I uploaded all the "Before" pictures last night. The "Afters" will have to wait, because our house is currently a disaster area, and what's the point of taking pictures that are supposed to convey the beauty and success of your redecorating, if the rooms are full of half-emptied cardboard boxes, stacks of sweaters and furniture left behind by your previous tenants?
Sigh.
I am so farking ready to only live in one place. I'm down to living in two places rather than three, which is a huge bonus. However, we've still got the bedroom and laundry at Paul's old house, but all the kitchen and entertainment stuff at the new place, which makes it difficult to really get settled in.
I've been feeling really unsettled lately. For those of you who know me well, you will understand how much of my mental stability is bound up in having a "home base"; a place to center and feel nested and secure. I haven't had a space like that in about two months. Heck, I don't even have a drawer for my clothes right now. I have more of a compost pile on the floor of the bedroom, in which the dirty clothes get put on the bottom, the clean ones on top, and every ten days or so we turn it over with a pitchfork and put the whole thing in the wash.
I mean, we're supposed to be officially Living In Sin now, but it we spend so little time actually around each other, between my frequent trips back to Ann Arbor, and all the housework, and dividing our time between the two places. Technically, we won't be cohabbing until we sell Paul's house. We have my house, and his... so we're still theoretically in two separate places.
Anyhow.
Work went well this weekend. I had to go to a wedding on Saturday and Paul had a caricaturing gig, so nothing got done. On Sunday, though, we pulled out all the stops, and did a ton of shopping, dumping another $300 at Lowe's, and laying the new floor in the master bath.
I know I should be shopping at the local hardware store, Hoekstra's. I know this. Hoekstra's rocks, and the people there are un-be-lieveably helpful and nice and knowledgeable. I kick Hoekstra's my business whenever I can. However, they're not open on Sundays, and when that's the only day for three weeks that we could actually spare four hours to go do shopping and planning and work -- that's just how it worked out. I really do have an unholy love of Lowe's. They're soooooo much better than Home De$pot, and they really do have everything, all at once. But I really am trying to support local businesses. Really I am.
Really.
I felt even more guilty about registering with two major chains for the bridal registry. But for sake of ease, it was the way I had to go. What I really wanted was to register with Novica.com but they're not doing online registries yet, durnit. I'm still planning on buying all my drapes and rugs from them, and my duvet cover from the Tamarind Store. Fair trade rocks.
Um.
I had a point here, somewhere.
Oh, yeah. The title of this whole entry... "Ride 'em, Cowboyhouse!"
This gets back to the whole theory of me not having a place to call Home yet. It's hard on me. I'm really tired and verging on Cranky much of the time now. I have to keep holding on to what my buddy Virus says.
Virus is an Aquarius, the flightiest of the zodiac signs. Give him a backpack and a pair of hiking boots and he's at home anywhere he goes. Not so with Taurus me, (literal polar opposite to the Aquarius) who must have a nest to be truly happy. It doesn't really matter where or what the space is, so long as it's mine, and is stable.
Matthew gave this perfect analogy: A Taurus and an Aquarius are in a house during an earthquake. The Taurus begins freaking out, running around, taping windows, saving the china as it falls, and generally panicking because of the violent change. The Aquarius, on the other hand, is on the roof, waving his hat and yelling, "I've never been in an actual earthquake before! This is great! Ride 'em, Cowboyhouse!"
So yeah. Ride 'em, Cowboyhouse.