Going Undercover

That's it, folks.  I'm going to have to shut down my first blog.  I should have used a pen name...I just have too many things to ridicule that are close to home.  Literally, close to home.  Don't get me started on the visit from my new HOA.  Wow, ever see the episode of X-files where a monster eats you if you violate HOA rules?  Yeah, that's what this "welcoming" visit felt like; a warning.

Then again, who am I to call someone uptight?  Last week I was sitting in my house, still surrounded by cardboard boxes, overwhelmed at trying to make a million and one "where does it go" decisions and thoroughly irritated by the grime and dust coating my computer keyboard.

So I took the high (OCD) road.  I whipped out the all-purpose cleaner and q-tips and went to town on this baby.  It literally sparkles!  And afterwards, I was amazingly calm.  I've also been known to spend an hour sorting my sons' Legos into various types and storing them in plastic drawer organizers.  Yeah, you're laughing, but secretly you want to know what categories I used, don't you!

Smells Like Pizza

My garage smells like pizza.  Yes, pizza.  Despite heroic efforts on my part to purge un-needed items twice (once when we listed and once again when we packed for the move), there's still CRAP all over my new house!  I have already filled two big dish pack boxes with donations.  I'm not sure my accountant is going to buy the thousands of dollars of stuff we've donated in a six month period, but I have pictures of everything for the IRS.

So, onto the pizza smell.  One of the items I that had stowed away in my stuff was an older bottle of roasted garlic olive oil.  Old enough to raise concerns of botulism (nice).  So I put it with a pile of stuff to pour down the sink and dispose of.  Instead, my husband (shocker) put the OPEN bottle in a garbage bag and threw it away.  I guess there are worse smells...

Speaking of which, how about feet?  Anyone like the smell of feet?  Wouldn't you just love your clothes to smell like feet?  I don't know if I've mentioned, but we have much less closet space in our new (bigger) house than the old one.  It hasn't been pretty at all.  Especially since my husband has more clothes than I do!  No, I'm not kidding.  Not quite sure what metrosexual issues are going on there, but it's ridiculous.  What makes it even MORE ridiculous is that he wears a uniform five or six days a week!

Anyway, he's trying to scale down, which is good.  Even so, we're fighting for every inch and even had to convert a linen closet into clothes storage.  The other day I walk into our (small) closet, which has two rows of shelves with the rod attached.  On top of the lower shelf, directly beneath MY hanging clothes is a line of shoes.  His MAN shoes that he puts his stinky FEET into.  Uh, are you kidding me!?  Do you really think I want the odors of your shoes wafting up into my girl clothes?  What an idiot.

So, as usual I sign off to return to the task of unpacking and organizing.  How long will this go on?  No comment!  All I can say is thank God it's time to do my taxes too, I hate being bored.

Unplugging

The Packers will be here in an hour.  No, not my favorite football team, the Green Bay Packers.  I wish, Aaron Rodgers?  Or Brett Favre, since he's sort of retired?  Please!  I'll help either of them "load the truck."

No, the kind people my wonderful husband is paying to pack up our stuff so it arrives safely...hahahaha, no, it's so I won't completely lose my mind!  Which I'm well on my way to doing anyway.

I have to have everything I don't want packed by them in a "special" area in an hour.  Then I have to disconnect myself from life support: the internet.  I give my tech-addicted parents crap constantly about how they'd rather communicate through their computer than face to face.  I've actually sat at a table with them, margarita glasses full, and watched them play with their iPhones and not talk to anyone!  But now that I have to unplug the computer?  Uh, hey Pot, how black IS that Kettle?

In the meantime, our Realtor, Dena, was all impressed with the moving binder I created.  Like, how could I POSSIBLY move without a master binder sub-divided into sections pertaining to the various aspects of the move?!?!?  Hello, have you met Karen?  It was so funny.  Wait till she sees the custom printed labels denoting the future location of every box I’ve packed, one at each short end of the box so you can see the label from almost any angle.  She’ll really flip!

And yet, I feel so…DISORGANIZED!!!  Mike’s all “we’re in good shape, no problem!” and I’m all “do you SEE how much shit is not properly sorted, organized and labeled?!?!?!”  Guess what nightmares I’ll have tonight.  It’s thirteen years into the future, I THOUGHT I had unpacked the last box from this move years ago (at which point I cried harder than I did the first time my FOUR year old shit in a potty instead of his pants), I move a shelf and there it is…a stack of boxes that were never unpacked!  Cue the music from Psycho, the shower scene.

Well, in an attempt to prevent such a scene from actually occurring, I'm off to sort and organize as much stuff as I can before 8:30 am.  Hopefully I'll be checking in soon, post move, from my new office in the loft area of the new house!

I Wanna Sew!

And SEW I did.  (See what I did there?  I told you this blog would be funny...)

I've made a little time here and there to sew.  By taking some time for me, I can deal with all the craziness better.  So, I finished all but handstitching the binding on my new quilt.  It's a lap size and the focal point of my decor for the new living room. 

I also made a messenger bag to hold all my Scout stuff for meetings.  (Assistant Bear Den Leader Karen at your service).  The best part is: it's made from Robert Kaufmann Cub Scout fabrics!  So cute.

But today, sob, I have to take down the sewing area, fold up the table and the cutting board, empty the iron, pack up thread and scissors.  On the other hand, the next time it's up and running, it will be in my very own STUDIO in our new house: hooray!

Now I'm all psyched again; off to pack stuff and wash the refrigerator!  Good times.