Getting an email this morning from every company that’s every tried to sell me anything advertising their day-after-Christmas and last-few-days-of-the-year sales was a pretty good indicator that retailers are trying to push a few more dollars through the register in 2007. It must be working, too, because all-time-high online shopping volumes are apparently crippling even the stoutest of virtual brick houses:

I've been waiting for almost 30 minutes to get into virtual Macys and in internet time, that’s an eternity. Year-end sale or not, that’s poor technology management and a good way to lose customers to Nordstrom (whose site seems to be working fine).

No Tags

continue reading.....

It's a beautiful sunny day in Montana, although not as snowy as usual because of the 30-degree warm streak. I've spent the week so far lounging around with Mom, Dad and Danielle, sharing laughs, feasting heartily, counting our blessings and toasting our future. It's been relaxing and recharging in every way.
I hope you all are having just as joy-filled, blessed and rewarding a Christmas as I am. If not, maybe you should come home with me next year - this place works wonders.

No Tags

continue reading.....

All the hardcore gangsters wear free tmobile headbands

No Tags

continue reading.....

I took this shot of the Cascade Mountains while lying in bed this morning, the first day after the big move-in. They look much brighter and snowier in person.

No Tags

continue reading.....

John couldn't decide if he wanted pizza or a cookie so he's eating both simultaneously. Everything got moved without incident thanks to my awesome friends. And then we feasted in celebration. :)

No Tags

continue reading.....

It’s officially mine and I've begun to pile my boxed possessions in every room, making my apartment slowly seem larger and my new condo’s “giant" rooms slowly shrink to average size. Dave was a huge help last night, running loads of belongings and keeping me motivated, amidst various pauses to discuss all the things I could remodel. Not that I need a longer remodel list - it’s already getting out of control. There are so many small projects that will make the place nicer, more modern and more mine but I need to focus on moving and cleaning right now and save the fun stuff for at least January.

That’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. There are some urgent redecorating items that will be staring me right in the face every day until i address them. For example, when I saw the place with Gloria a few weeks ago there was still some furniture littered about - a hutch in the dining room, a low cabinet along one wall, a giant mirror above the fireplace. When I walked in Thursday night with my newly-acquired keys to survey my new kingdom, I found the furniture is gone and the true nature of the beast is revealed.

Apparently the kind of people that would paint a whole floor in homage to Princess Peach - including the wood trim, the beams in the ceiling, the doors, the outlets, the plant hooks - people so into peach that they'd cover every paintable surface with three layers of latex peachiness, are the kind of people that also don't move the furniture away from the walls when they paint.

As if the peach wasn't ghastly enough, now I get to stare at the brown hole above the fireplace every time I look around. We'll definitely be having a painting party sometime in January.

Technorati Tags: paint, peach, condo, homeowner, moving

continue reading.....

I'm not sure if the universe operates on some sort of yin/yang, good-luck/bad-luck cycle, or if I'm just only happy when it rains, but it seems like when I'm stretched to the limit that’s exactly when every little thing starts to go wrong and every molehill becomes a mountain. These are the kinds of things I've been dealing with this week, in the midst of trying to pack, buying a condo, getting ready to move, etc. I apologize for the lazy bullet-point format but that’s what my life has been reduced to in December - a series of lists. It’s really all I'm capable of at this point.

• I can barely walk, apparently. I've been bumping things on other things, tripping over nothing, and otherwise banging myself up just trying to handle seemingly-harmless tasks. I hardly ever injure myself, but in the last two weeks I've hit my head on the closet door, closed my hand in a drawer, gouged my back on a shelf, knocked my forehead on the roof of my truck… I've become the world’s biggest klutz.

• I lost my truck/house keys Monday morning. Or very nearly lost them. Last time I'd had them was Sunday afternoon, and Monday morning when it was time to leave for work, they were nowhere. I only have one key to the truck, so unless I found them it would become a giant steel paperweight. Picture my apartment, stacked chest-high with boxes, packing material strewn across the floor, wall-to-wall chaos with nothing in its usual place - this is the environment where I had presumably set my keys down. I tore through the place, opening sealed boxes, unpacking luggage… and nothing. Finally I retraced my last known steps with the keys - to the mailbox and back. I found them lying in my neighbor’s driveway, mere inches away from the gutter where the torrents of Seattle’s rainiest day in the past 50 years threatened them with a watery demise. My neighbor must have run over them as the keys are chewed up, but at least I found them. I was 98% percent to nervous breakdown.
• I can't seem to be on time for anything. I went to a meeting an hour early today. In my head, I was sure it was at 8am, and I half-jogged the 5 blocks to the other office building where it was held only to find I was alone in the conference room. Check my phone again: meeting is at 9. This meeting is at 9 every Wednesday and has been since April, but I was sure it was at eight. I was an hour early to my condo closing paperwork appointment yesterday because I seem to have lost all ability to estimate travel time; I spent the extra hour sitting across the street at Starbucks breathing into a paper bag.
• As it turns out, my truck keys aren't just chewed up a little. The keyfob is apparently slightly broken. I figured this out Tuesday afternoon when I walked the 5 blocks in the pouring rain to my parking lot and discovered I couldn't unlock the doors. Some shouting and physical abuse temporarily revived it, but I've since been operating in constant fear that each press of a lock or unlock button may be the last one, leaving the truck permanently either dangerously unlocked or locked and immobilized. It’s something I would toss and turn about on a regular night, but this week it’s chewing me up. I really need my truck for the next couple weeks.
• People keep wanting and/or needing things from me and I keep having to tell them no. It’s not like me to ever decline an invitation or defer to help someone out, and it makes me feel like a selfish, antisocial misanthrope. As I told Hannah yesterday during my massage, I've got a list (several lists, really) of things that have to be done this week, this weekend, next week, next weekend, before the 15th, before I leave town for Christmas… and if it’s not on my list, I can't think about it. Moreover, if it doesn't urgently need to be done before the 15th, it’s not making the list. The list is already so frighteningly long, complex and full of interdependencies that I can't conceive it will ever be completed, so I'm having trouble looking beyond the 15th, either. Basically, I'm absorbed with this project. My apologies to anyone that’s trying to get or give anything else from or to me.
• The weather. Maybe you've seen the underwater freeways and manholes-turned-fountains on the news. While I've so far escaped any massive flooding, I'm starting to worry it might snow while I'm trying to move; it’s already snowed in the city once this season, much earlier than it usually does here. Or worse - it might get suddenly cold again and freeze the city into a giant skating rink the day I pick up a uhaul truck. My moving help could all be stranded at home. My uhaul truck could get stuck at the bottom of the hill in the condo parking lot. I had hoped to do some outdoor things this past weekend - prune shrubs at the apartment, wash cars, pick up leaves - but 4 inches of wet snow on the ground and almost a foot of rain kept any of that from happening. I realize I'm the fool that is moving in December, but I had not expected it to be this bad.

Normally I wouldn't lose sleep over these kinds of things - I'd turn them into humorous anecdotes and be done with them. But this week I'm on a deadline. And I hate slipping on deadlines.

No Tags

continue reading.....

This painting in the escrow office pretty well describes most of Seattle this week as the torrential rain continues, but somehow despite having just signed the largest loan of my life i feel suprisingly above water. At least in the figurative sense anyway.

No Tags

continue reading.....

… but packing boxes is so delightful. And since i've no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

No Tags

continue reading.....