Sunday, February 13, 2011

domicile

Joe and I both got guilted into buying a couple of boxes of Girl Scout cookies (I for one am a sucker for stammered unpunctuated soliloquies delivered by kids at my doorstep. Just this week, I donated money to the American Heart Association because some little pudgy kid rang my doorbell and compelled me to--who knows what he really did with the money, but he was cute anyway) and my most embarrassing moment this week was bellowing at Cooper to shut up and stop acting like such a manic every time the doorbell rang...only to find a Girl Scout standing on my welcome mat bearing the Lemon Chalets and Samoas we ordered a few weeks ago. She was wearing a kilt and everything. Probably she's going to report me to Animal Cruelty now. Probably she'll get a badge for it.

So anyway, among other things, this weekend we've been eating some cookies.

We also had a walkthrough at the new house, wherein the current owners (who by the way are super-sweet people, I almost wish they were staying nearby, so that they could watch over us like benevolent godparents) sort of gave us the Owners Guide to the place, what switch turns on what and what kind of filters go where, that kind of thing. The inside of the house is very nice--not that it doesn't need a little updating here and there, but we're in no rush to fill it up with stuff right away, because when you don't have a ton of extra money, that's how The Ikea Room happens. And not that I don't love Ikea (it's a love-hate thing; I'm sure Darren Aronofsky's next film is going to involve being trapped in the underground showroom warehouse of an Ikea on a Saturday morning while mirrored reflections taunt you) but there comes a time in every adult's life when they want a piece of furniture that they don't have to assemble with that little L-shaped thing.

To this end, we are doing a couple of things. One is that we are going to throw out a ton of crap before we move. We've been pretty successful in paring down the non-essentials given the past three moves we've made in the last three years (one a long-distance move, even), but this time, my goal is utter ruthlessness, divorced of sentimentality. Goodbye to you, weird wooden baby peg toy missing half its pegs! If we ever decide to have another baby, we can get him or her a new peg toy! Or better yet, no toys at all, as it will only make the baby weak and frivolous! I will be like Genghis Kahn, only for throwing stuff away, not, you know, conquest.

Secondly, I am employing the assistance of this nice internet lady. We haven't actually ever met, but I have been reading her blog forever, and in the past few years, she's started to branch out into interior design. So anyway, we've chatted, and she's going to help us out with some advice for one particularly troublesome room at the new place--troublesome in that not only is it highly trafficked (it's the family room) but also of all the rooms, it looks the most...tired. (That's a real estate euphemism for "excessively beige and from the 1980's." Also: "full of charm" really means "fascinating in its decrepitude.") Anyway, I'm really excited about this, both for the prospect of brightening up a family room which has so much unachieved potential, but also to work with someone whose design sense I've admired from afar for many, many years. There will be pictures of the house later, of course, before and after, that kind of thing, and it will be fun. But for now, just look at this picture of my fried eggs this morning, that I thought looked like a jellyfish.




Hope you had a good weekend.

8 comments:

  1. wish I can get my mom to mercilessly throw/donate more stuff in our house =/ however, it is good in a way that it's driven me to avoid pack-rat habits, especially since I know I will be moving out for school in the next two years, but no idea where.

    The eggs are cute though...they also look like the little ghosts in Pac-man

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  2. I looked at that and immediately thought of oligodendroglioma because first aid describes the tumor cells as a fried egg appearance. congrats on the house!

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  3. Yes... Pac-Man Ghost!

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  4. Rachie11:20 PM

    my mom calls her ritualistic bi-annual merciless throwing away of all our old crap the "Slash and Burn." She gets this crazy cracked out look in her eye and starts looking at all your stuff like she can already see it in the trash/at the goodwill. It's terrifying.

    Hopefully you find your "Slash and Burn" half as satisfying as she does and you'll have a great time.

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  5. Your eggs are adorable.

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  6. Congrats on the house! And it DOES look like a jellyfish. A very cute jellyfish.

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  7. Knot Tellin1:47 PM

    The eggs totally look like a happy face after someone "wiped that smile off his face". Poor eggs.

    That's sad.

    Let's go with the pacman ghost.

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  8. Oh Man. the modern dilema. What to keep and what to trash. But it's all good stuff, right? we are reassigning (dumping) stuff daily for our future move to AZ. We will have 2 homes. i have spent the last 6 months there and you would be surprised at the stuff you can do without. Of course my husband thinks his 60's ice cream maker is a hidden treasure. LOL I am a quilter/sewist. So I have about 8 sewing machine, 2 sergers, a ten needle embroidery machine and all the assorted stuff that goes with them. That's not counting all the kid stuff that has long past it's expiration. i have kept the handmade baby things and the million dollars worth of lego's. When my husband and I married 11 years ago he brought his junk to mingle with my junk. I too keep books. nothing as "fancy" as yours. I got rid of the kids scholastic books, chapter books and ref stuff for school. But I have tried donate them where they will do the most good. The books went to co-workers who had kids. Extra blankets and coats went to hoemless shelter. clothes went to church clothing bank. If they are homeless they probably don't have the money to buy even used things. The last time I checked , a few weeks ago, even the goodwill is asking a pretty good price. i am going to check out your internet lady though. I hope she is still around.

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