Questing

I finally got to take my father out for his birthday. We went to TGIF with Mom, and ate in the bar area. Lucky for us, it was still happy hour so drinks were cheaper and so were the buffalo wings! His birthday was last month, but with the move and everything, it was really hard for us to get away. This worked out just fine though. It’s good to see my father laughing and conversing. He’s having a good deal of depression and anxiety over his upcoming surgery. (may 3rd) I’ll be taking that day off to be at the hospital with him and the rest of my family.

We (Mom, Dad, me) spent the rest of Friday night hanging out at my parents. We watched Cold Case and talked about a really great book he and I both love, The Great Explosion.

Saturday I slept in, and was just up getting breakfast when Mom called. She wanted to bring by a drill and show us how to put up the rest of our blinds. Carlo cleaned off the counters in the kitchen, and I worked at moving some stuff around in the dining room, which is full of small box shantyville. (as opposed to the large box city in the basement) It’s strange how much we are accomplishing these weekends.

With Mom’s guidance, we got all the blinds up! Yay for privacy! Things still look bare, but soon we’ll get our pictures up, and might look for some drapes. Aww, the nesting instinct.

Saturday night I joined Kim and Maciek to see a watercolor art show. The guy who’s been teaching figure drawing to us down at the Union had opened his studio up to show everyone his trip to Mexico and Belize. We brought him fresh tulips, which he promptly put in a clay vase and put on the table he had Mexican food out for people to eat.

He had painted a travel log and had little mocked up emails on the walls that he sent from internet cafe’s. The watercolors were really fantastic. We had a little wine, and some fried bananas(called something different though), and wandered through his art vacation. He seemed to capture quite a bit of the quality of the light, and had paintings of beaches, creatures, Mayan ruins. I chatted a bit with him about my Mexican experience. After a while, we slipped out to head back to K&M’s place to watch a couple episodes of the 12 Kingdoms anime, which we’ve been obsessing over lately.

Sunday woke grey and gloomy, and I mostly sat around with the computer and with page 7 of tabloid to work on. The afternoon was quite momentous though. I called up Maciek, and we got me a drafting/art desk! Finally! I helped him put it together, and it’s fabulous! I just haven’t had time to play with it yet, but it’s really great, it has lots of little drawers, is rather steady, and big enough for two pages to be out on it at once. I can’t wait to see how this helps me! so very thrilled. Before he left, I showed him the Eyetoy and some of the fun ‘wave your hands around’ games, which he quite enjoyed.

Then we finally returned to our Sunday night gaming, only I was quite exhausted from the full weekend. I feel bad that I wasn’t as alert as I wanted to be. We had fun though, and plan to continue the scuffle our characters got into, next game.

I finally got to take my father out for his birthday. We went to TGIF with Mom, and ate in the bar area. Lucky for us, it was still happy hour so drinks were cheaper and so were the buffalo wings! His birthday was last month, but with the move and everything, it was really hard for us to get away. This worked out just fine though. It’s good to see my father laughing and conversing. He’s having a good deal of depression and anxiety over his upcoming surgery. (may 3rd) I’ll be taking that day off to be at the hospital with him and the rest of my family.

We (Mom, Dad, me) spent the rest of Friday night hanging out at my parents. We watched Cold Case and talked about a really great book he and I both love, The Great Explosion.

Saturday I slept in, and was just up getting breakfast when Mom called. She wanted to bring by a drill and show us how to put up the rest of our blinds. Carlo cleaned off the counters in the kitchen, and I worked at moving some stuff around in the dining room, which is full of small box shantyville. (as opposed to the large box city in the basement) It’s strange how much we are accomplishing these weekends.

With Mom’s guidance, we got all the blinds up! Yay for privacy! Things still look bare, but soon we’ll get our pictures up, and might look for some drapes. Aww, the nesting instinct.

Saturday night I joined Kim and Maciek to see a watercolor art show. The guy who’s been teaching figure drawing to me down at the Union had opened his studio up to show everyone his Mexico and Belize. We brought him fresh tulips, which he promptly put in a clay vase and put on the table he had Mexican food out for people to eat.
He had painted a travel log and had little mocked up emails on the walls that he sent from internet cafe’s. The watercolors were really fantastic. We had a little wine, and some fried bananas(called something different though), and wandered through his art vacation. He seemed to capture quite a bit of the quality of the light, and had paintings of beaches, creatures, Mayan ruins. I chatted a bit with him about my Mexican experience. After a while, we slipped out to head back to K&M’s place to watch a couple episodes of the 12 Kingdoms anime, which we’ve been obsessing over lately.

Sunday woke grey and gloomy, and I mostly sat around with the computer and with page 7 of tabloid to work on. The afternoon was quite momentous though. I called up Maciek, and we got me a drafting/art desk! Finally! I helped him put it together, and it’s fabulous! I just haven’t had time to play with it yet, but it’s really great, it has lots of little drawers, is rather steady, and big enough for two pages to be out on it at once. I can’t wait to see how this helps me! so very thrilled. Before he left, I showed him the Eyetoy and some of the fun ‘wave your hands around’ games, which he quite enjoyed.

Then we finally returned to our Sunday night gaming, only I was quite exhausted from the full weekend. I feel bad that I wasn’t as alert as I wanted to be. We had fun though, and plan to continue the scuffle our characters got into, next game.

We love our new place.

It’s full of windows, and has a great view of this little park area right out front. I’m hoping that viewing these vistas will help me to get out into the outside more than before, and I have to admit to being tempted to walk the sidewalks when the sun comes streaming in.

We were so blessed to have so many wonderful friends and family members to help us get all too many boxes and couches over here. It was really great to see everyone, and the time we spent boxing things before they got here really helped. We transported several loads over to the new place before needing the last minute ‘box up what’s left’ boxes. We had so many people that we were able to send people to unpack at the new place while leaving some to finish up packing the old place, and two of my parents vans let us do both loading and unloading simultaneously. It was a highly organized dance of dust, clutter, and boxes. An amazing feat, really. We are so thankful to everyone that helped. You really made our move fairly painless.

Then my mother measured our windows, went to Menard’s and purchased window blinds custom cut for all our windows! Amazing! We still need to put most of them up, but we did manage to get them up in the master bedroom and master bedroom. (I’m sure you all agree these are quite important.)

My art room is also wonderful, though of course, boxes are everywhere, and I’m still missing my art desk. (hope to pick it up in the next couple weeks). I have windows on two walls in there(southwest exposure), a small comfy blue couch, and a little tv hooked up to keep me company. I started unpacking by tackling my manga and art reference boxes, but I have a good deal of miscellany in boxes mysteriously labeled ‘Stacie’s room’ that will need sorting, and storing away.

Last weekend I got most of our kitchen unpacked, and we’ve been tackling things bit by bit. It already feels like home though, and more everyday. Very pleased, very pleased.

The basement is very full of boxes, and lamps, and all manner of things. It’s supposed to be my husband’s domain, so it’ll be quite a bit before it becomes the den. Also it might take a while for us to tackle the space due to the omission of a cable box down there. There will be talks with the landlord to figure that out. But new places always have these things to work through.

The architecture makes me happy, and that’s a very important thing. This place is going to work out for us, very nicely.