Soon! Soon! Soon!

Then will be now, soon!

I was going to take a picture of my balcony to show you all at least the outside of my apartment, but I can't find my camera USB cable; I believe I packed it up this weekend. So that will have to wait.

I got a nice chunk of birthday money for my birthday in July, and I decided to save it for something fun. When the move became apparent, I thought to use it for that. I wanted to use it for something that was a treat, not towards organizers or something practical I went to Fred Meyer (for those of you not in this neck of the woods, it's like a Target with a grocery store, but somewhat nicer, as well as having a huge hardware section), and I decided to see if they had any bedding and curtains on sale.

I've been wanting new bedding for awhile (what I have is 7 years old; I still like it, but I wanted something new), and I need new curtains for my bedroom terrace door. The apartments come with curtains, but they're those generic, white, heavy ones you find in every TravelLodge and Motel 6 from here to Florida. Not all that pretty.

I found a really nice bedding set that's all satiny and sheeny and velvety gold, sage green, cream, burgundy and garnet. It's beautiful, and came with accent pillows, too. I then found some beautiful curtains that pick up the tone of the sage green of the bedding; it's really luxurious (OK, all I need to say now is that there's a "pop" of color and I can fully sound like every cliche decorator host out there....)

I learned from my mother well. The bedding and curtains pulls in the colors I have out in my living room, keeping the design "streamlined." (Thanks, Mom!)

I fully intended to rehang my old generi-curtians when I left, but I was mortified to discover as I went through my suitcases for donation that I'd donated the suitcase in which I'd stored them...with the curtains still in it. Oops.

The manager said she might have to charge me for them, but that's okay; I'm going to take the ones they put up down again, but I'm going to be squeaky certain they stay put with me.

I still have some packing to do, of course, but what's irksome is that I'll realize I've been staring at an item I should have packed up already; some knicknack or a book that's still floating around. And the funny thing is how bland my apartment smells without all my candles and stuff out; the whole place feels dead and closed up, like I've packed up the place's "personality".

I ran out of boxes this weekend, which meant a call to my mom to please let me borrow some more; though I wanted to get more done this weekend, I was glad. By the time I'd taped up the last box I had, I was sick to death of packing, and I was glad to stop. Plus it was just too hot to do anything; we had about 4-5 days in a row of 100 degree weather, and by the time Saturday rolled around, I was equally sick to death of feeling damp, hot and sticky -- despite the fact I'd taken a long, cool / cold shower and had dried off using one of my fans to up the "cool factor."

Today is much cooler, and is even rainy. We had a thunderstorm going this morning, too. Hopefully when I move Labor Day weekend it won't be raining, snowing, sleeting, hailing, slushing -- and sometimes all of the above at the same time -- like it was when Andrew and Hanne moved into their new place.

I'm not sure which would be worse -- moving in the weather we had this weekend (dry but only a bit cooler than what Death Valley was reporting) (I kid you not), or the weird sleety weather.

Something in-between would be most preferable, please and thank you Weather Gods.

I'm only moving to the other building, but I realized a truck would be needed for my bulkier things; Dad suggested I rent a big 4x4 kind of truck, but the cheapest I could find, even using my car insurance discount, was $65 a day, and I think they wanted to charge me for both Friday and Saturday, despite the fact I wanted to pick it up at 6pm Friday and return it 6pm Saturday; so it would have been $130, and that's before all the miscellaneous taxes they tack on.

So I went to U-Haul instead and got a decently-sized truck for $30. Much better.

I also saw that the building I'm moving into allows for easier windchime hanging; my terrace roof is concrete, and I had to hang my chimes using plastic hooks attached with super glue; my new place has wood, it looks like, where I can put in metal hooks. Much better.

Hmm. I just realized I need to get new hooks for my bird feeder, my hanging geraniums and my hummingbird feeder....

All the little details of moving. I have the electricity, digital cable and phone / FiOS (Verizon's uber-speedy Internet service) scheduled to switch over, and then it's a matter of remembering all the other places that need my new address. I was able to schedule the forwarding for my mail online, but the USPS charges $1 to do that, oddly. Oh well. Cheaper than what I'd pay in gas driving to a place to get a form.

And I'm going to have to get new cleaning products; Windex works terribly on stainless steel appliances (it streaks badly), so I have to get a special cleaner for that (thanks, Dad, for that advice!), and since granite is porous and requires a sealer every now and again, I can't use my Mr. Clean solution that I use now; the suggestion is a damp, soft cloth and mild dish soap; to seal it I can just use Johnson's Wax (thanks Gramma, for that advice!)

Fancy new items needing fancy new cleaning products. But oh-so-nice! I'm so excited! (I'm sure you guys had no idea that I was, even just a little...)

So that's the latest update.

Could I please stop packing sometime soon -- ?!

-- H