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I know, it was ages ago when I promised a post about our closet organizer install. And I’m realizing that a) I hate the pictures, and b) there isn’t really much of anything to say about it.

I can say that if you’re living in a small space, maximixing what you can put in your closets is kindof a no-brainer move. I can’t believe we didn’t do it sooner. Of course, I’m now itching to find a whole bunch of pretty containers to put things in that make the closets really looks gorgeous and organized (instead of the hodge-podge of cardboard we’ve currently got). In the meantime, there are some pictures up on flickr showing a bit of the before and after.

The real big news though, is we finally bought the first piece of major furniture for the new place: the couch!

It’s the key piece we needed in our plan to really start changing our layout around, and it arrived Monday.

In the Old layout, we had a small couch in the living room, with the TV and a side-chair. We didn’t really have a coffee table, since our old one was gigantic and didn’t fit the space, so we were using a collection of trays and stools to fill in. We also had the piano in the 2nd bedroom and some bookshelves in the sun room.

With the new couch & big ottoman, we’ve now (follow along carefully here) moved the bookshelves out of the sun room (with a ruthless pruning of our book collection), relocated one into the office and the other into the dining room (getting rid of our existing sideboard). The piano moved out of the office into the sun room (to become our music room/library), and the small couch and TV moved into the office to make it a TV room as well.

The biggest adjustment for me so far is the fact that the TV is no longer in the main room of the house. Let me say that again: the TV is no longer in the main room of the house - I have to go into a separate room, on purpose, to watch television. Y’all remember how much I love my TiVo, right?

This completely changes how I interact with my home. I don’t watch as much TV - which is the goal - but it’s still very strange. So far I listen to podcasts while I’m making dinner or puttering around (instead of having the TV on), and we’ve been chilling out in the evenings, reading books or *gasp* just talking instead of zoning out in front of the tube.

That said, while I’m enjoying the change in scenery and activity, I could certainly use some podcast recommendations. I really like This American Life, and enjoy the combination of banter, humour, geekery and useful tips on Lipgloss and Laptops - so anything along either of those lines would be great. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some couch-sittin’ to do.

So I wrote about Good Space not too long ago (which, for clarification, I was in no way compensated or received any sort of discount or special privilege for), and Neil and I have slowly been implementing parts of the plan.

We’ve had closet organizers installed (post and pictures to come at a later date), and have acquired a few of the recommended design elements.

One of those suggestions was to install an art ledge for photos on the wall in the hallway between the main bathroom and the second bedroom.

What you see in the picture is a photo of the wall with some framed prints on it, sans ledge.

The ledge is currently sitting in our closet, awaiting a better spot for install.

Why, you ask?

See if you can figure it out - there’s something in the picture that indicates installing a ledge at that location (complete with 3″ stud screws and toggle bolts) would be a colossally bad idea.

Give up?

THE POCKET DOOR!

The door to the bathroom opens into the vacant space behind the drywall on that wall. Installing anything other than the tiniest of picture-hanging nails there would be disastrous - either locking the door open, or closed. .

Unfortunately, sometimes these things aren’t obvious. Even professionals occasionally make mistakes, as do dunderheads like us who managed to punch three large holes into the wall for the toggle bolts, before realizing the catastrophe we were setting ourselves up for.

Just to prove how clueless we can be, two of those holes came after we carefully drew all over the wall again because the first toggle we tried to screw in stopped and got caught on the horizontal door-guide framing (we had no idea what it was - we just busted out the stud-finder and moved our measurements up a couple inches).

Thankfully the pictures we were going to put on the ledge are the perfect sizes to cover the holes and most of the scuff-marks. And it’s a very good thing we were already planning on painting (after most of the work is done, because damn but we’re rough on our walls)!

Have you ever made a home-improvement blunder? Measured once and cut twice? Painted the dog? Please share and make me feel better, because I strongly suspect this won’t be our last!

Since Neil and I moved into our new place (seven months ago), we’ve basically been living in a glorified storage locker. Mishmash hodgepodge furniture arrangement, no art on the walls, still a few boxes kicking around, and many many things that still have no home.

We’ve been holding off a long, LONG time on buying new furniture since we knew we’d want to make sure it was just right for the condo we had under construction (deposit put down a little over two years ago). Both of us still have much of the furniture we acquired in university (or shortly thereafter), purchased based on price and utility, rather than aesthetics and function. Furniture purchasing default, thy name is IKEA. When we moved in together, our furniture strategy was “let’s look at the duplicates, and keep whichever piece sucks least.”

And despite being HGTV junkies, we really had no idea how to purchase furniture for aesthetics and function, other than having a camera crew and hunky carpenter show up with a truck-full of MDF for three days of mayhem.

Outside, that, all we were comfortable doing without serious help was heading to a furniture showroom, purchasing every piece in a mock set-up, and have a living room that looked like a furniture showroom. Also not really the aesthetic we were looking for.

So you can imagine that I was super excited to stumble upon the fine folks at Good Space.

A full-service interior design firm in Gastown, they’ve also developed the Good Space Plan, to make great design accessible to the rest of us.

Instead of having a design company in to put together a plan, and immediately spend a bucketload of money on the recommended paint, renos, furniture and accessories in one, fell, budget-busting swoop, the Good Space plan hands over their expertise in one tidy binder, and lets you do the rest at your own pace.

After a thorough consultation process we were given a floor plan, furniture suggestions, fabric swatches and source info for all of the furnishings and accessories, along with a list of recommended stores and contractors. It’s now up to us to obtain all the pieces and put them together.

But I think my favourite part of the plan is the fact that along with the suggestions, we have just enough information to be dangerous, and can really go wild and make this plan ours.

For example, they didn’t just say “go get couch X,” they said “go get couch X or Y, or look for these manufacturing traits in any other couch, and make sure it’s built within these dimensions, in a similar fabric texture/colour, and place it thusly in the room relation to the rest of your furniture.”

In fact, knowing how much of this plan we really wanted to work on ourselves, and being very good judges of the amount and type of guidance we’d need, Good Space gave us instructions for many things to just go out and find (vintage pieces, artwork, funky lighting, accessories) that will work with some of the core pieces they recommended.

Nothing comes from the same place, everything is designed to compliment everything else, rather than coordinate and be all furniture showroom matchy-matchy. With the added bonus of all FITTING in our small space, working with our budget, being functional for our needs and pet friendly!

We’ve just started executing on the first few steps of the plan as they work for us, so I’ll try to post pictures of how the process goes. First up is having organizers installed in our storage voids so we actually have places to put things, other than in a stack in the spare room.

I really can not say enough good things about Good Space. I know the Good Space Plan has really taken off lately, and with that in addition to their full-service design work, they’re wicked busy lately - but if you’re interested in getting beyond the IKEA catalogue or the La-Z-Boy showroom for decor, they’re worth checking out, and DEFINITELY worth the wait.

One thing that generally comes with moving is the learning of a new route to work. For those of us who commute by transit, that’s learning a new bus route.

Of the very few things I’m missing about the old place (along with being mere steps from Tatlows, the Naam and the Flying Tiger) is the fact that we were on a pretty major transit crossing of routes. The buses there were such that we could get to and from downtown - without transferring - on 6 major bus routes, all going slightly different ways.

We didn’t really bother learning when exactly the buses were showing up, because we knew there would always be another one coming within 5 or 6 minutes.

That abundance of transit options has now been reduced to one. The formidable #17.

In the mornings it really isn’t a problem, since we have a pretty good handle on when it comes by (every 10 minutes on the 7’s).

Going home is an entirely different matter.

Not only is the closest downtown stop a good 3 block walk for each of us (instead of the 1/2 block or directly outside options we had before), but we seem to be experts at showing up exactly when the latest bus home for us is pulling away - meaning a 10-15 minute wait in not entirely pleasant weather for the next one.

We went through the same song and dance again today, and stood outside in the cold as we watched The #17 pull away when we were too far to catch it, and hung around waiting for the next one.

Finally another bus came by, and Neil and I walked up to get on it.

And somehow broke the time-space-continuum.

We both saw the #17 turn the corner.

We both watched it pull up to the stop.

We both walked up to the bus and got on.

Then about halfway through the ride, realized we were on the #4.

Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot?

We have no idea where the hell our brains/that bus went, but somehow we managed to get on the wrong bus. I’m assuming it pulled up to the stop around the same time as the #17 and we just walked up to the wrong one - but that’s a bit boneheaded, even for us.

We didn’t even realize it right away, since all the buses from that stop take the same path out of town, so it was really 2/3 of the way through the ride that we clued in we were going the wrong way.

Dude in red toque, standing toward the front of the bus: I’m glad you got a snicker out of our brainfart. If I were you, I’d have laughed at me too.

Anyhow, it wasn’t completely tragic, since the #4 happens to stop about 5 blocks from our place (and across the street from our favourite butcher, helloooo dinner), but I suppose that’s our sign to actually learn a little more about our new chauffeured coach and make more of an effort to get on the right bus from now on.

It’s either that, or invest in some far more comfortable shoes to stand and wait in, then endure the 5+ block hike.

Home Depot
Who art kinda far away out there in suburbia
Hallowed be a good parking spot

Thy customer service come
When the self-checkout machine throws a fit
With store pricing
Hopefully the same as on the internet

And give us this day that usually out of stock item
And forgive us our impatience
Because we’ve been waiting
By the key-cutting station for assistance
For seventeen minutes

And lead us not to the wrong side of the store
But deliver us to the shower-curtain rods

(which, incidentally, should logically be near shower and bath enclosures, not closet organizers)

For thine is a ridiculous sum of cash
So I can finally have some shelving

And a programmable thermostat

For ever and ever,
Amen.

So we’ve officially moved in to the new place! A few notes:

Floor to (8.75′) ceiling windows around two sides means it’s a lot colder than the old place. I consider the higher heat bill my fee for the view, which is lovely.

I have an additional piece of motivation to get rid of the old couch posthaste: it’s too damned long. Thankfully, some friends are upgrading their couch this week, so we’ll be the lucky recipients of their old couch until we get a new one.

I have no idea where anything is. The layout is much better here, but very, very different - so I really don’t know where anything is. I also get turned around and walk into the wrong bedroom a lot of the time, wondering how I got there when I meant to end up somewhere else.

Full-capacity (instead of apartment sized) laundry machines are a gift straight from heaven.

Those “skinny” integrated slide-out hood fans may look sleeker than traditional hood-fans at first glance, but all they do is move the big assembly piece inside your cupboard over the stove, making it useless for actually storing anything.

Despite the install video for Rubbermaid Closet Configurations only being about 10 minutes long, the actual set takes a lot longer than that to install. Like, 9 times longer. With 500% more cursing. At least it did for us. Most of that time is spent measuring, leveling and drilling. Also complicating matters is standing up on chairs so we can reach the 86.5″ mounting height.

The dog is highly disconcerted. All the right “stuff” is in the wrong place. She seems to be slowly settling down. It’s awfully funny watching her get used to the hardwood floors though - she either walks very carefully, like she’s trying to pass a roadside sobriety test, or slip-slides around corners.

When everyone is moving into a new building with hardwood floors located above a London Drugs, the London Drugs will instantly be sold-out of those felt-pads for your furniture legs, and wood cleaner.

I am completely enamored with our Jewish Oven. I hope I don’t go to hell for making a heathen chicken in it this weekend…

I thought about making some sort of personal resolutions this year, but 2008 is shaping up to be a year of so much activity, growth and change already I think I’ll just give myself a big pat on the back for making it through.

It starts off with becoming a first-time homeowner, complete with list of DIY projects to get started on, and we don’t even move in for a few more days. Then comes the actual DIY work, design and AV plans and the execution thereof.

Smack-dab in the middle of those, there’s that whole wedding thing coming up. It’s slowly starting to hit me that there are about eleventy-frillion little details to get all squared away within the next 90-ish days. Fitting into my dress is enough motivation to keep me on the running plan for the next little while. As for those details, I am currently distracting myself by agonizing over shoes: Manolo Blahnik or Christian Louboutin… the Spring Manolos have absolutely perfect styling for my dress, but those damn red soles on the Louboutin are like a siren song in shoe form…

2008 will also be a big travel year again, with definite trips to Tofino (twice), Morocco, Spain, Orlando (twice) and Las Vegas (twice), with probable jaunts to San Fransisco, Denver, Boston, Atlanta, DC and Barcelona. Don’t get too jealous, only three of those destinations are personal trips. I’m sure Neil, in addition to one “man-time” camping trip, will also have his share of trips to the exotic wilds of Columbus and maybe Oxford.

In between all those I also want to make sure I manage to balance the crazy with time to both visit and entertain friends and family near and far, keep running and not lose time I’ve worked hard to find for things like playing the piano, learning how to make beautiful photos and just lazing about with a good book or two.

Realistically, the goals we have for getting our new place put together and the travel schedule coming up means that most of our time and finances are pretty well spoken for until late 2008, when it’ll practically be time to gear up for another holiday season where I can finally pause and wonder where the year went.

But there is one thing I felt I could certainly set some goals for and make the time to do better at over the next 12 months - this damn blog. It definitely stagnated over 2007, which I’m definitely not pleased with. So starting now, I’m going to take the step of engaging more with readers by replying to all comments, and try to drag some additional content out of myself to keep to a 3-4 post/week schedule.

And so, in the spirit of getting this thing start off right, and actually soliciting some comments to reply to… how are you this year so far, and do you think I should go with the Manolos or Louboutins?

Man, when things happen in the “new condo construction” world, they happen fast.

It doesn’t help that despite having to solicit the services of “experts” to make this thing happen (mortgage advisors, lawyers, etc.) they all expect us to tell them what exactly is going on. I suppose that in any other real-estate transaction, “us” would generally be a Realtor, but there isn’t one in this situation, since we’re buying directly from the developer.

Suffice to say, there has been no hand-holding through the process.

So it’s been a stressful couple of days.

We scheduled an inspection of the unit for yesterday morning, and in between scheduling and the actual inspection we were informed that our closing date is going to be January 2nd.

Yesterday ended up being a complete clusterfuck of dealing with the inspection (nothing major is wrong, a couple fixes and some finishing work - should be easypeasy), dealing with the lawyer, booking a moving time and booking movers.

The biggest thing complicating matters right now is the fact that the GST has gone down twice since we initially signed our agreement to purchase.

And nobody ever asked when, exactly, we signed our contract (or apparently even looked at the contract). You’d think they would - it’s a pretty important date, since it determines how much GST we pay out of pocket.

We finally spent a few hours last night looking up the legislation ourselves, and found that we do pay the 7% out of pocket (thankfully we had initially budgeted for that anyhow), and can fill in a short form to send to the CRA to get 1% back to make it equal to 6%. We’ll actually come out ahead on this one, since if you qualify for the New Homebuyer’s GST Rebate (which we don’t, since our home - like most in Vancouver - is well above the $450,000 threshold), they reduce the amount of your Transitional Period GST Rebate.

Another thing about “New Homebuyer” this and “GST Rebate” that: there are a number of programs for New Homebuyers to save GST, Property Transfer tax and to withdraw funds from one’s RRSP without penalty. There are also GST rebate programs for both new homebuyers, and any homebuyers completing a purchase bridging transitional periods around a reduction. Every. Single. Professional, without exception, has confused the programs with each other and told us we qualify for either none or all of them. Which isn’t true.

You’d think that the purchase of new property in Vancouver wouldn’t be such a challenge for those whose job is it to broker the sales of property in Vancouver, since so much of the real estate in the city is brand new construction. Apparently it is.

Also, while everyone and their dog has said that GST is going down to 5% January 1st, I can’t find anything that says the bill to approve the reduction has gone further than approval by the House of Commons (no approval from the Senate, no Royal Assent) - though if it does happen, everything we’ve found suggests we can fill out yet another form to get another 1% back from the CRA.

But! After some insane crazy-making research and a mostly sleepless night, I think we’re pretty much set.

And speaking of sets, I’ve created one with some of the pictures we took during the inspection. That’s our new kitchen and part of the living area, and you can check the rest of the place out on my flickr stream.

If you, like me, live anywhere near the Vancouver area you’re probably innundated right now with fruit flies.

Oh my holy hell, it’s like a fly convention in here. Despite religiously cleaning up any spills, keeping foodstuffs hidden away and taking out the garbage, all it takes is for us to make dinner or pour a glass of wine and they’re EVERYWHERE, again.

But!

I’ve found a really easy way to get rid of them!

So I figured I’d share:

Find a small jar or container you don’t particularly like (I’m using a small, empty mustard jar). Put an inch or so of red wine into it (it’s the liquid the flies seem to like best ’round these parts, plus the dark colour means you can’t see the pile o’ corpses in the bottom). Put a couple drops of liquid dish-soap into the wine.

The flies are drawn to the wine, but when they land on it, the dish soap has broken the surface tension and the wee buggers instantly plummet through the wine to a grapey death at the bottom of the jar.

We’ve had this out for about a week, and have been fly-free ever since.

You’re welcome

I’m going positively squirrely lately with the lack of home-improvement/beautification efforts happening around my domicile.

Since we’re moving in a few months, all of that kind of stuff has been put on hold. There’s no point spending our hard-earned cash on things that likely won’t work out in a completely different space.

But who can say no to free!

Duane Storey’s giving away 8×12 prints of his beautiful photography to the first 20 people who post about his new photo blog.

So here I am!

We’ve got art in our place from Korea, Japan, China, England, Italy and Sweden (if Ikea prints count) - but nothing local so far.

I’m thinking this one would be a beautiful start to a local collection on our walls.

Go check him out - you’ll be glad you did!

Generally I’m a bit skeptical when it comes to new gadgets.

They usually come trussed up in pretty boxes, covered in promises that they’ll revolutionize my life and I’ll forget what ever came before them.

So far only my TiVo has ever lived up to that promise. And if you know TiVo, you’ll know that it’s a pretty tough act to follow.

So imagine my surprise when I received the Rocketfish Wireless Rear Speaker Kit to review - and found that, in line with the promises on the box, it just works.

The promise is that you’ll hook up the transmitter to your sound system using simple speaker cables, then place the receiver within 100′ and hook your rear speaker cables into it. The “CD Quality” sound is transmitted over a 2.4GHz wireless signal, and voila - you can hear a mustang MiG-28 scream across your room as Iceman and Maverick duke it out in the skies. It literally took me 10 minutes to set the whole thing up. And I really mean me! Even I - who normally foists these kind of things off on Neil because I just can’t be bothered - found it really, ridiculously easy to figure out.

There are only a couple potential issues with this solution:

1. If you have truly open concept living, it may not work super well for you. Both components require DC power to operate, so while the units don’t require direct line-of-sight to work, you do want a power outlet pretty darned near where you’re plugging things in to avoid unsightly wires - the problem you’re trying to solve in the first place. If your couch is smack dab in the middle of a loft, you’re going to have to run cables anyway.

2. The sound is good, to me, on my system. I have basically destroyed my upper register hearing, and my surround sound system is one of those $100 combo units (dvd-player, receiver, 5 identical speakers in a box) - so there’s not a lot of fine tuning going on in my audio visual experience. If you’re a die-hard audio-snob, I can’t vouch for the unit’s performance on your $1500 speakers.

At about $100 USD, the kit is completely reasonably priced for those who purchase high quality AV products. Personally - while I don’t know that I’d spend that kind of money on my own system (because generally I don’t care enough), it got me using the rear speakers that had been sitting in a box for over a year, because I couldn’t be bothered running ugly cables around my room.

And that’s pretty awesome as far as I’m concerned.

I’m having a party.

You’re invited (link removed).

Unfortunately, I think you need an evite account to view that.

But seriously - come on over, it should be a good time!

I could certainly use a bit of a pick-me-up today.

So I ask you, blogiverse, to indulge me in my wee pity party, while I present to you a list of things that suck today:

I am still jobless. Not only that, but of the dozen or so applications I’ve sent out, I’ve received exactly one phone interview (which is as far as that candidate experience went). Otherwise, no responses at all. In addition to that, at least two of the jobs I applied for were re-posted within a week of sending my application. It’s not like I wasn’t qualified, and didn’t demonstrate that in my resume or cover letter, so it’s pretty sucky to realize I don’t even merit a phone call.

And while I would normally console myself with the procurement of something pretty or shiny (say what you will about filling personal voids with material goods), the EI gods who determined that unemployed workers in BC are entitled to 55% of their earnings, up to a maximum of [insert figure that launches one into abject poverty here], have convinced me I’d rather have groceries and electricity than trinkets.

The condo we purchased, waaaaaaaay back in May 2006, that was supposed to complete in July 2007 has been pushed back. The official word from the Realtor representing the developers is that they “hope to have everyone in by December.” That basically negates the awesome mortgage pre-approval interest rates we secured for a July closing (rates right now are at least 0.2% higher than what we got - but our rates are only good for 120 days from approval) and means we get to spend an extra 6 months pouring rent money into someone else’s pocket.

I make a shitty, shitty housewife. Being at home all the time means I go stir-crazy, and also lose all concept of space and time. I rarely know what day it is, and have no idea where time goes when it passes. All I know is that all of those “things” I figured would be so easy to get done around the house, still aren’t.

There are doggy-hair tumbleweeds blowing around everywhere, there is always laundry to do, the bathrooms are shamefully filthy (think college aged male bathroom levels of icky), the kitchen sink is always full of dishes - especially today, since I overcooked the basmati rice last night and made quite a dog’s breakfast of the aloo gobi (nothing says “good morning” like a pot full of tepid water and leftover stuck-on curry bits).

Obviously none of the aforementioned are terribly tragic compared to any number of things going on in the rest of the world, but they’re certainly harshing my buzz. And I still definitely feel entitled to a bit of a mope about my situation.

So blogosphere - I implore you - give me something to smile about!

Tell me something awesome that’s going on in your world. Give me an example of the best opening for a cover letter you’ve ever seen. Leave a comment with anything funny or smile-inducing (I have tried both Knut and the hand-holding Otters - I need something stronger).

And hopefully in a day or two I’ll return to tell you something that doesn’t suck.

I keep meaning to write, but I really have nothing exciting or interesting to say.

But I got sick of seeing the Fiber Bar entry, so here is a boring, uninteresting update.

Read on if you dare…

Because I have no kids, and don’t know too many people who do, I was completely oblivious to the fact that March 15, 2008 is the first weekend of Spring Break. So plans to have a wedding at a destination resort that day were firmly thwarted. The weekend following that is Easter. Of the remaining March Saturdays we’ve decided on the 29th. So a year from today we’ll be gettin’ hitched. Kookookachoo.

I’ve enlisted the services of a professional resumé writer, and used the past week as time to get my portfolio together and get a bunch of other long-overdue errands done. I still don’t like being at home all day, but I am getting used to it.

We’re hosting the 2nd annual Cinco de Mayo fiasco. Hopefully with slightly less hostess-experienced fiascos this year. That said, if you were invited last year, check your email inboxes (or the spam folders - it was sent through evite). If you somehow didn’t get an invite this year, this is the one occasion I open my house for all and sundry to partake in the debauchery and tequila. Comment or drop me a line if you’d like to join us.

Today I’m also playing Florence Nightengale. There’s some sort of flu-like thing going around and Neil has it. We also had his youngest sister over last night, and she sounds pretty sick too. So far I’m calling it the Watkiss Death Rattle, and popping ColdFX like there’s no tomorrow in an effort to ward it off. Then again, Gill has it too, so perhaps it’s some kind of Nerd Flu.

See. Told you life was boring ’round these parts. Anything exciting up with any of you?

Update (5:26pm): I am feeling snotty, and a wee bit achey. This does not bode well.

So today is the first day of the rest of my life. Or something like it. In any case, last Thursday was my last day at the former job, and after a lovely long weekend, today is the first Monday in a while that I’m at home with no idea when I’ll be back at work.

Hopefully it’s sooner rather than later.

Those who know me well beyond this blog know that one of my worst nightmares is to be a “stay-at-home” anything. I don’t begrudge anyone else their choice to not work outside the home or even “work” at all in the traditional sense (because holy hell, children and some academic pursuits are serious work), but that lifestyle is certainly not for me. I really enjoy having a job, contributing to a team and creating something at the end of the day that helps an entity outside of my four walls succeed and prosper.

But I don’t have that right now. So I’ve made a list of things that, in addition to looking for something outside these walls, will make a bit of a difference inside them.

I have a friend (who will remain nameless) whose domestic partner didn’t work outside the home. While I’m not sure if he ever said these words to her, he told me that he didn’t mind bringing home the bacon, as long as she optimized her time at home to do two things:
1. Keep the house clean
2. Keep herself hot.

He figured that some quality time at the gym and with the vacuum should be easily accomplishable with the 8-10 hours/day available that she’d otherwise spend at work - and that arrangement kept him perfectly happy.

I’ve set the same standards for myself.

Now that I’m back to 100% after the jetlag fiasco, I’m going to attempt to get back to working out daily. I feel far better when I do it and have all this extra time on my hands - so no excuses.

There are a bunch of things around here that nether Neil nor I enjoy or make the effort to do: Cleaning inside and around appliances (goodbye mystery slime under the crisper drawer), cleaning out the junk drawers (goodbye four-month-old pizza receipts and dead pens), take down the outside Christmas lights (goodbye white-trash balcony), etc. There are also a bunch of things I’ve been meaning to sell (books, dvds, sporting equipment) that I couldn’t be arsed to before - I may as well do it now.

And then of course, there’s that whole “finding a new job” thing. That one will probably take up most of my time and effort, and I hope it pays off and I’m working outside my home again, long before I get to “scrub the floor behind the toilets” on my list.