Monday, April 20, 2009

Done ... Done!!! ... DONE!!!

First, thanks Lisa! Yeah, having a kitchen in the Imaginarium opens up a lot of possibilities ... being able to clean up after my messy self ... a stove for experimenting with teas, candle making, soap making ... oh yeah. :o) I considered getting rid of the stove, but we didn't, mostly due to not knowing what to do with it. Now I'm glad I kept it. It does desperately need the faucet either repaired or replaced, but that's a down-the-road project.

Getting your own Imaginarium will be great! I was more than willing to accept just a single room, but we just didn't happen to find a house that had the number of bedrooms we needed (that would have required 4) before we found this place, with the entire flipping apartment! So I lucked out, big time!

I'm terribly excited about the living room furniture! I just now looked at the pictures again, and just kind of went, "Sigh - oh wow!" Yeah, it's gonna be great!

But in bigger news ... we finally are done moving out of the old house! I'm both embarrassed and relieved to say that we just finished this past Saturday. We hauled the last stuff that's coming to the new house, and hauled out almost a dumpster full of garbage to the dumpster behind my office (permission aforehand, of course) so ... I'M DONE! Now I can just focus on this place.

I have to say, I was very concerned about feeling nostalgic and sad about leaving the old house for the last time. And under some circumstances, it could well have happened. I mean, as I said before, I lived there for 15 years ... but more than that, my dad was so involved with that place, doing so much there, and that's what I anticipated being most painful to leave.

But the cure for that was to drag out the moving for two freaking months. That made me so ready to be done with that place that it overshadowed all the painful nostalgia. When we were done, and I was leaving for what I knew was the last time, I did walk around briefly and kind of gave a nod of respect to the place, but ... it wasn't as big a deal as I was afraid it was going to be.

I'm sure that in time to come, I will remember the place with wonderful fondness, but I'm not going to "miss it" or be even remotely sad about leaving it anymore. It was a great place for me that served it's purpose well in it's time, but ... it was high time to move on.

I did get several things that were important to me. My dad bought me a miniature rose many years ago, not long after I moved into that house. It always did phenomenally well ... here's a picutre of it at the old house ...


... and I was determined to take it with me. Because it was small, it was easy, and I got it Saturday - we dug it up, brought it home, and planted it out front. I also got a few other gardeny things that came from my dad.

I was a little disappointed that I couldn't take more plants. My dad had bought and planted for me two holly bushes when I first moved in, which had grown to enormous proportions. I'd have liked to bring them, but they were just so huge, it would have been a major, major undertaking to try and move them. So I didn't. He also bought me a bunch of groundcover plants just a few years ago, which I'd have liked to have brought - but there were so many individual plants. There were some other things, too, that I wish I could have brought.

But ... I got the rose, I got the Santa (story there for later), I got the cedar planter barrel and a piece of the unfortunately deceased dogwood and the toad house, all of which my dad got me ... and I got the yard goose and garden frog my mom got me, as well as her garden gnome I got her ... and I'll be content with that.

After all ... my dad's the one who instilled in me a love of gardening (or in my case, a love of attempting to garden, I've never gotten very good at it). But I know what he loved ... petunias ... holly ... his apple trees ... and I can plant those things anew here, with him in mind.

Now that we're done "moving out," I can focus on "moving in." Tonight I went into a flurry of work on the living room. It has been more or less a storage facility since we moved in, but knowing the new furniture was coming (and ready to have a new place to hang out, besides the basement family room), I was ready to clean it out. So I did. I got almost all the stuff that was stashed there put where it goes, and it's mostly empty and ready for the new furniture!




The rocking chair (an antique) and the sea chest are staying. The table in front of the window is probably staying too, although I'm not sure it's staying where it is.

And while unpacking boxes, I found some surpises! It was kind of like Christmas in April!

I found a sort of party dish set, four dishes and four punch-type cups, all glass, the dishes looking like sunflowers ...


... it had to have been my mom's but I have no recollection of it, or where it came from. It's really cool, though. I also found this dish ...


... which is kinda cool. It's very heavy, thick glass. I'm sure both of the above are old, antiques even. This is both the joy and curse of unpacking stuff I didn't even know I had. On the one hand, it's beyond wonderful to finally have room for these treasures! Finally I can actually unpack them and have them in my life, instead of stashed away somewhere till I don't even know I have them! But on the down side, now that my mom and dad are gone, I have no idea where these things came from, their story ... and have no one to ask. That's a shame.

I also found 5 wooden wall sconces with glass hurricane-lamp style chimneys or globes, which are very cool.


I knew my mom had a few of those, but I didn't know there were so many! I especially like the ones on the left, it's not clear in this picture, but they have roses on the top, which I think will fit in well in the living room decor. I know there are two more packed away in storage that I do know the provenance of ... her brother got into woodworking after he retired, and he made them for her. They'll turn up eventually. But I'm not sure where these came from.

I also got the 'home office' moved to the spare room.


It's not done yet, but it's all in there, and that's a huge first step. I'm using the built-ins, and will have to figure out later what to do with my dad's desk, which is still in the living room.

So things are moving along wonderfully here.

And I'm psyched about some new projects, as well. I've been working diligently on my calligraphy - pictures some day! And I'm anxious to start working on my picture quilt wall hanging. I'm sad to say that for the moment, I've kind of lost interest in knitting ... but I don't think it's a permanent thing. I think it's just because moving opened up so many new possibilities that knitting that has just kind of taken a back seat for the time being.

I think that's all for now. The Dread Reverend is out of town for work till Thursday, which is partly what prompted my flurry of house work ... I'm bored and lonely. I'm sure I'll keep busy this week.

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