Cherie Priest's Blog: It's awards season, so here comes the shameless self-promotion, page 52

Paperwork and Resolutions

The last couple of days have been dedicated to wrapping up loose ends. The first loose end: the husband's study. He's found a set of bookcases. They arrive sometime in the next day or two, so soon, we can unpack our books (thank God). The other loose end is the Perplexing Back Room, and this morning I snapped, making the executive decision that we would turn it into a guest bedroom.

Our initial plan - yank out the carpet, put in hardwood floors, and then think of something else to do with the space - sort of imploded on itself. Besides the fact that it was going to run in the thousands of dollars, we really didn't have a good idea of what "something else" was going to look like.

Game room? Dining room? Split the space with a Murphy bed and a dining set? No clue. And the space was likely to remain vacant until we decided. [The husband's demand for a ball pit was overruled. Somewhat reluctantly.]

And that was bullshit, pretty much. We have several rounds of visitors swinging through town within the next few months, and no good place to put them. It didn't make sense to let a perfectly good room sit empty and idle while we're shoving guests out onto the couch - just because we don't like the carpet.

So today I made the rounds, ordered a bed, picked up some linens and other sundries, and then grabbed some paint. The Berber I can live with. The baby-poo beige walls must go.

The husband and I taped up the room to prep for the makeover, and tomorrow morning we'll swap out the Bland Tan for a very light gray. The bed arrives on Thursday, and the last of our major loose ends will be sorted for the time being.

I'm tired - very tired - of working on this place. I want to just live in it, and let my Regular Life commence in whatever day-to-day pattern it eventually takes. I think this will be the last week of Working On It. This is definitely the last week of paper-chasing, at any rate. Yesterday I made myself a list, got myself directions, and started making the bureaucratic rounds.

First I went to the DMV, where I spent an hour listening to a vast assortment of ridiculous ringtones going off unchecked in Darwin's waiting room. I emerged with a Tennessee driver's license and a headache, which didn't stop me from darting off to the emissions place, where I successfully demonstrated that our car doesn't spew an excess of toxic fumes - and I got my little certificate saying I could totally get myself a Tennessee license plate.

However, I was thwarted at the tag/title office. I was aware that the car was in both my name and the husband's, so we'd both need to appear; but the husband grabbed the wrong title-esque document on the way out the door, and I neglected to bring a secondary proof of residence. So we struck out.

But to quote The Great Loaf: Two out of three ain't bad.

First thing this a.m. we went back to the tag/title office with the correct documents and got the car squared away, which has me properly sorted out within the state-designated legal time frame for the first time in ... ever, probably.

It feels good to be done with something.

As for the space formerly known as the Perplexing Back room - I won't post any "before" shots like I did with the Unfortunate Master Bath, because it's not all that bad. The only truly objectionable bit is the paint choice. Like I said, the carpet isn't to my taste - but it's hardly the end of the world; but maybe once we're all moved in ... I mean really moved in ... I'll take a few glamour shots and share with the group, so to speak.

For now, I'm going to settle in, watch some TV, and call it a night.

Yardwork and Other Thrills

I'm trying to be better and more consistent with this blogging/updating thing, but every time I'm about to call our settling in "complete enough for a routine to establish itself," I am proved wrong.

I'd like to think we're closing in on the home stretch, but my husband is still deciding what to do about bookshelves in his study/the parlor - which unfortunately means that we still have boxes and boxes of books lying about. The core problem is that he wants to do built-in bookcases, and built-in bookcases are crazypants-expensive and time-consuming to achieve; but regular bookcases are also less than ideal because we have these massive 11-foot ceilings, and anything except absurdly tall bookcases would look weirdly stubby in there.

Absurdly tall bookcases are also crazypants-expensive, as it turns out. I'm not sure what, exactly, we're going to do yet. But I sure would love to unpack these books.

Also in the Not Quite Finished category ... the Perplexing Back Room. The PBR - part of a bonus area added in the early 30s - is still empty except for the cat's condo and some curtains. And okay, in the interest of full disclosure, it's also littered with all the crap we can't be bothered to take out to the garage, or haul up into the attic right this moment.

This littering/stashing is made all the easier by a Truly Questionable Built-In Cabinet.

It's awful. Painted a dozen times through the years, with all twelve layers peeling. Topped by doors installed so poorly that they won't stay shut unless you loop a rubber-band around their knobs. There's only one really nice thing about it: It's so shitty we aren't worried about messing it up. That's why it's stocked with paint cans, birdseed, plant food, and gardening supplies.

As a side note, while vacuuming yesterday it occurred to me that I'd never before had a place with so much room that I had to keep moving the cord around from outlet to outlet. I was tickled by this, until I noticed that I also had so much room that I had an entire room with almost nothing in it but room.

*sigh*

I swear to God, you guys - apart from the Perplexing Back Room and the Unfortunate Master Bath, the rest of the house is just gorgeous. If you don't see me going on and on about anything else, it's because everything else has been so damn easy.

Well, except for the yard.

The yard is somewhat less easy, but that having been said, it's not that bad, and it's very pretty. We have a lushly overgrown back (prettily landscaped with that precise intent), but we don't have a lot of front yard - which works out just fine for us and our interest in yardwork, which could best be described as "intermittent."

On Friday we actually took a crack at it, though.

I donned ratty jeans, long sleeves, work gloves, safety eyewear, and my stepmom's old combat boots ... then seized the electric hedge trimmer and went to town.* Town needed to be gone to. The yard had been unaddressed for the better part of a month, and those of you familiar with the southeast in the summer can just guess what this place was starting to look like.

I didn't do any cool shapes with the bushes or anything. Mostly I just took a little off the top, to make it look like civilized adults live here. Joke's on the neighbors, I suppose.

While I was at it, I cut a narrow swath behind the holly bushes, clearing the way for me to reach the garden hose and spigot. This also allowed me to reach my very tall, somewhat high-placed windows - a feat I achieved via ladder and a whole lot of swearing, plus an army of holly-leaf scratches up and down my shoulders.

This was a lot of trouble for the sake of some window-reaching, yes, but it had to happen. Why, you ask? Because our million-year-old screens were in utter tatters, and they'd been installed at some distant point on top of some old storm windows. This struck me as odd at first, but then I realized that the storm windows were installed at an even more distant point, back when the primary windows still opened, and all three levels of window-covering could be easily accessed from indoors.

Long story short, here in 2012 these particular windows don't open** and the screens couldn't be removed - even though they made the house look vaguely like a ghost ship with fluttering sails every time a breeze came curling down the mountain.

I could sit here and make up a bad-ass home improvement story about how I Macgyvered some fabulous resolution to this issue; but in fact, what I really did was take a box-cutter to the damn things, and slice them right out of the frame. Not the world's most elegant feat of problem-solving, I'll grant you, but I am not prepared to give a damn. They're gone, and the place looks much, much better.

Hmm. What else has been going on? Let's see.

We once again have TV in our lives, which is nice. Just basic thirteen, because any more than that, and I'd never get any work done. The TV hook-up was a low-drama affair, as compared to the internet hookup - but I don't think I remembered to post about that. In short, the internet guy drilled a hole through our water line. It was our first full day in the house, and our first minor crisis as homeowners. Luckily, this particular crisis wasn't our fault, and EPB fixed everything within a few hours.

Yesterday, my cousin Ryan (formerly of cat-sitting fame) swung by for a visit with his wife and son. His son is about 14 months old, so the cat stayed hunkered in the bedroom closet the whole time, but that was probably for the best. After awhile of kicking around the homestead, we wandered off for ice cream and pizza, and lo, a fine time was had by all. It was fabulous to see them! I'm absolutely delighted to be back in their time zone.

Next up: becoming local. Tomorrow I'll hit up the DMV for a new license, and get new tags put on the car. With any luck, we'll get registered for health insurance once again. I hate doing the self-coverage thing; it's expensive and the coverage you get is crappy, but it's (somewhat) better than nothing. I think.

Anyway. I believe this post has run long enough, so I'll wrap it up and go see about making myself some tea. I don't want to get too optimistic over here, but I just might try and get some work done ...


* The husband donned shorts and flip-flops, and started out the door with the edger/trimmer.
** Most of the house has newer windows, but this stretch doesn't. Naturally.

Rose tint my world...or tint it some other color, whatever.

Over the last few days, I've learned a valuable lesson about whiteness. As in "what shade of white is this damn trim?" and "who the ever-living hell knew there were this many KINDS of white?"

See, for some reason the window frame/sill in my office is left partly unpainted. No idea why. Didn't notice it on the house's walkthroughs, but once I'd seen it, I couldn't un-see it - and anyway, there were a number of places in the molding and trim that really needed a good once-over. Most of the problem areas occurred in the wake of some distant electrical updates, and the more recent smear mistakes some clumsy moron amateur* made while painting over an Unfortunate Yellow room with a Pretty And Sensible Lavender/Gray.

Since our home is an older house, and the previous owners were all about doing "period appropriate" stuff, I went to Lowes and found an "antique white" that was allegedly certified in some ridiculous fashion as being historically valid (no doubt some kind of marketing scam, I know) ... and it looked about right. I mean, it's white, right?

Ha.

Got the paint home and it was, in fact, not nearly the right white. So I fussed and fumed, and wandered up to the attic to stash my now-useless quart of not-the-right-white paint, and I discovered a row of old paint cans. Hooray! These must be the colors used in my house! Thank you, previous sellers!

Of course, all these paint cans were dry as a bone, but that was okay. They had the formulas on the top - and when I found what MUST be the right white for pity's sake, I copied down all the info on the top label. Yes, all of it - all the little numbers that made no sense whatsoever to me, but clearly indicated a color formula to a better-educated eye than mine.

Then I went to Ace, because it's much closer than Lowes. I asked the nice (actually, rather amusingly cranky) lady at the paint counter if she could help me.

She said, "Nope. That's a proprietary brand and formula for Home Depot. You'll have to take it to them - unless you can get us a paint chip about the size of a quarter, in which case we can color-match it, but we might not be able to match the texture, depending."

So I went out to Home Depot, figuring this would be a slam dunk. I had the paint's brand. I had its weird number formula-thingy details. I had a debit card and a willingness to fork it over.

Ha again.

When I got there, the paint woman was being badgered by an older lady who couldn't be compelled to understand that she could not merely describe a color she totally saw this one time and expect the paint woman to pull it out of her ass. This conversation went on for probably fifteen minutes, during which I did verily salute the paint woman for her continued patience, because if it'd been me, I'd have grabbed a rifle and climbed a tower.

But finally the old lady wandered off in a dissatisfied fashion, having learned nothing except that the paint woman wasn't a wizard, and behold: It was my turn. Smugly, I thought that I would be an easy customer. A pleasant chaser to a difficult situation.

Eh.

The paint woman agreed that I had copied all the appropriate information required for her to recreate the paint in question, except that (a). they no longer made that precise type of paint with its attendant qualities, and (b). the paint can from which I'd copied this intel had apparently been whipped up during the last ice age - for it was so dreadfully old that the entire system was now on a different set of formulas.

But thank God for paint woman, who (it turned out) actually was kind of a wizard. She jiggered the formulas around, found me a comparable paint, and then sought about shaking me up a can of The Correct White.

At which point the machine locked up, and had to be rebooted/restored/reprogrammed with help from some specialist from some other end of the store.

Long story short, it took over an hour for me to get my gallon of paint - which I now cherish with an unreasonable fondness, because get this: It's The Correct White.

Or if it isn't, bugger all if I can tell the difference.

Since I was on now a roll ... back up into the attic I went, hoping to find matches to the rest of the spots in the house which required touching up - namely, the kitchen and The Nice Bathroom.** Nope. Just dried up gallons of Unfortunate Yellow and a rusted-out pail of whatever someone had used in the living area.

But encouraged by my hard-won success with the Correct White, I went back to Ace (they're close, remember?) with a peeled strip of bathroom paint.

(Why was the bathroom paint peeling? Suffice it to say there was an incident involving a clumsy moron amateur,*** a mirror, some double-sided sticky tape, a cast iron tub on which one should not balance whilst wearing socks nor at any other time, and the house's previous owners who apparently didn't prime before using glossy latex in a bathroom. Ahem.)

The adorably cranky paint woman at the Ace counter performed some magic, and gave me a quart of paint. Ladies and gentlemen and the otherwise affiliated: IT WAS PERFECT. I did a little dance, right there in the bathroom. (But not on the edge of the cast iron tub. In socks. Fool me once, etc. etc. etc.)

And then I turned right around and went hunting for a place from which to swipe a paint chip in the kitchen, which is a pleasant shade of green - yet featured an unpleasant, unpainted set of plastered-over bits left over from some electrical work. Eventually, back behind the washing machine (laundry nook = same color) I found some painted-over tape buckling up. EXCELLENT.

I snipped the tape, ran to Ace, and was home again in twenty minutes with a quart of Precisely The Right Green. Or, again - if it isn't Precisely The Right Green it's The Green Which Is So Freaking Close That Cherie Isn't Running Back To Ace Anytime Soon Because She Sure As Shit Can't Tell The Difference.

And anyway, that's what I've been up to. Driving all over town trying to Do It Right, and eventually getting it About 99% Right Which Is Probably The Best I'm Going To Do And I'm Okay With That.

If you're curious about how the office turned out, well, that probably means you don't follow me on my Twitter feed - where I've posted about it already. But that's okay. Here's what the room looked like in progress, half lavender/gray and half Unfortunate Yellow.

And here's what it looks like now - two views: one, and two. (Yes, I have a daybed in there. I have back problems, and prefer to work with my legs/feet propped up - and with a lot of lumbar support. So I improvised.)

Anyway. That's all there is to tell about my painting adventures (for now), except that I am very lucky the previous owners used the same semi-glossy white on just about everything they wanted white. So there's that. And now I have the correct and modern formula, so if I run out, I can ask the nice Home Depot paint woman to wizard me up some more.

And now I'm going to see about making myself some supper. In my kitchen that still smells very, very faintly of paint.


* Me.
** As opposed to the other one. See previous post.
*** Me again.

The Unfortunate Master Bath

The Unfortunate Master Bath is actually not the worst bathroom I, personally, have ever lived with. Far from it. My entire adult life, I've lived in dormitories and apartments - a good number of which might reasonably rate someplace high on the "shitty" scale, so in the grand scheme of things, it's really not all that bad.

Therefore, to begin on a positive note: The UMB is a rather large bathroom (relative to my experience); it is open and clean, with Jack-and-Jill sinks; everything is in good working order, with no mold, mildew, or rust to be seen; it is adequately lit and ventilated, and conveniently connects to the master bedroom.

But compared to the rest of the house, it is inexcusably ugly.

To the best of our knowledge, the UMB was last updated in the late eighties - and all the fixtures, bulbous Flashdance vanity lighting, and color scheme strongly support that sad speculation.* And as it turns out, the 1980s clash painfully with the 19-teens.

Behold, my real estate agent Andy Bond** - gazing with abject horror into the prison-tiled abyss. It was pretty much the last room we saw - and well played, sellers ... well played.



But here. Let me give you a guided tour, starting with the bathroom entrance.

What happened is this - sometime in the early 1930s, the back porch was closed in and the bathroom + another bedroom were added. That sick putty-colored wall that looks like it's covered in exterior siding ... is in fact covered with exterior siding.

By the way: LOOK UPON OUR FESTIVE DISCO PARQUET. There's only a few square feet of it; the rest of the place has proper oak flooring. It really IS as if the fug in this bathroom managed to contaminate everything for a couple of yards in any direction.



(You'll also see our alarm system in that photo. I'm trying to teach it not to freak out like a giant digital cricket when it spies motion in the den area at 3:00 a.m. We have a cat. She makes motion. We would prefer to sleep through it. When I log off in a few minutes, I'm going to sit down and study that system's manual like I have a test on it. And I do. Every night around 3:00 a.m.)

Right. So.

Upon opening the door you'll see the following - tricked out with all our own belongings, and not those of the sellers. All subsequent trashiness is ours and ours alone.



I'll start with the small things.

How small? This small: scads of empty holes. In everything. At some point, I assume these holes held toothbrush holders or drawer pulls or cabinet hardware ... but they've been empty as long as anybody knows, and it drives me crazy.






I suppose I could find hardware to fill the miniature voids, but since I want to rip the whole room out and set it on fire, that seems like a waste of perfectly good energy.

Now here.
Come in a little closer.

How close? FLOOR CLOSE. Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket, you guys. I know it's supposed to look like "marble," but all I can think is "prosciutto."

GAZE UPON THE HAM FLOOR YE MIGHTY, AND TREMBLE.




Are we all done trembling?
Okay, good.

Because immediately beside the patch of floor where I captured the HAM FLOOR picture ... you'll find an unassuming white closet with double doors. "Linen closet," one might think. "Broom closet," one might guess. Mais non.

FUSE BOXES, BITCHES!



Okay, switch boxes - which I mostly don't show in that shot. Because honestly, the boxes are not the ugliest thing hiding in that-there closet. See that old siding? Peeling, graying, and undoubtedly chock full of tasty, tasty lead-based paint? Yeah. That used to be the outer wall of the house.

I suppose if the power goes out while I'm peeing at night, I'll know just what to do. Hm. On second thought, maybe I should stick a flashlight by the toilet.

Then again, it might not help; after all, one of the switches is labeled "WTF."




I know, I know. Someone has crappy handwriting, and it's probably short for "water heater." But I kind of like the idea that there's a MYSTERY SWITCH that if I flip it then NO ONE KNOWS what the hell will happen. CTHULHU MAY RISE.

I bet the Old Ones could really heat up water like nobody's business. If those who sleep beneath R'lyeh can save us money on our energy bill, maybe we could strike some kind of deal. Or maybe I've had enough of these tasty hard ciders for one night, and should not open yet another one before I continue.

Hang on. Gotta get ... uh ... something. From the kitchen.

Okay, I'm back.

Next to the Cabinet of Electrical Mystery we have the actual linen closet. It is mirrored. I like mirrors. There is no other point to the image below.




Now in this next shot, you can see the poor attempt at linoleum camouflage I call a rug, plus a handful of Aubrey Beardsley prints I thought might class up the joint ... and the aforementioned sinks.

Jack and Jill. Hard molded plastic. Shaped like shells. With wee little ledges upon which to rest one's soap.



Or, wee little ledges upon which to whack one's forehead while trying to wash one's face, if one is as catastrophically nearsighted as yours truly. Cough cough.



Perhaps right about now you're thinking to yourself, "Self, that's not so weird and/or bad. That Cherie sure has a talent for exaggeration."

But wait.
There's more.

What if I told you ... that these sinks ... LIGHT THE FUCK UP!!???




THEN HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?

Oops, I mean: THEN HOW CRAZYPANTS WOULD YOU FIND THIS BATHROOM?

I, for one, am trying to look on the bright side. Or perhaps the somewhat drunk side. Which is to say, in lieu of a bathroom flashlight for making ridiculous spooooooky faces, one can simply TURN ON THE SINKS.











And on that note, I suppose I'd better hit "post" and call myself done for the night.

[:: waves cheerfully ::]
[:: and spooookily ::]
[:: goes looking for the alarm manual ::]

[:: GIANT DIGITAL CRICKETS ENSUE ::]


* Our home is place of Batman memorabilia, monster action figures, and a mantle tableau of a zombie apocalypse. Our down-home tackiness takes a different form, that's all I'm saying.
* Who I totally recommend, by the way. If you're looking to move in - or to - the Chattanooga area, ping me for details. I'll be happy to put you in touch with him.

Home Sweet Home

It's been a week since that last fluttering, passing update which announced our continued survival and indeed, our arrival in Tennessee. And now, for the first time in the last seven days, I actually have (a). a few minutes to sit here and play catch-up, and (b). something to sit upon, which is a not-altogether untrivial factor in my failure to blog.

My husband and I have spent the last decade living in apartments smaller than 800 square feet (and sometimes as small as 430 sq. ft.), so you can safely deduce that we didn't have a lot of furniture to start with ... or, um ... any furniture except our bedroom set. So for most of this week, it's been an echo chamber up in here. We've had to run out and buy an entire household.

I never thought I'd see the day when I was sick to death of shopping; nay, the hunting and gathering instinct is strong in me. But right now, I am utterly wiped out by the hypothetical prospect of even darting down to the Walgreens (I know, I know, some things never change) for some face soap. I just can't stand the thought of it.

Therefore, I sit on this awesome new couch instead, trying to type around the fluffy round ass of a freshly flea-bathed house cat. But that's another story. I'll circle back around to it.

Yes, well.
We moved in.

Some lovely friends showed up to help us unload the truck, and in the wake of that, we spent a few days unpacking everything we'd unloaded; and then we bought more things to put places, and figured out all the small, weird, unexpected things we still needed; and then we went out and bought those things too.

The husband had a few Requirements, and I had made some Promises with regards to our lifestyle upon our return to Tennessee - not least of all that he could have the house's parlor for his study, complete with wingback chairs and whatnot; and also I vouched for the inevitability of a porch swing, since we have a lovely wrap-around porch to accommodate that sort of swinging.

Naturally, the chairs and the swing were the most grueling items to acquire. Wingbacks because they're a bit out of date, and the porch swing ... shit, I don't know. You tell me! This is southern Tennessee at the start of summer - yet whenever we inquired after a swing, people acted like we'd asked for some crayons so we could make soup.

Eventually we found our way to a big patio-specific retail location, and we unlocked achievement: porch swing. But it shouldn't have taken four days, fer chrissake.

The wingbacks I eventually found in a truly hilarious showroom out near the mall. I've driven by it a million times, assuming it was closed - an inexplicably abandoned piece of prime real estate, with a huge parking lot in which I'd never seen another car. But Thursday, on a whim, I thought I'd give them a try.

The salesman who greeted me was a charmingly cadaverous older fellow, a genteel southern Lurch in an ascot. I told him I was looking for wingback chairs. He nodded slowly, lifted one long finger, and curled it - telling me to follow him.

I did follow him, wending my way through a tasteful collection of what might best be described as "new old-fashioned" fine furnishings.* (I don't mean to sound disparaging, because that isn't the intent - what I mean to say is this: I love old-fashioned styles, and I was thrilled to see that someone, somewhere, still makes these things.) And there, in that weird gallery that felt peculiarly out-of-time, I found the husband's dream chairs. We bought them. They arrived the next day. And now the whole parlor smells pleasantly of good leather.

Yesterday, our bed arrived. This was somewhat momentous, because in the entire time the husband and I have lived together, we've never had a proper bed.** Best of all, we didn't have to put it together! I say "best of all" because I've long said that I would be a Real Grown Up on the day I owned furniture I hadn't been forced to assemble. The bed was the last major item, and so far, we haven't assembled a damn thing.

[:: fist pumps ::]

Around dusk, I met a couple of our next-door neighbors - a guy about our age and his toddler daughter. They brought cookies! They came inside for awhile, and then we went out on the porch and watched bats fly out of the belfry at a nearby church. It was delightful.

But yesterday wasn't all wine and roses. Yesterday we learned that the house's previous owners - a lovely couple who we liked quite well - left us one ... icky ... little ... present. By accident, no doubt. But it's the gift that keeps on giving. To our cat.

Fleas.

The kitty had been acting weird since shortly after we arrived, but hey, no shock there, right? She began shedding like a fiend, and horking up hairballs so massive I swear to fucking God this one time I thought she'd eaten a bunny. Of course, it's late spring/summer here, and she'd been losing her "winter coat" even in Seattle; and obviously there'd been a lot of upheaval in her recent life. We thought she was stress-grooming.

Nope. Fleas.

I discovered the fleas while my husband was out running errands. So I called him (repeatedly) trying to walk him through the supplies required to rid her of the problem. Apparently I'm the only dumbass on earth who didn't know you could get Advantage at any petstore these days, so thanks for bringing me up to speed, Twitter and/or Facebook. The name-calling really wasn't necessary, but up yours, too, haters.

Eventually the husband returned with a bottle of good flea shampoo, some spray, and a six-month supply of Advantage For Large Cats. (Over 9 pounds, that is.) The For Large Cats bit is important, because Spain weighs almost 12 pounds - as we know for a fact, given that we just took her to the vet less than a month ago.

Not that I could convince anyone of it. Not with pictures like these. It's funny, how much tinier she looks when wet - but I promise you, that is a very large sink. And she is, in fact, a total fatty. My husband's big-ass hands are just hiding the folds of tummy chub.

Before long, the worst was over. She recovered her dignity swiftly, and seems much happier today. Mission accomplished.

Hm. What else?

Well, I painted my office - which once was a kids' bedroom, and a shade of yellow that I just wasn't "feeling." It's now a soft lavender, with a lot of black and gray and white furnishings, and an awesome daybed. Frankly, it's an eldergoth paradise. I am proud of my handiwork.

The Perplexing Back Room will remain a game room/guest space/whatever for awhile. Our plans to yank out the carpet, throw down hardwood, and make a formal dining room came into conflict with our budget, but such is the way of things. Right now it's The Cat's Room, and also the room where we store everything we're too lazy to tote all the way out to the garage.

The Unfortunate Master Bath remains unfortunate. But you know what? Everything works, and it's a large space with a spacious linen closet and also, um, the household fuse boxes. Not the first place you'd look for fuse boxes, no, but the house was added-on-to in the thirties, and the bathroom used to be the exterior wall of the house. So we have fuse boxes in the bathroom, okay? They're in a closet. We keep the closet shut. It's not an issue. It's just kind of funny.

My next post will probably be about the Unfortunate Master Bath. There will be pictures. Undignified pictures. Stay tuned.

But for now, I think this post has run long enough. Thanks for being patient with me, and thanks for reading; thanks for all the well-wishes and congrats, and I'll be back online tomorrow. Still playing catch-up, sure. But I'll be back.

:)


* If you're any fan of Faulkner, it'd be 100% accurate to say that Miss Emily would have shopped the ever-living shit out of this place.

** Proper bed: Mattress, boxsprings, headboard/footboard. We've never had anything but the mattress/boxspring on rails, except for one brief, unpleasant foray into one of Ikea's low-slung, boxless sleeping systems. Which was awful.

Tennessee

We are safe. We are settling in. Things are still in state of havoc, but we're gradually imposing order. We have proper furniture ordered and arriving come Friday, we're looking into some paint for my office this weekend, and we are approaching Status: Unpacked - with hopes that we'll unlock that achievement tonight.

Next on deck: Lawn/garden supplies, including but not limited to such diverse elements as a lawnmower and a porch swing; yanking out the carpet in the add-on area and swapping that out for hardwood (will try to get a quote next week); conquering the framing shop and getting some of my copious prints addressed; rounding out the last of the Oh Shit We Didn't Think Of That supplies; and inviting Agent: Daddy down to check out our Unfortunate Master Bath to advise us with regards to the eventual remodel.

Oh yeah. I need to take some pics of that thing. Must be seen to be believed.

But not now. Now, I return to my unpacking marathon. I just didn't want anybody to think we'd driven off a cliff someplace in South Dakota. If in fact they have cliffs there. I don't remember. (It was a long-ass drive, that's all.)

[P.S., the cat is fine. Still a little wigged out by all the empty space - like I said, not a lot of furniture yet - but by and large, she's just dandy.]

Wagons East

Tonight we're about 90% packed up. We'd be a bit farther along, but our apartment is so small that some things will just have to wait until the place is partially emptied. Can't un-flatten or fill any more boxes. We're just out of room.

Of course, we're almost out of stuff to box, too. We don't really have that much; ten years of living in less than 800 sq. ft. has kept our worldly possessions to a relative minimum - and this time we're moving down three flights of stairs instead of up, thank God. Even so, I expect that tomorrow will suck.

But then ... then we hit the road. And in 3-4 days, we'll be back in Tennessee, moving into our house.

(An old friend of mine said that this house reminds her of a "haunted mansion" themed screensaver I had on my computer back in college, and she's totally right. Will I be a daffy southern broad with flower baskets and a porch swing? Oh, you bet. But I will also have the best damn Halloween candy on the block, and I just might invest in a fog machine.)

Anyway. My apologies for being so quiet this week, but it's been a 6-day study in havoc as we closed down accounts, sorted out business, set up utilities, chased down paperwork, ran our errands, got our car fixed, packed every-damn-thing we could, and tried to catch all sour local friends for last-minute shenanigans.

I will miss you guys. All of you.
Let me be clear about that.

But, yes. Tomorrow we head east. We won't have internet in Tennessee for a day or two after our arrival, so you can safely bet that this will be a pretty quiet page for yet another week. I'll try to keep the world abreast of our progress via Twitter and Facebook, but blogging by phone is a hassle.

Right. Well then. Here we go.

Back in Seattle

Had a most excellent time in Houston, of course, but the jaunt was an exhausting one - resulting in three back-to-back 12- to 14-hour travel/work days in a row, in another time zone. It'd be an understatement to confess that I'm a bit worn out.

But it was good to see everyone - to hang with the usual suspects, and meet a few new ones. I even got to nab Joe in person for the first time ever, when he unexpectedly turned up on the convention floor to sign for an hour or two. I've known him online for ages, but had never actually been in the same room with him until this week - when I overheard him speaking somewhere behind me, recognized the voice, and homed in to say "hello."

Lovely man, that. Can't recommend him enough, and I even scored a signed copy of his new (semi)YA book, Edge of Dark Water. I'm looking forward to diving in ... though diving in might take a bit.

For you see, we've begun packing things up.

As you know by now, we're moving at the end of this month. More specifically, we're getting the moving truck on the 28th, so we are now in the terrifying home stretch of a cross-country drive with all our stuff and the Angry!Cat accompanist. Tomorrow, we take said Angry!Cat to the vet for a last-minute checkup/vaccination update/certificate of health, which will be an absolute joy, I am quite certain; and then Sunday night we're joining friends for a going-away supper, which I expect to be much less stressful.*

Today I received the keys to the house in the mail, and suddenly it all felt very, very real.


* And probably better-smelling, since we have to bring along a poo-sample from the Angry!Cat. To the vet, not the supper. Just to clarify.

Gone To Texas

Hey everyone - and I hate to make this post a drive-by, but here I go anyway: Tomorrow morning I'm flying out for the Texas Library Association conference in Houston.

Should we encounter one another at this event, remember that I am surrounded by a 10-ft. "No Shyness" zone. If you want to say hello, come say hello! Bring books. I'll sign 'em. I also keep a black Sharpie and a silver Sharpie on hand, for those of you with e-readers who want them/their covers signed. I AM PREPARED, PEOPLE, so don't worry that you're "bothering" me. This is literally what I'm there for - to be accosted.

But gently, please. I'll be on West Coast time, and the early morning panels might have me a little scrambled in the Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed department.

* * * * *

Yes, when I get back to Seattle on Thursday night, I'll have juuuuust about a week to finish packing up my household and getting everything/everybody ready for the Big Move to Tennessee. Therefore, I do hope you'll pardon the intermittent radio silence leading up to that ... um ... more prolonged radio silence, while my husband and I drive a few thousand miles over the course of a week. (With Angry!cat along for the ride, as heavily sedated as is medically safe.)

Meanwhile, watch for me over on Twitter. 140 characters of lazy updating, performed during nap intermissions, airport delays, and bathroom breaks. Come and get it!

Metrics. Such as they are.

Here's recent progress on my comic/sci-fi young adult project where a girl becomes a ninja and fights aliens with much ass-kicking and many LOLs but not a whole lot of kissing (or any kissing, to be frank) plus BONUS Bruce Lee's ghost, a vintage Thunderbird, zenlightenment on the fly, and fat stacks of Cool Ranch Doritos.
Project: Ninja Planet
Deadline: Sooner or Later
New words written: 1374 (boo.)
Present total word count: 33,556 words





Things accomplished in fiction: Bad things. Aliens grow bored with keeping their distance, and come in for a closer look. This doesn't go well for anyone - particularly not anyone in or around the Bonneville salt flats.

Things accomplished in real life: Went to the post office; went to Walgreens; scanned some contracts for reference's sake and sent them off to my agent; conducted other assorted misc. bits of Writer Business; tided apartment and would've cleaned the bathroom but decided against it for now; also skipped laundry but that needs to happen this weekend; argh this is turning into a to-do list, not a did-list.

Other: Logged onto Google+ to find it redesigned beyond recognition. Felt like an idiot because I couldn't figure out how to post anymore. Did eventually figure it out. Still felt like an idiot. But you know, I never do anything but cross-post links to blog updates over there ... so I might just scrap the account. I don't know. We'll see.

Bride of Other: I do not always react very well to change.