chimesblog

I just spent all of last week MOVING. Again. I know.

The house I was living in sold, so I was given 30 days to skedaddle. Moved in with my boyfriend and his roommate (who I was planning on moving in with ANYWAY come August) and now we have a pretty sweet setup.

I’m not going to post pictures of their place before. They would be forever ashamed. But here’s what we’ve got going now. Also I have to point out that we have like 11 game systems between the 3 of us. Yeah. It’s pathetic.

After combining pillows, we have ELEVEN pillows on our bed. There is no room for people. Or a dog. The good news is that since Mark’s bed is a full size, we can build the pillows up on the side to make it a queen. Kidding. But seriously. Also, we’re thinking of painting his red and blue furniture a more grown-up color … like a taupe, black or brown.

Girlie stuff + boy stuff. And I now have access to my all-in-one printer. It was on the tippy top of my desk before and I didn’t use it at ALL in my last place. My summer project (amongst many) is to scan in all of my photo albums and digitally archive them so I don’t have to cart them around with me for EVERY move. You know what that means? More installments of Time Warp Saturday.

Um. Our kitchen is awesome. Just saying. By some strange coincidence Mark and I had the same set of canisters, so now we’ve got tons of stuff all canistered-up. On the stove is this month’s batch of Mark’s marinara sauce.

And more kitchen. In the crock pot is a pot roast experiment. If successful, I will blog about it. On the wall: artwork by Kim Kullmer.

So that’s about it. For the next 4-5 months anyway. We are moving on July 31 to our new 3-bedroom and I get my doggie back. (BTW I did not mention that Barney is with my parents because we can’t have animals here)

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I’m getting around to hanging stuff up in my apartment, and I’ve made a rule. The things I’m not sure of where to put, I’m going to hang on existing nails. That way, I’m not putting any more holes in the wall, and it makes decorating a bit more fun.  If I find the perfect place for something later, I’ll move it, but for now, everything’s been going on existing nails.

I love how the hallway turned out. I had to cheat and add one or two nails because there wasn’t enough for all my mirrors and shelves (the big mirror at the end of the hallway was there, thank you very much, Adria, who I know is commenting on how many mirrors are in my apartment). There’s a lovely piece of art by my friend, Kim, on my shelf as well. It’s what I used to create the layout for The Half Hearts first album, After the Flood.

I made a couple more frames with fabric in them.  I chose some vintage scraps that Adria had given me a while back after she cut enough squares for her vintage mini postage stamp quilt. I’d been stashing a larger piece of this because I loved the colors. Turns out, it matches my kitchen perfectly.  I painted the frames one shade darker than the walls using a Martha Stewart paint sample I bought from Home Depot.  For now, they’re hanging on existing nails.

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Another quickie project in efforts to spruce up my space: bathroom curtain.

The existing curtain that came with the apartment wasn’t really my taste …

I’m pretty sure it was fashioned from part of the old shower curtain.  Anyway, ignore my messy bathroom. I haven’t had time to unpack everything or hang my shelf on the wall.

Here’s my new curtain. I’ve been looking for something to use the last yard of my Michael Miller Lava Flowers on … and this was perfect!

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It’s weird when all your belongings are moved out of a space that you used to call your own. It’s just … empty.  A shell.

I was sitting in my empty apartment waiting to get checked out when it hit me that I wasn’t in my home anymore. Then I got to thinking about all the stuff that happened in that apartment. First thing that came to mind was the time I got epically sick with the stomach flu and wound up lying on the bathroom floor all night. Then I remembered going through the breakup last fall and how I couldn’t stand coming home to that apartment because it didn’t feel like home to me. It was just the place I ended up when my last boyfriend didn’t want me around anymore.

But then I remembered that my first kiss with Mark was in this room.  The first time he came to Des Moines he spent time here.

That’s about it. Honestly, I’m not going to miss this place much. I’m going to miss the fact that I can’t go home and shower over lunch after a workout, craft over lunch, take a nap over lunch, or just chill out and watch crappy TV over my lunch.  Otherwise, I consider it just a place to store my stuff. Not really much of a home.

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I’m super excited about this, but it’s probably pretty boring to most of you.

So I finally decided to decorate my apartment, you know, after I’ve lived here for a year-and-a-half and right before I move out in May.  I guess better late than never.

I rearranged my bedroom last weekend (finally) at the suggestion of my friend Shelly several months back.  I ordered a few cute accessories from UrbanOutfitters.  I don’t have any before pictures, but here are some after pictures. 

Bedroom — with my Amy Butler sampler quilt courtesy of my friend Adria hanging on the wall and with my new chandelier light hanging above — which, by the way, I totally installed all by myself thanks to the HerTools(tm) set I received for Christmas from my mom *cough cough* I mean, Santa. No mechanical engineering expertise from Mr. Awesome needed. (I feel so empowered! I can use a screwdriver!)

Closeup of the chandelier.

My dresser with jewelry and some cute fabric swatches on the wall

a more “artsy” shot …

I hung all my scarves and hats up on my shelves with hooks … and I realized that I had a piece from my friend Kim that she’d painted for my friend Flip’s band, The Half Hearts, for their first album After the Flood.  I dunno if this goes to Flip or not, but for now, I’m going to keep it since apparently he hasn’t missed it …

And my living room with my daybed and the new tapestry hanging behind it.  I’ve had the same daybed since 8th grade along with the ugly floral sham, but it works well with the pieces I’ve made and acquired over the years. The white and purple quilt is from my great grandma, and I love how it matches everything so perfectly. I keep designing around it even though it’s almost completely fallen apart.

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So here I am on a normal hermiting Saturday afternoon. Elbow deep in crafting. Getting ready to put it all away and go work out.

I’ve been making shrink jewelry all day and I went outside to spray acrylic coating on the pieces to seal them.  For all who don’t know, I have a huge porch that’s enclosed with 8-10 ft. walls.  I chose this apartment for that reason because I was concerned about my safety living alone (I used to get stalkers — but that’s a really long and scary story).

ANYWHO, who would have thought that I would get stuck outside on the hottest day of the year?  Go figure.

The big sliding door’s lock latched apparently when I shut it. Normally I would have just kept the screen door open, but I was spraying fume-y stuff and — oh — by the way — my screen door has been broken since I moved in. So that wasn’t an option anyway.

I finished spraying. Turned around. Pulled on the door. What the HELL?  Locked.

Poop.

Okay, wellll I seem to remember one of my windows not wanting to shut all the way (which I noticed earlier today because it annoyed me that I was running the air with the window cracked).  So, Ms. MacGuyver took the grill cleaning utensil brush and pried the window open a bit more.  But then the window slammed all the way shut when I took out the utensil to put a tree branch in it to hold it open to pull with my body weight.

CRAP.

So, what is my next option?  Well, just in case, I try the door again. Not so much.

So I have this little tree in my porch that I have always been afraid that some robber/stalker/burglar/rapist was going to climb down and get me (yea, paranoid much??). Well, thank GOD for the tree because that’s what saved me.

There isn’t any branches low enough to where I could climb up from the bottom of the tree, so I grabbed my bike that was parked on my porch and used that to boost me high enough to where I could start climbing.  All the while, all I could think about was OH MY GOD I’M IN MY PJS AND IT’S 3 PM AND I’M GROSS I HOPE NOBODY SEES ME CLIMBING THIS TREE!!!

So I get high enough to where I can see over the walls.  At this point I’m trying to figure out how to get over the wall and grab onto the light pole (which was how I suspected burglars/rapists/robbers/stalkers could get to the tree) and slide down.  I was looking around a bit for more options and I noticed a guy in the parking lot walking towards my door (my apartment is next to the entrance).

AND, not to mention, this guy is the ONE neighbor I ever talked to here and he’s saved my ass once before already (not as dire last time — couldn’t get the door open because the lock on the door was broken (yay).

Okay, so here I am. In the tree. In my jammies.  Hollering out this kid’s name.

He sees me. HALLELUJAH.  ”So… this might look a little weird, but my sliding door locked and I’m stuck out here. Can you call the property management?”

SURE!

Yes.  Most random, awesome thing ever.

This kid is my hero.  I’m seriously bringing him cookies later. He tossed me water over the wall and everything.

So I sat and waited about a half hour for the maintenance guy to let me in my apartment (ridiculous) — and yes, the kid I knew could have let me in himself had my door to the apartment not been locked.

Anyway, that was pretty intense. It is ridiculously hot out (heat index of 106°) and if I hadn’t caught my neighbor, I’d probably still be sitting out there or have 2 broken legs from climbing over a wall and jumping down.

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