I counted eight different kinds of flour, EIGHT. They are:

All-purpose
Buckwheat
Garbanzo Bean
Almond
Millet
Oat
Chestnut
White rice

And I even own wheat germ which doesn’t actually count as a flour but it needs to be baked rather than eaten.

The bananas in the freezer were also threatening to stage a revolt. Clearly, something needed to happen. I had made a lentil and hot italian sausage soup earlier in the weekend, it’s hot and satisfying and will feed me all week. But then seeing all the overages, I needed to do something. I made banana bread with the last of the dates and a ton of walnuts, pizza dough, and rice pudding with plums and orange peel in the absence of raisins. The new vegetables will undergo a quick prep later, maybe tomorrow. When I complain of not having any food in the house, I need to come back and read this post, even if I needed onions something desperate since I had actually run out.

Now back to reading… even if it isn’t cold enough to really love my time indoors.

Spring arrives

Finally, a full day of spring descended upon my reality that’s been fraught with seemingly endless problems, often of my own creation. The above picture isn’t even from this weekend, but the one two before when the sun shone but I had been sleeping on the couch and was exhausted thanks to the Flood and the Monstrosity so I barely noticed. The next, it rained torrentially and the windows leaked. This last one, was a beaut… even though I spent Saturday inside thanks to my stupid idea to paint my closet with the leftover green paint. I also needed to sort my clothes and get rid of what I won’t wear. It was far more work than I bargained for and it took me the entire blessed day.

It was harder than it looks but it was one more step to being done with the spring cleaning. When I think I’m done, I come up with some other psychotic project that I absolutely must do. But it’s spring and it feels like it’s finally the first one for me in the new place.

Now I have to get cracking on the novel rewrite.

• Hung art in the bathroom.
• Cleaned the bathroom in its entirety.
• Changed out the makeup and cleaned the cart.
• Cleaned the oven.
• Changed the bed linen to the spring collection and washed and stored the fall linen.
• Vacuumed thoroughly.
• Cleaned beneath the steps and changed the storage situation of the towels and the tools.
• Wiped down the pantry shelves.
• Washed the Aran sweater.
• Scrubbed the floors and the steps of the entryway.

Things yet to be done:

• Store winter clothes and winnow the rest of the clothing closet.
• Paint the closets.
• Change the doors.
• Scrub kitchen floors.

I went out and bought some tealights and they look great in the little IKEA green glass I moved into the bathroom. I also got my stainless steel bowl and a new bottle of linen spray. The relentless rain helped keep me locked inside.

Pictures coming when more is done. Come April, I want to be done with housing updates until the fall.

P.S. Wow, Dirty Pretty Things, while grotesque, is a pretty awesome movie.

The bathroom needs to be finished Monday. I can’t believe how happy I am with the paint color.

My new chair whose delivery caused so much worry.

This is a great time of the year to make all kinds of home purchases since things are on sale. unfortunately, last year was punctuated by a death in the family, a stressful real estate deal, and general exhaustion. I felt I couldn’t spend any more money (just the act of buying anything at all costs tens of thousands of dollars, not counting the down payment). Also, I was so mentally exhausted, I couldn’t make any rational decisions about more things, especially things that would be costly. Anything involving work on a home is costly.

This year, though, I’m ready to do something and I can finally make rational decisions. My first move was to get rid of the oversized, out of fashion lounge chair I had. I saw this Delia chair on Room and Board’s end of year sale it was the exact same chair I had loved since the previous spring, in just the fabric I wanted. I bought it. After a lot of rescheduling thanks to my insane work realities, I finally got it delivered and had my other chair picked up by a local charity. It looks amazing with my throw pillow I got years ago at the old Matthew Izzo (that place is a local business but I hate everything they stock these days).

The painter comes tomorrow for an estimate of just the bedroom and bathroom. If I like her work, I’ll have her do the rest of the apartment. Slowly things get done and when a lot of money and big changes are on the hook, slowly is probably best. I’m one of those people who has a clear idea of what I want and I cannot and will not accept anything but that. That’s why it takes me so long to arrive at a decision. Hey, I hate it, too. But I can’t make excuses or apologies for being hard to please.

Next up:

• Get my spices organized
• Fix the files
• Change the bedroom closet doors
• Hang the Montmarte picture in the bedroom

Fortunately, for my apartment, Apartment Therapy has launched a public spring Cure based on the book. I signed up to do it though I may or may not participate in the posting of the photography. It takes too long. I have done things for the apartment, though, that are useful though not quite right with the pathway of the cure.

• I found out the rules about the windows and have gotten references for possible workers.
• I’m zeroing in on my paint colors.
• I finally ordered counter stools.
• I started on an outbox but the things in it have been in it for weeks.

One final thing that’s good: I have one more unit and one more final before I finish the next-to-the-last class. Once done, I will submit evidence to my employer and take the rest of the month OFF. It has completely eaten all my time. If I’m not working on it, I feel guilty for not working on it. I have also stopped watching the news.

I’m not the touchy-feely type. I generally believe in very little and like things done in a rational, logical way. I’ve been prowling ApartmentTherapy.com a lot, lately, in a blind dash for ideas on what to do with this place that cost me so much peace of mind and a sizable chunk of my take-home pay every month. I’ve been wanting some great transformation to happen all at once, a transformation that will make me love this place that right now I barely like. The brutal cold of winter hasn’t helped. (I don’t recognize the scrawl on the Post-It notes on my monitor. The cold has made it difficult to type and impossible to write.)

I was in the library last week returning a book on Condo Ownership, of which I didn’t read a word. I’m not in the frame of mind to read anything with an patina of importance or I may kill someone or implode or jump out my windows. I, the slave of books that I’ve always been, dawdled around and found myself in the home decorating section. Amidst books with titles like “Loft Living” that make me so anxious because my place is such a hovel compared to those places, I saw a little book entitled Apartment Therapy: The Eight Week Cure. There were so splashy pictures of designer lofts overlooking Central Park people by fashionistas in Manolo Blahniks. I read a little bit of it and it said something about an eight week plan to make your home feel better. Since I’m so overwhelmed with this place that I don’t know where to start, I took it and checked out.

I read it in 2 days. Cover to cover. Though sometimes the author goes a bit too much into psycho-babble, what he says is true. Maybe the psycho-babble part of it is true and maybe that’s part of why I’ve been so anxious and overwhelmed and exhausted lately, My home isn’t working for me and I have to force it to become mine and a place for me. The pacing of the book is reassuring and helpful with just enough concrete information to qualify as a how-to that it’s nearly saved my life. I’m going to follow the so-called cure and get this place together and make it work. The incredibly cold and depressing winter is beginning to lift and this will be a great time to do it. Hopefully by the snowfalls of next December, I’ll be so firmly ensconced that the cold won’t matter.

Today I went out and got some orange tulips as the author says. Buying flowers every week is expensive and I doubt I’ll keep it up religiously but it’s a start. I’ve already started the Outbox (though technically that doesn’t happen until the next week on the cure but I’m comfortable with jumping ahead a bit). I’m ahead in that I already cook at home nearly every night. I’m ahead in that I recently moved and so have already purged quite a bit and so I can work in some of the other things like painting. I may start with the bathroom. I will tape paint chips on the walls after I’m done with this.

Little by little, this will get done.

Painting the entire place may have to wait, though. I’ve made a list of the repairs that need to be done and fixing the windows is at the top of the list.

Weekend Cooking:

• Torta di mandorla
• Warm Tuna and Potato Salad

I continue on my brutal work path that gives me little rest and no time. I have to work next Saturday and I’m still worried sick about money. But… it’s beginning to thaw and I walked back from the gym today without my hands hurting from the cold. I never thought I’d say it, but I’m glad, glad, glad winter’s grip is starting to shake off and I’ve hated this winter more than any other. I’d never move to a seasonless place like Florida or Arizona but this year, on top of everything that’s gone on, this winter has overstayed its welcome and I am so happy to see it go.

Maybe there will be pictures and posts and life around here some day. Right now, I realise I’ve fallen into a black hole of neverending work and fatigue that will not shake off no matter what I try to do. Some people seek out others when they’re stressed or tired. I tend to fade off. I’m just so exhausted, that even speaking to someone about it drains me. I have no patience and no energy.

It’ll be better come the end of March when I’ve done the hardest bit of the online law class. In retrospect it was foolish of me to think I could handle that on top of everything else that I’ve had going on and I’m stupid to allow myself to be talked into it. But there’s no help for that now and I have to push on until I’m done. It can’t come soon enough.

I’m horribly behind on my online lasses and so I took the laptop to the Starbucks at Macy’s today to try and get some work done, but their WiFi wasn’t working. Thwarted. So what did I do? I stimulated the economy.

I bought grey suede shoes. I wanted to buy shoes for work. I meant to, but these grey heels were so cute, I had to have them, especially since they were 50% off. I need to be more practical, though. I really should have bought shoes for work, or at the very least, winter-worthy shoes. But no, yet another pair I’ll rarely wear.

I did make some efforts towards my home comfort, though. I bought a new feather/ down pillow. Expensive, but at 50% off, it’s hard to pass up. I also got the 2 for 1 26″ Euro pillows for fun. I can use them as seating once I find the right shams. I passed on the blanket I may regret it. I’ll miss it in the spring.

Earlier this weekend, I hung my Ikea clothes hooks on my bedroom and bathroom doors. It was my first task for my power drill. I need to stop buying things I kind of need, though, and get what I really need even though the cost is more upfront.

Tonight, I’ll start gathering up all my info and start creating my home remodel book so I can have everything in one place, budget, swatches, everything. Stay tuned.