Preparations are under way...

I love this roasting pan. Love the tray at the bottom with the folding handles to lift out the bird. It's ingenious and sturdy, and probably a lot older than I am. I inherited it from a much-loved former neighbor. I always think of her at the holidays when I roast the turkey.

Thursday we will be having Thanksgiving dinner here. I've been trying to undertake the preparations in manageable increments. I'm not aiming for perfection this year.

Last week I went to the grocery store, and bought a frozen turkey. In the past, I have taken the turkey out of the freezer the prescribed 3 to 4 days ahead of the holiday, only to find it still partially frozen when the day arrives, to the point of busting my knuckles trying to free the legs from their wire harness. So I decided to just store it in the fridge instead of the freezer, so that it could be thawing and ready to roast when the time came. Well...it thawed quicker than I expected. And today it crossed my mind that by Thursday it might have been beyond its prime. So I went ahead and roasted it this evening. I'll just have to carve it tonight, and reheat it on Thursday. Like I said, I'm not aiming for perfection this year.

There are yummy smells wafting through the house tonight! It does more to put me in a holiday spirit than anything has so far, and I'm feeling a sense of anticipation. Since I have to go to work in the morning, I had better go get busy with the carving and storing.

Before, during, and after...

What the... Someone seems to have forgotten to take the before photo! Hmmph!

Well, on to the story then.

Awhile back (sometime in the past year) I found this really 'interesting' piece at a thrift shop. Really not my usual style. It was sort of an antique-y gold. And while I usually go for things with simple lines...this didn't have a simple line on it. But something about it spoke to me. So I picked it up and looked for the price. Hmmm. No price. I took it to the front and asked what its cost might be. For the lack of a better answer, the guy quoted me the grand price of $1. For a buck, I could handle it being a little 'different.'

I did manage to take a 'during' photo, so here's your first glance at it.



Uh-huh.

Hey, those empty IKEA shelf boxes are great for laying open and spray painting on. (And no, I'm not through assembling shelves...if I were, I would be showing you those! ) Ignore the little lamp in the corner...that is another story for another post. Oh, but I forgot to get a before photo of it too. It was actually a sort of soft medium green with painted gold trim...the two of these items made quite the pair.



So here is my $1 sconce...all crisp and white against the newly blue walls of the children's guest/play room. I'm not sure yet how I feel about it. But it will stay for awhile. I have a few more projects in mind for that room, so I'll show you more of its surroundings in future posts.

Baby steps...

If a good mover is defined as one who gets everything moved and put away within a short period of time, then that lets me out. I do not like to find temporary places to stash stuff, just to get it put away. I want to find permanent homes for things, and organize as I go. That makes for very slow progress.

So we are living with small islands of order in a vast sea of chaos.

Exhibit A: Order...the pantry.

As pantries go, it is pretty small. But since I haven't had a real pantry since I moved out of my childhood home, I'm very happy with it. The plan is to keep most of the staples in glass jars. (I have a lot more glass jars...somewhere...I haven't found them yet.) Boxed rice mixes, seasoning pouches, etc. are in the basket on the left...teas and hot chocolate are in the middle basket...and cloth napkins are in the basket on the right. The white containers on the floor are for recycling.

Exhibit B: Chaos...the office.

What can I possibly say? We went to IKEA last week, and bought shelves. I started putting them together today.

It could take awhile.

Update...

We're alive and well and in the new house. Things are still chaotic. Last week was extremely busy and exhausting! I believe Saturday was our first night spent in the new house, but the days all ran together, so I'm not really sure. (I just asked Jared, and he said that last Wednesday was the first night. LOL I really have been frazzled!)

Today was my first day back at work. I was looking forward to getting back to some routine, and it felt great. The drive took about an hour and fifteen minutes (one way)...not as bad as I thought.

There's still lots of work to be done around here, but I hope to be back to blogging with greater regularity. Sorry I've been gone so long.

Plan B...

I have been looking at the photographs of the new house that have been sitting for far too long here at the top of my blog, and scolding myself for not writing anything new. I feel a little guilty, knowing that most people are assuming that I'm not writing because I'm just too busy moving. Well...

I am sporadically busy, but we have made what seems like very little progress in the moving. Carey was called in to work on his days off, so we put off the major move and instead have been driving over a pickup truck and SUV load at a time (an hour plus each way might I add...I know, I know...very inefficient way to get it done). The furniture should go next week in a BIG truck.

So what have I been doing? (That is a rhetorical question, and I do not wish to hear any guesses. I mean it Kelley. Ix-nay the ark-snay.) I've been turning on electricity to the new place, and seeing about moving the telephone/internet service. I've been making sure that both places are adequately insured. I've been picking out paint, and preparing to start painting later this week (at least behind where the refrigerator and washer/dryer will be installed next Monday, so we don't have to move them out again after installation.) I have been going through stuff and trying to pare down. I have carefully moved every single Christmas ornament, bulb, garland, and bough from their home in the guest room closet here to the guest room closet there...and it all fit!. I have been making myself lists of things that need to be done (but not quite yet), and lists of ideas that seem ingenious at this moment, but I'm afraid will be forgotten tomorrow. I have even made myself a list of ideas for future blog posts.

Oh, and I've taken a few photos of the old place...the miniature horses that the new owner has put on the land here (see photo above)...the flora and fauna that I will miss.

Ready...

new kitchen

Today was spent at the new house. The previous owners left it very clean, but you know there are just some things you want to clean yourself anyway. Jared climbed high and low cleaning inside cabinets and drawers all over the house. I vacuumed all the floors, and spent an inordinate amount of time figuring out all the light switches in the house and labeling them. Then I went around putting sticky notes on the walls where the large furniture pieces will go, in case I'm not there when furniture is unloaded.


new dining room

I came home and took a couple of Advil. This moving thing gets harder every time. I didn't even work that hard today, but the constant standing was torture. Thankfully there is a window seat in the dining room, since we haven't taken any chairs yet.


new laundry room

The laundry room (above) is quite possibly my favorite room in the new house...built in cabinets...a huge sink (out of sight to the left)...rods to hang laundry over the washer and the sink...large enough for a freezer. The washer and dryer will be in the far left corner, near the door to the outside. All of our large appliances will be staying with the sold house, so we will be having to purchase a new washer and dryer, and a refrigerator and microwave for the kitchen.

Tomorrow I have to really push to try to get things done on this end. The moving starts Monday.

Seven random thoughts on the 7th...

1. Current packing zone: game cupboard and toy closet.

2. Finally! Last Friday we closed on the sale of our current home, and yesterday we closed on the purchase of the new one. Yea! We'll start moving about Monday.

3. I yearn for the moving process to be over and for a whole day to spend with my nose buried in a great whodunnit.

4. Someone told me today that I set myself up for stress by talking about it. Funny. I bit my tongue, but I really wanted to say that if more people (her) felt a little stress once in a while, then less of us (me) would have to feel a lot of stress! I'm a detail person. So sue me.

5. I love tea cups and coffee cups, but we don't drink hot beverages much...when we do it's usually out of a mug or travel mug. When I open my cupboards and see all the cups (that go with three separate sets of dishes) sitting unused, it makes me feel kind of bad. Well this week I read a great idea to use them in a new way, and I am definitely going to use it in the new house. In a bedroom or bathroom drawer, place tea and/or coffee cups, and use them to store individual pieces of jewelry...necklaces, earrings, watches, etc. By using them for jewelry storage: 1) it organizes my jewelry making things easier to find; 2) it frees up kitchen cupboard space; 3) I get to see the cups daily and enjoy their new use, and; 4) they are still available to use any time I might need to return them to service in the role they were originally intended for. Win, win, win, win!

6. Diet downfall of the week: bagels.

7. As I am packing and trying to whittle down our possessions for the move, I am thinking about this post and laughing at myself a little bit. The old saying, "Be careful what you wish for," springs to mind.