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So, another week, another book.  I finally read The Yiddish Policeman's Union.  I've had it on my shelf since it came out, and just haven't gotten around to reading it, I figured I should do that before I moved it.  I really enjoyed it, not a big shock since I've enjoyed all of his other books.  Hopefully I'll have time to read another one before I have to finish packing my books.  I'm actually holding a box open for the next book I want to read before I pack it.  After that I'll take from the end of the alphabet so I have time to pack and read at the same time.

New book for May -
The Yiddish Policeman's Union - Michael Chabon

Total for January - 6
Total for February - 5
Total for March - 6
Total for April - 3
Total for May (So Far) - 3
Total for Year 2014 - 23

Hello all,

My living room is full of boxes!  And it took me over 2 weeks to read one book because I couldn't get engaged with it, so I just fought my way through!  And then I finished a book in a week!

Life is freakin' weird.

Books Read, April 2014:
Clockwork Angel - Cassandra Clare
Burr - Gore Vidal
Claimed by Shadow - Karen Chance

Total for January - 6
Total for February - 5
Total for March - 6
Total for April - 3
Total for Year 2014 - 20

I haven't posted anything about my new digs, it occurs to me.  Pics later, for now just the dirt.

I'm almost done purchasing furniture, thank goodness.  I have a little cabinet in the kitchen to use as a pantry, the couch is on order, I have a bed and nightstands, and all of the shelves are up, including a very nice hanging shelf my Dad dropped by to help me hang 2 weeks ago.  Most of them are full, too, which is pretty satisfying.  

I can has my books again!  My books, oh how I missed them.  It's been two years without seeing some of my old friends.  I'm thinking of reading them all over again, which would also include all the stuff I've acquired and intended to read, but never gotten around to.

I've started putting up pictures, which makes the place feel more homey.  I think I'm going to fill the wall over the couch (or, where the couch will be when it is delivered in a few weeks) with black and white photos.  Fortunately, I think that between family photos and art pictures, I have enough to do a good job of it.  My maternal grandmother's wedding photo is very pretty, and I found an old picture of Paris in a thrift store not long after I got back.  There are a couple of others.  We'll see what develops.

I'm doing the floor coverings (which I am unfortunately required to have, I'd much rather leave the hardwood naked) in mismatched area rugs.  So far I have a tapestry mat under my desk chair, and a black and tan rug in a circular pattern for the living room area, which matches the round tan mat the cat uses to clean off her feet as she leaves the litter box.  In the bedroom I'm putting a faux-sheepskin rug that's being delivered tomorrow.  I'm excited to see if it lives up to the photo on the website.

I haven't really decided what to do with my great-aunt's painting.  She became a semi-professional oil painter with a strong local following in Florida after she retired from nursing, and she gave me a painting when I moved into my first apartment in college.  I've had it in the dining room everywhere I've lived, and now I don't have a dining room, so I'm at a loss.  The kitchen seems like a bad place for it, and it's kind of bright, so I'm not sure I want it in the bedroom. 

The closet in the living room, which I am using for storage, is packed full of I-have-no-idea-what.  Once I've got everything else in place, and I'm looking for something to do with all the free time, the first order of business is going to be ripping that apart and putting it back together in some manner that at least vaguely references logic.

Still left to purchase: an end table for the living room (I'm specifically looking for something to put over the litter box, so that it is less glaring that there is a catbox in my living room.  If the bathroom were larger than a narrow hallway, the box would be in there).  I am also in need of some type of dresser or vanity for my bedroom, to contain all of the things currently hanging out on the floor for lack of another surface to inhabit.  A dresser would be sensible, as there are still clothes to be contained, but then I could box things up seasonally again; I have an unused shelf in my clothes closet I could employ.  A full-length mirror is also a high priority; I walked out wearing about 5 different shades of blue the other day.  I think it worked, but I'm still not entirely sure.  Need a mirror.

I think I've re-mastered cooking on the gas stove.  I haven't used one since college, so it was a bit awkward at first.  And I could've kicked myself for not realizing what would happen when I put the oven on that day ti was 90 degrees; I almost melted.  Fire and heat equal more heat.  Should've figured that out sooner.

When I get around to posting pictures, I have one I took of the first meal I cooked.  Not just heated things up, but at least one component made entirely from scratch.  Or two, in this case.  I got very excited and took a picture, so that's floating around somewhere.

Okay, time to sleep, I've been awake for 18 hours at this point and I have a delivery coming tomorrow. And I'd like to make it to the farmer's market at some point.  I slept through it last Saturday.

Since I've arrived in CT, life has been a slow-motion whirl of family activities, job hunting, and settling in.  I've unpacked and re-packed as needed all of my boxes, even purchased a new plastic storage bin and emptied my old toybox for extra storage space.  My books are all still packed, but my DVD's are out, in deference to the 'nothing on TV due to writer's strike' issue.  I'm through season 1 of Buffy, and half-finished with season 2.  Was thinking of doing the re-watch the way K and I always intended to, with Angel eps starting at the end of season 3, alternating with the Buffy eps.  We'll see what my level of patience is at that point.

As far as the job search goes, I have basically found that I have two options: a 'meaty' corporate admin position, including the Conference Center aspects I am interested in, or a hospitality position which would be full-on conferences, with high-level facilities and sales aspects for which I am less qualified.  There are middle-grade positions, such as large companies that have staff exclusively devoted to their conference setup, or small private business centers which are less party-event oriented than a hotel conference center, but those jobs generally have a lower pay scale (the ones I've seen, anyway).  It's all a very interesting exercise in the job market and job hunting, but these nuances I know little about are making the actual finding of the new job more tricky than I had anticipated.

Took some pics of Grand Central when I was in NYC last week, and I finally found the missing cable to attach my camera to the computer, so fairly soon you'll get to see some pics from the way-back machine otherwise known as the camera I haven't downloaded from for months.  Fun!

Oh, and I'm going to see Eddie Izzard on the 16th, after my niece's second birthday party!

The loss of my thumbtacks (I could have sworn I saw them last week...) has inhibited the further hanging of stuff in my room.  Which means there's a lot of extra stuff on the floor.  Also, my desk has become the de-facto storage space for things I'm not ready to sort out and put away correctly.  The downstairs has no curtains yet, mainly due to a lack of curtain rods (and curtains to go on them), which makes it a little spooky at night.

As if that wasn't frustration enough, my muse is still on vacation.  I've even tried editing a few things, hoping my brain will buckle down and get back into writing mode, but I can't seem to sit still long enough.  I have what feels like a massive amount of WIP's (although thankfully only two are currently unfinished online), and absolutely no functional ability to work on them.

If anyone has suggestions for shocking the muse back into working, or improving concentration for periods when you lack inspiration, I'd love to hear them.

For the forseeable future, this will be the latest at night I have access to LJ/email/fanfic reading/nsfw websites.  There is not internet hookup yet at my new house.  I plan to get in early tomorrow, so I can do the accounting work I was too tired for today, and also do some online tinkering.

So, goodnight, and wish me luck with my mountain of laundry and my boxes of books!

I now live in moving hell.

I promised myself this wouldn't happen again; that I'd plan and be methodical about the packing.  No such luck.  Guess you really can't teach a grown cat to walk on a leash.  I've been trying to use up things as I go, and pack the things I use least first.  Then, I decided to clear off the small shelves first so I could move them before the big furniture.  It's degenerated into having my CD's and the contents of the medicine cabinet in the same box.

Sigh.

I hung out with some old friends last night, at what had to be the lamest party I've ever been to as an adult.  Imagine a bunch of 30-somethings sitting around in a circle, singing along to 80's music that none of them know the words to, playing balloon volleyball.  Yeah.  I drank a lot, and went home early.  On a happier note, I did get back the board game they borrowed from me and never returned.

Packed some things I'm not likely to use in the next two weeks, which likely means I'll suddenly need them Tuesday.  Still hate moving.  I have a huge stack of boxes of books and photos standing in my room at the moment, as well as the plastic storage container sculptures in the dining room.  Not quite the packing hell my life turned into the last time I moved, but still daunting.

Oh, and I'm finally finished transfering files to my new computer, which means it's about time for the dread ancient machine to head off to the great dumpster in the sky.  I have mixed feelings, but I'm hoping they go away, soon.

Yeah; so I'm as lame as the party last night at the moment.  I'm also dreading going back to work tomorrow, but that's a story for tomorrow, I'm sure.

Buttons?

Sorry, bad joke.  So?  Sew buttons?   *groan*

Anyway, today has been an all-around bust; haven't gotten any writing done, most of the stuff I'm reading either hasn't been updated, or I finished the updates already.  Tentative plans for Saturday, but very precarious, they are, Yoda.  Packing when I get home, as I haven't heard back about the 'meet the potential housemates' happy hour I was supposed to go to.  Kate's heading out of town for the weekend, so I'll be able to panic at my leisure...Which could be good or bad.

More from home!

Back at work, after a somewhat hectic weekend of the Great Housing Search, a party, a club outing, and not a whole heck of a lot of writing.  My old stories did get approved for posting on Daughters of Sineya, which is very exciting, even if last time I checked no one had yet read or reviewed them.  I'm just going to avoid the inevitable sense of disappointment which comes from having no one read my stuff, by reminding myself that the bulk of the posters and mods for the site are in a different time zone, and that they'll likely get around to approving of me at some point.

There was one of those wonderfully poetic and primal moments which comes of having a dog and cat in a small apartment together, yesterday afternoon.  I was laying on the couch, roomie and dog were in her room sleeping.  Cheyenne came out and lay down with me, to watch some TV.  Roomie (Kate) went to use the powder room, so dog (Nicky) came to investigate the other rooms, and found us on the couch.  He walked around the coffee table, passing inches from the no-longer-purring cat, with increasing speed and anxiousness.  He did it a few more times.  He stopped in front of the TV and stared.  He circled the coffee table again, pausing to sniff Cheyenne, who was still amazingly calm at this point.  He stood in front of the TV again.  Kate came out at that point.  Nicky came back close to the couch, and barked.  That's about when all hell broke loose.  The cat started hissing and scratching (she's a tough kitty), the dog whined and barked again, we yelled at both of them.  The cat then made a mad dash in the opposite direction of all the noise, while the dog was distracted giving his mom 'what did I do?' face.  When Nicky went to investigate her hiding place, Cheyenne bolted around the other side of the box she'd gone behind, and escaped back into my room.

There are lots of boxes all over the place, right now.  We're both slow packers, and there's lots of stuff all over the apartment, in little storage nooks.  Last book club/reader's circle in the apartment tomorrow night (sniff. sniff.) which means most of the packing is currently confined to non-public areas, although I did manage to re-create the leaning tower of Pisa with plastic storage bins in the dining room.  The most unfortunate thing I can see about the large pile of boxes, is that most of them were pre-packed; not a whole lot of packing up loose things went on, yet there is a massive pile.  They do make an odd art piece, though.