I really just want to know if we still need to get the carpet and blinds professionally cleaned if they’re going to demolish the building. I call again a couple of days later. No answer. I leave a message. At this point I’m highly annoyed. We then get a letter in the mail saying they’d like to inspect all apartments, and they give us a sheet to fill out with comments/concerns/issues. Great, so they have time to draft a letter but not return a phone call??! So, at this point I decide to send a Certified letter to them so I can have proof we’ve tried to get in contact with them. Heids typed up a very nice, yet firm letter telling them of our situation. We also left a copy of it and wrote on the sheet THEY GAVE US and when they were at the apartment to inspect it, they didn’t even take it. A-holes. I still have not heard from them and at this point, I’m completely pissed and not caring about them at all.

So, moving on. We have this chair. A hideous, hideous chair that my dad gave us when we first moved out here. It had gotten so filthy that we couldn’t even give it to Goodwill. The dump was our only option — and that wasn’t really even an option because we didn’t have the means of getting it there. So, being the resourceful girls that we are, this is what we did.

We also have a couch. A not so hideous couch that was given to us by Rian, which came from a homeless teen shelter. I know. It was in pretty good condition, so I decided to call up Salvation Army and have them take it away. Heids and I only had to get it outside our apartment, and we would be good to go. I remember it being a bit of a nussiance getting it into the apartment originally, but I was confident 2 people could get it out of the apartment. So, Heids and I get up this morning and try to move this beast. Keep in mind this is one of those hide-a-bed contraptions so it easily weighs several hundred pounds. We finally get it to the door. At this point we are trying to angle it enough to and lift it so it can get through the door, and also bypass the cement wall that is parallel to the door. The damn thing got caught between the door and the wall. It would not budge. Heids also smashed her hand, and it’s probably crippled by now. Never have I felt more like I was in this episode of Friends. We spent a good 20 minutes trying to get that couch out of the door when we finally had to move it back INTO our apartment. So, as we were moving it back in the bed portion of it came out. I tried to get it back in and the stupid thing BROKE. At that point, I said I couldn’t deal with it anymore, and took a shower. So, now I’m pretty sure I’m going to have to borrow a circular saw from someone and cut that sucker apart.

I’m leaving work at 2:30 today to pick up the Uhaul. How excited do you think I am about that?

So help me GOD that when we have to move in one year, I will be financially ready to own a house/condo/move back to Minnesota. MARK MY WORDS.

I have spent the last 2 hours (at work) trying to figure out the following things:

:: Square Footage of our carpeted area in the apartment so we can pay to have the carpets cleaned, just so they can tear the building down.

:: What size/type of Uhaul to get for our move. I’ll be driving 14 feet of raw power through the streets of Seattle.

:: How Heids and I can destroy our current furniture. Setting it on fire would be ideal.

:: What I should wear for my photography/date adventure tomorrow at the arboretum. So I can look cute, but look like I wasn’t trying at all.

:: Why I didn’t bring my camera with me today because I just got insanely jealous watching some woman taking pictures of the trees outside.

:: When I should go home for Christmas

:: What I should sell to afford to go home for Christmas

:: Why I decided to wear a sweat shirt today because I am hotter than a two dollar pistol on a Sunday.

:: Why my mechanic has suddenly become very needy regarding emails. He gets upset when I can not email him back right away. It’s cute, really. And he has no idea what spell check is.

:: Why I all of a sudden have no interest in Construction Worker guy.

:: Why we can’t just set our whole apartment on fire so we don’t have to deal with moving. Save the craft bins & yarn.

:: Why Grey’s Anatomy kind of sucked last night.

:: When the Chinese New Year is because our Holiday party got cancelled and rescheduled for then.

:: How I can properly cheer on the Vikes without being in front of the TV for the whole game because I need to pack/and or set things on fire.

This weekend was most excellent. I got so much done! And…I still feel like it was extremely relaxing and everything a weekend should be. And, yes, I still have a normal case of the Mondays. I shall go forth with the picture post. Who doesn’t love picture posts on a Monday morning. I know I do!

Friday night I went to a Stampin’ Up party. Stop laughing. At least I have a hobby that keeps me off the streets. In the span of 3 hours we made TWENTY cards. Yikes. It was like a card making sweatshop. I wanted to poke myself in the eye with a stamp pad near the end just to make it stop. BUT…I still had a fabulous time. Here are some of my creations. I’m not in love with all of them, but they’re still pretty cute.

And…my favorite:

So, Saturday rolled around. I made some chilli. I know, Domestic Diva! Then, apparently I was not completely burnt out by the card making the previous night, so I went ahead and made a couple of Halloween cards. I doubt you can tell, but the little bats are puffy…they’re so cute!

And…I don’t really recall what else I did with my day on Saturday.

Sunday, I rushed out the house to get to the Paper Zone as soon as they opened at 10. I drive downtown and see that they actually open at 11 on Sunday. Crap. So I drove back to the apartment, grabbed my camera and headed over to the Locks. There was a heavy rain that morning and everything had that fresh rain look, and I loved it. I took a few pictures:

I then drove back to the Paper Zone, and got the supplies for my mom’s wedding invitations. I even saved $10 with my Preferred Customer Card. Holla!

I took a few more pictures before leaving downtown:

I finished up the day knitting a washcloth. Thanks for the inspiration, Krysten! It was a pattern my Grams had given me last Christmas, and I finally got around to making one. It took me the entire length of Grease, half an episode of  True Life: I have Tourette’s, an episode of The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders (the one where they try on the uniforms and start calling everyone fat) and finally 15 minutes of What Not to Wear. Not bad…for a wash cloth…haha.

Also, I cut my own hair and had a brief Pink Eye scare. False alarm, though. It’s okay, you can come closer.

More of the pictures can be found here.

Seriously.

Last night I went to the park to take some snaps as it was a beautiful fall day here in the PNW. As I was walking back to my car I noticed my front license plate was different. What? Had I really always had 2 different license plates and never noticed it?  I walk around to the back of my car. Different license plate. Insert highly annoyed feeling. Who steals license plates?! Well, I mean…I guess punk kids do. But agggghhh!! Ness has been bullied far too much this year! Is it because of the Minnesota Vikings decal on the back? I do not know. I had to call the police and wait around for an officer to show up. Apparently the plates that were put on my car were from a car that was stolen a few days ago. So now I have to trek to the DMV (my favorite place in the whole world) and get new plates, new registration, new tabs. Radical! I’m dripping with money and have been looking for a way to spend it.

Construction worker news: I casually asked my low-talking coworker how much longer my construction worker and his crew would be on site. He then asked me if I had a crush, and I said perhaps. He then went into dad mode and said I can do so much better and I need to set my bar higher. This was all very funny, and of course I dig (no pun intended) the construction worker all the more.

I just had to write one of those emails. The…”you’re a really nice person, BUT…” emails. I obviously am not good with the face to face rejection. But I’ll be damned if I turn into one of those jerky people who just up and falls off the face of the earth with no explantion why.

I had the second date last night. It was essentially two and a half hours of chit chat. I hate chit chat. Really, I do. I had a tension headache ALL DAY going into this thing. God bless this guy for trying, really. I was just being BRUTALLY honest with this guy. He in fact loved it. He would talk about his love for dressing nicely. In response I said that I really didn’t shower at all this past weekend and basically stayed in my lounge wear the entire time. He came back with: Well, it’s really not hard to impress me. Ahhh…yes, apparently not. He then asked what my favorite season was. I said Fall. He went on and on about his love for winter. I said I actually hated winter. He loves winter because he likes to start a fire and cuddle. I asked if he had a fire place. No he did not. I stated I hated cuddling and being that close to someone for a long period of time. He said he loves showing affection in public. I said I hated all forms of PDA. Hand holding would probably be okay. He said…well…I could get used to that, though. HE WOULD NOT GIVE UP. The real awkward part was at the end of the date when he walked me to my car. I did not want to linger because I didn’t want him to have the opportunity to ask me out again.

I was essentially sprinting towards my car door. I said thank you for the night and I’ll talk to you later. He started looking at me longingly. ABORT, ABORT. GET IN THE CAR NOW. I’m opening the car door…he starts stuttering. I…I…thanks for the nice night. Okay, you too! And he walks away. THANK GOODNESS. I come home to an email saying that despite his lame goodbye he had a great time. Ugh. Must let the ax fall on this one!

Other than that, I have a serious crush on one of the construction workers at work. The more I think about it, the more I begin to wonder if it was actually him in my dream and NOT Jordan Knight. I have a serious lust for guys who operate heavy machinery. It’s so odd. His flirtatiousness is also just so blatantly obvious that it makes me laugh everytime we see eachother. I love it.

Also, I’m moving again. But, more on that later. I need to get back to reading the Feng Shui checklist I just got in my box. Read it. Seriously.