Something Old

Having recently had the opportunity to go through all my stuff, pack it in boxes and then take it all back out again, I naturally came across many interesting things. Old combination locks, fabric I thought I lost, many school assignments that I'm convinced I'll refer to in the future, funky drawings from a long time ago (and not so long ago) and old secret sister gifts. And it was from the last that I stumbled upon a treasure.

I do not maneuver comfortably in society. All my life I've known I was shy. People pointed (and point) it out to me frequently and it's true. That's fine. But, there was another element at work in this deficiency that I did not notice until my roommates pointed it out to me my first year of college. Awkwardness. While I tried to deny it, and was annoyed they would say it, at times it was most unfortunately true. That's where the treasure comes in.

Not being one to sulk in self pity...ahem, yes... I embraced this criticism and took it one step further.

Have I peaked your interest? Are you curious to know what this treasure is? Ok, here revealed to all and sundry who will partake and benefit from my wisdom, I present:

The Rules of Awkwardness

1. Never assume you can touch them. Maintain your distance!

-Everyone's squeezing in for the group picture and you are looking truly trapped. Someone leans in for a hug and you lean away, stiff as a board.

2. Comment in obscure ways, comment on the subject being discussed several minutes ago, make unwarranted assumptions about your listeners or don't say anything at all.

3. Try to stay as unnoticed as possible. (You can then be startled and taciturn when you are noticed.)

-It's the trying, not the un-noticing, that makes this awkward.

4. Play stare tag.

-Do I really need to explain this one? Some people can pull it off, like a kind of silent pick-up line, and others cannot.

5. Laugh at inopportune moments.

-The classic "Oh, I just got that! Haha!" while the others have moved on to discuss his beloved dead dog.

6. When answering a direct question: be silent for a few moments, act surprised, mutter, overcomplicate the answer. Use these separately or together for maximum effect.

-Not answering right away is just a ploy to make them think you're really considering your answer when you're really just wondering what you're going to do. And since you obviously don't have a plan the other things follow naturally.

7. When you see someone you know, look away and pretend like you didn't notice them unless they initiate a greeting.

-I've done this countless times. You know how it goes.

8. Never graciously except a compliment.

-This is one of simplest ways to be awkward. Someone offers you a compliment and you say no, no not me. This will result in either a) not being complimented again or b) the complimenter insisting and you refusing, eventually ending in option a) with a good dose of extra awkward added.

9. When you are embarrassed ... retreat, retreat, retreat! There's no such thing as taking it in stride, laughing it off or moving on (at least not for a few years).

10. If your appearance is marred in some way, draw attention to it.

-Holding your hand in front of your mouth if you have something in your teeth, constantly referring to the chocolate stain on your shirt, etc. Awkward people don't forget they're awkward, neither should you!

Here are a few fun pictures and anecdotes.

-A friend and I were talking once and she asked something like do you like the Lord of the Rings? I answered "I like it, yah!.... But I'm not like one of those people who try to learnthe language or anything." Of course my friend was someone who did like it that much. Now this exchange was partly just bad luck I admit but why would I need to add that last part? Or why would it be a bad thing if I did immerse myself in it? Who cares?

-Take a look at this picture.

Among the many questions I have about this picture, foremost in my mind is this: why was I even in it??

-My sister and brother-in-law were visiting once and had done some laundry. Somehow one of my bras had gotten in and I came home to find my brother-in-law folding it with the rest of the piled laundry. I don't how it all played out (probably because I've tried to block it from my memory) but just refer to rule 9.

-When Matt and I were first dating, he took me to a dance and slow song came on. So we were dancing and he asked me to put my arms up around his neck (violating rule 1) and asked me to look him in the eye. Of course he thought it a great laugh (thankfully he kept silent) but I had a huge struggle. It was difficult to maintain eye contact for more than 1 second and it felt so dumb to be dancing like that anyway. Fortunately this story had a happy ending.

-At the end of a date the guy wanted to hug me. It was cold outside so I had my coat on and my hands in my pockets. I didn't move to hug him back (I didn't totally want to anyway) but the guy shimmied his hands around me anyway. Ah, good times.

-Another picture:

Can you see the barely concealed grimace as I sit in the middle of one of the most awkward rituals of a reception? What you don't see is the panic as my sisters tells me we've got to do this. Haha. All part of the fun, and I look forward to doing the same to all who come after me.

Ok, lest you think I'm going to paper cut myself to death with the paper these rules are written on, have no fear. I believe I've improved considerably. And I've gotten over most of the situations that used to give me a stomach ache. Haha! And if you've ever done any of these things, don't worry, you're probably not awkward, and if you are don't worry! You're in good company!

Presents for everyone!

So, as all of us sisters were gathered at Becky's house we thinking what we could get Dad. Dad let us have some of his frequent flyer miles so we could all take this trip in the first place. No one of us knew what to do though; we couldn't get him a pocket knife because a. we couldn't take it back with us and b. we didn't know what kind. There were a few other ideas that we discarded, but in the end this is what we did:

And here's a little something we got for Mom from Mood!

Thank you Mood.

Ok, It's Time

My sister Becky has been living in Connecticut for the past ... 3 years? Anyway their family is moving back west this summer and Johanna thought it would be cool to go visit. Well, in the end all of us sisters went too! Like that food that you can't have just one of. You can't have just one sister. Haha.

First I'm going to philosophize about the East and the West.

Growing up in the Middle of Nowhere Desert, I think some things have been permanently impressed in my mind:

1. If you want it, you'd better take it with you. There won't be anything for miles.

2. Have some extra water in the car. If it overheats you'll be there for a while. (Refer to #1.)

3. It will be 100+ degrees for the next 120 miles in any direction.

4. What's a mall?

5. The beach truly is a heavenly oasis that you've traveled far to reach.

6. The brown can have it's beauties too.

7. You need sprinklers for plants and to play in if it's not too hot.

8. History to me is seeing the remains of a train engine or mine or shack that's been covered in sand for 100 years and is too dangerous if you get too close.

Now here's some interesting things about the east:

1. You want to go to the beach? Sure! It'll be a fun afternoon outing.

2. Need to do some shopping? New York's 40 minutes away. If that's too far there's some good stores in the next town.

3. Want to get some historical education? It's everywhere! That house with the SUV in the driveway is 200 years old!

4. What are sprinklers?

5. Trees and plants and beautiful green things grow wild.

6. Galoshes and umbrellas are never a bad idea to take.

Haha! So I exaggerate a little for both. It's fun to see the differences in both places though. So that being said, a couple days after we arrived and recuperated from the airplane a bit, we went to the beach. It was still a little cold but the weather was nice. Here's most of us.

Here's Jack and Corey scurrying on the rocks looking for crabs. Alas, I did not have the enthusiasm they did, so I just took some pictures. It was funny because Jack did this amazing seagull sound. I think all of us at some point were looking around thinking "is that a seagull" only to see Jack standing there. Haha.
So we were able to go to New York a couple of days and the first thing we did was see the Statue of Liberty. I wasn't surprised or anything but when you see things up close, in person it's always different than you thought.

I don't know what was going on in this picture but it makes me laugh. That's Becky on the left, Annie on the right in the front and Lindsay in the back.

I wanted to get some interesting, different pictures of stuff and most of them didn't turn out at all but it was fun all the same. Haha.

Classic Times Square with taxi gridlock.

We went to the Max Brenner chocolate shop. It was really good. And we all wanted to take home the bowls and some chocolate syringes. Haha!

Unfortunately, I don't have near as many pictures as I would like to have. Oh well. We went to Mood fabrics one day to look around and get something for Mom. It was big and we only saw like a third of it.

Well that's the end. I have a video of Mom and Dad getting their gifts. I'll post that in a bit. It was fun though to be with everyone. It was probably a little crowded for everyone, but I liked being there. Love you seestairs!

Update!

Well here are some more house pictures. We're hoping to move in this week; preferably today but we'll see. Haha.

So here's the bathroom cabinets. Don't worry, there will be a door on the left side.

This is turning out to be one of the most fun things about the house. Our little storage area under the stairs. It wasn't originally there and we asked the builder if he could put it in and he said sure. We figured it would just be a cutout kind of thing but he drywalled it, put in molding, a light and light switch. And it will have little cupboard doors too! It's awesome!

So here's the kitchen. It's got pretty much everything done now so we're just anxiously waiting. Whenever we visit Matt inspects everything and presses the buttons so we know all the appliances work, we just need to read up on how to turn them off.... Haha!

Here's a close up of the granite. We couldn't really get a good picture of it, but you can kind of see the color and everything. It's pretty washed out in this photo but it's darker with more green.

This is the chipped edging on the granite.

Sink with a sprayer! I'm so excited for the sprayer!

Fridge. Is that how you spell it? Refrigerator. I never remember. So no "D" in the full word but add a "D" in the short version. Spelling lesson for the day everyone.

Well that's everything that's new in the past week. All of us are just waiting for the paperwork people to just let us sign everything already! Haha. It's probably just as well because Matt and I need the time to finish packing all our stuff. Maybe I should take some pictures of the chaos that we live in now. Haha, or maybe I should just let you all imagine it.

More house updates

Here are some more pictures of the house. Everything has been painted and the moldings are done here. It's getting done and we're excited. We go to see it almost everyday. If the builder didn't want us in there he shouldn't have given us a key. Hahaha! So there's not much really to add though about the pictures themselves. Matt and I continue to debate about our hypothetical furniture and decorations but we've got lots of time....

Here's the washer /dryer space upstairs. It's nice that it's just there close although someone pointed out the other day that there's no drain anywhere near. Hopefully the washer never gets backed up, saturating the upstairs with grungy water. Yes, hopefully....

Now you can see outside! And in more exciting news Matt has actually considered the cornerwise bed placement! There was a big "if" but surely this is a day of miracles, no?

Bathroom upstairs.

Kitchen painted.Here's the entry.
Downstairs man-room.
Staircase to the basement. Haha, nothing very exciting about it but it does have a little ledge on the side we can do something with. Like put up giant pictures of ourselves looking amazing....

Well that's one idea.

On a separate subject, does anyone else find this blog posting format to be totally annoying? Having to remember to put last pictures first, not being able to see the whole thing (except in preview where you can't change anything anyway) and generally getting confused how everything is placed. I won't go into the right and left picture placement setting because I'm still traumatized from trying to do it couple weeks ago.

Ok, I'm being dramatic but does anyone else share these woes?

The house!

It all started about a month and half ago...

Matt and I had been looking at houses a little last year, seeing what was available but in the end decided it wasn't a good time. Around the middle of January Matt's mom came for a visit and we spent a little time showing her and his grandma some of those houses we had looked at. Really all this is thanks to Grandma Glea because she called the builder of one of the townhouses we looked at and found out he wasn't listing it with a realtor and so could sell it for a bit cheaper right off. Well that interested us a lot. We've got pretty much everything done on our end and are just waiting for the house to be finished.

Here it is! I'll start from the top.

Master bedroom. Matt and I have talked a little about where we'll maybe put things. I suggested we could the bed on an angle in the corner just to the left of the window. This suggestion was very quickly put to rest. The wasted space behind the bed would be a continual thorn in Matt's side. I wondered why this should be so. Does anyone remember in the movie You've Got Mail when Meg Ryan broke up with Greg Kinnear? Up until that point the bed had been neatly pushed up against the wall and after he moved out she redecorated. The bed was on an angle in the corner. Thoughts?

The closet and bathroom doorway. And no, the closet will not be 99% my stuff and 1% his stuff. It will be at most 95%.

This is the hallway just at the top of the stairs. There's two bedrooms in the back there and a closet for a washer and dryer. Read on for further mention of this hallway.

This is the view from the living room to the street. Haha, minus the actual view. The front entrance is off to the right out of the picture.
The same room but looking from the entrance to the room. The kitchen is on the other side of wall. The kitchen pseudo-window is the only thing that really bugged us but we've made our peace with it.

Here's the kitchen pantry.

Another view of the kitchen. I can't really say anything exciting about it right now.

The basement. This is the main room just as you come downstairs. Lovingly dubbed the "Man Cave" by Matt because this is where he'll put the TV and sundry electronics. Someone was joking that when he got in trouble I'd send him down here. I shake my head at this. I love my husband, I wouldn't send him anywhere. We would discuss the situation and give each other a hug then enjoy a comedy or adventure movie.

But if I did send him somewhere it would be boring like the main living room or the bathroom. Or maybe the hallway.

Looking the other way. There's the doorway to a bedroom on the left.

Halloween Party

I went to a Halloween party early in October and it was really fun. They invited us with a hat and mask that we were supposed to decorate however we wished and we were supposed to bring those to the party for a contest. So here is my hat. Of course I had to go glamourous.

I don't have any pictures of the mask because I didn't do anything to it. Haha, I spent all my creative energy on the hat and sighed at the mask.

I'm sad I didn't think to take any pictures at the party or of the other hats. It was all really fun. I've not ever been really big into Halloween but I'm willing to change my ways after that party. I want to say it was all really cute but that's not an appropriate word for Halloween you know. So it was fantastically morbid and horribly fun. I had a gruesomely good time.

And I won the contest.