Day Zero: There Very, Truly is a Box for Everything.

We haven't left yet. We were supposed to leave about a month ago, but due to various factors, we've managed to stay in the Northwest until very nearly the end of June. This was beyond awesome--I got to celebrate friends' birthdays that I was unsure I would ever get to spend their special days with, we got to see a hint of a Northwest summer, and I got to experience purchasing liquor at the grocery store! But alas, the time as now come for us to leave.

This morning the movers (or more technically, the packers) came to box up all of our stuff. Literally. They boxed IT ALL UP.

And this is just our living room.

 Things that were packed into bins were wrapped in special brown paper: I don't know what it was, but it was two sheets of special brown paper sandwiching a sheet of plastic-like paper. It was special brown paper. Then, the bins, which were wrapped in special brown paper, were wrapped generously in packing tape.

And there were the many various sizes of boxes! So many boxes. And they all had numbers and codes for them. It was pretty amazing to watch all my things get boxed up. Especially since all my previous moving experiences have been going to American Eagle and asking Tracie if she had any spare shipment boxes. But, now there is a box for everything. I do mean everything.

This is a very large box. This is not a very good picture.

BEHOLD! I am standing next to a box that they put our mattress and box spring in. I didn't even know they made boxes that large, but they do. Somewhere in the world there is a corrugated cardboard manufacturing magnate churning out bed-sized boxes for all the moving companies of the world, living large on the riches built from supplying cardboard boxes.

Tomorrow, the movers are supposed to come and take away our things, which will hopefully make their way over to North Carolina. Tomorrow, I hope to be less fascinated by how many different types of boxes exist out there. But until then, I'm just going to stare at the boxes (and wondering how best to build my cardboard castle), wishing them (and us) a speedy trip to the East Coast.

Things I Will Find Myself Missing About Anacortes

I am someone who becomes attached to things very quickly. For example: In summer school biology class (that I took to get ahead), we had to create a bug collection (properly labeling the species and type) for our final class project. My friend Elisa had caught a caterpillar and dropped it into a jar for temporary storage before it was transferred to the the kitty litter-plaster of paris-acetone gas chamber. While it was in it's little holding cell, the caterpillar just made circles over and over again to the point where we named it Speedy. And once you name something, knowing that it will be dead mere hours later and pinned to a foam board, the act of killing it becomes heart wrenching. I assume little Speedy was eventually killed, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Just trying to remember it brings a tear to my eye.

That being said, knowing that I will be moving away from the Northwest, Seattle, and Anacortes is heartbreaking. For the short time that I have lived in Anacortes, I have grown strangely attached to this little town. Perhaps it is due to all the Gilmore Girls I watch and my secret wanting this town to be my Stars Hollow.

Things I will miss: This view.

These are the things I will find myself missing about Anacortes when we move away:

-The Senior Center. In this period of unemployment, I have volunteered at the Anacortes Senior Center as a way to keep myself from going crazy and also to just hone whatever skills I still have. But I like the place and the people that frequent the Senior Center. They are just characters. Most of them are what I imagine my friends and I will be like when we get into our twilight years.

-Stan, Yeong, and Mark the Skagit Transit Bus Drivers. They are awesome--when I get on they greet me by name, they know when I get off so if I happen to zone out they won't pass my bus stop, if the bus is running late and I need a transfer they know to call the bus driver ahead to wait for me. Yeong even brought me homemade kimchi one day when she found out I liked kimchi. They were the first people I ever talked to, on a regular basis, in Anacortes.

-The Seafood guy at The Market. I swear he's stoned most of the time, but I've never met anyone who's more excited about seafood than that guy. Plus, he remembered that I was from Seattle and what I did last weekend, thus making for casual conversation while he's weighing out salmon for me.

-The deer in the backyard who live under our porch. Sometimes I pretend they are like pets, but sometimes they are just a touch annoying what with the eating of the foliage and peeing on our lawn.

-Victoria radio, mostly like CJZN The Zone on Vancouver Island. It's a cute little radio station and they play great music and they're just so adorable in their little Canadian ways. Although I have yet to get used to their weather reports, as they measure the temperature in Celsius.

-Old Salts. It's a gas station mini-mart. But it's owned by a nice Korean couple, who make kimchi on the reg and sell it. Homemade kimchi, at a gas station mini-mart in Anacortes: Weird, I know, but so delicious.

What Would Claudia Wear?

I'm not a particularly trendy person; I'll probably never be featured in a trendy fashion magazine where they visit the "streets" of whatever trendy city and find the trendiest girls to photograph. I'm not that adventurous when it comes to dressing myself; I have amassed a ridiculous amount of grays and neutrals in my wardrobe to the point where I have to consciously remind myself to STOP BUYING GRAY THINGS JOANNE FOR FUCK'S SAKE.

That's not to say I'm boring--nay, I do have some interesting items like sparkly tights, a pair of colored jeans, and a red plaid shirt that everyone says reminds them of a picnic table because that's what they always say to me when I wear that shirt. However, they all pale in comparison to my most interesting item to date: A yellow striped sweater from Anthropologie:

But wait, there's more!

It's interesting because not only is it yellow and stripey, which adds just a little punch of color and pattern to my outfits, it's technically backwards!

I wish I had better posture to show you all.

It's weird that it's purposefully backwards, but that's why I like it and I can't really explain more beyond that. Oh wait, yes I can: I like it because I totally think this is something Claudia Kishi would have worn and Claudia Kishi was 8-year old Joanne's default fictional Asian Girl hero (for a lack of any other Asian girl hero she could relate to). Except that Claudia would never have bought this in a store like Anthropologie (or would she? I feel like I can write a five-page essay on this topic). Instead, Claudia Kishi, who was truly before her time, would have bought a cardigan at a thrift store and consciously make the decision to wear it backwards, because she was Claudia friggin' Kishi. Then she would have dug around in her room and found a Snickers bar in a sock and eaten it.

Foul Bachelorette Frog

3 months? Maybe 2? I managed to stick to my weekly blogging goal for nearly three months (eh, it's probably closer to two months) before the laziness slipped in and I had better, more pressing matters to attend to...like sitting around watching the TLC's marathon on the anniversary of the Royal Wedding.

To my credit, I did do a lot of things in between all the lazy TV watching, which I shall summarize for you below:

To the Emerald City!
I went down to Seattle one weekend to hang out with friends and see some old co-workers. And it was the perfect weekend to be in town; it was like a TV show (or someone's very pretentious Pinterest account): Single gal in the city, crashing with two friends and their adorable Shiba in their loft in the heart of town, lunch at a delicious hole in the wall establishment, a bustling happy hour with hand cut french fries and $2 New Belgium beer,  brunch at a place that serves water in mason jars, dinner at a place where their water carafes are old whiskey jars, people watching at Cal Anderson, and Stumptown coffee!

On another time, I went down during the middle of the week (because I'm unemployed and I can) to meet up with friends for some quality girls time and Korean BBQ (and also some Musashi's with the last bit of cash I had left). Before I headed back up to Anacortes the next day, I managed to sneak in a trip to Cafe Besalu. I had a spinach quiche there and ordered a croissant and ham and swiss danish for the road.

Making a mess.

Girls Night All The Time.
While Jack was out of town, I took the opportunity to devolve into a college version of myself (poor nutrition choices bound by laziness) and forget any social manners I may have ever learned. Messy countertops? I'll clean that shizz tomorrow....maybe. Dinner of Hot Cheetos and maybe a salad? Don't mind if I do. Not shaving my legs for a week (or more). It's not sunny tomorrow, is it? Then I'm not shaving my legs!

I also gave myself a few more liberties, such as using both bathrooms in the most inefficient way possible. I like to use the toilet in the hallway bathroom, but I'm going to shower in the other one, because it has a nice shower-head (the kind that make it feel like rainfall). I also untucked the blankets and threw on a pink bedsheet. Then there was the watching of terrible television without fear of being judged (My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding? Uh, yes please!).

We usually only deal with this kind of wildlife. Not rabbits. That's something new.

Jack's Back! Time for all the work around the house.
One of the things I was actively avoiding while Jack was gone (but knowing full well that it needed to be done) was mowing the grass. Mostly because I'm not quite sure how this mowing business works (I've never done it myself) and also because lazy. So when Jack gets back, we get to doing stuff around the house--I'm weeding while Jack mows.

Twenty minutes in, Jack discovers that the lawn mower has gone over a little rabbit nest. The mom is toast, but we find three little rabbit babies. We scoop them into a box and Jack goes back to mowing the lawn, while I let my guilt seep in. I end up going through the phone book looking for advice on what to do. By the way: If you are using the MacGregor Yellow Book for Skagit Valley and look up Wildlife Removal, don't call that number because it calls a NURSING HOME. Boy, that was an awkward telephone conversation.

In the end we decide to drop off the babies at a Wildlife Rehabilitation Center up near Bellingham. So we take the box and throw in some grass and get going. Luckily the babies are in good shape when we get there, a bit cold since we were supposed to keep them covered with a blanket instead of in a box with grass thrown on top, but the lady at the center thinks they will be okay. Another successful, if slightly frightening, interaction with wildlife!

Jack's Belated Birthday Surprises
Jack's birthday came and went while he was down in El Centro, and outside of a text I sent him on that day, he didn't have much time to celebrate. And that's where all my pent up energy from not working comes in! I decorated his room in colorful (read: hot pink and yellow) streamers, wrapped his presents all nice and tacky like, and even baked him a cake. If you're feeling a little intimidated by my Martha Stewart-esque-ness, don't be--that cake was from a box with artificial canned frosting! Yum!

The birthday boy declined to be photographed with his cake.

Descent into Misery: Complete

While Jack is out of town for the next couple of weeks, I took the opportunity to spread out (even more so) and make a mess while finishing up my knitting needle roll. I wish I had a picture to share, but the mess I made was far beyond any level of human decency (some would call it "living in squalor"), and I'm just not ready to make that aspect of my life public yet.

Now that I have finished the needle roll, I feel as if I was being a little over dramatic as I chronicled my descent into misery. But in the heat of the moment, I truly do feel like I am sucked into a vortex of misery, sometimes finishing a project just feels like a chore. It's the little mistakes that make the experience so terrible, mistakes like this:

Hahahahaha, fail.

When it came time to sew the inner and outer panels together, I inadvertently sewed the ribbon, which would tie the roll together, on the wrong side of the fabric. The fabric was put together (wrong-side up) so that I could flip it inside out when I was done...and if I sewed the ribbon onto the wrong side then when I invert it, it would be on the inside and absolutely useless to me.  I realized this far too late, so I had to rip out the seam and restart again, which led to.....

The bane of my existence

Having to reload the bobbin! It's not a difficult task, but I can never seem to get it right. It's like when I try to plug into a USB port, it always takes three tries even though there's only two ways to plug it in. I can't ever remember whether it loads thread clockwise or counter-clockwise and sometimes I don't wind the thread around enough times so when I start the machine, not only does it wind in the opposite direction I had expected it to, it loosens whatever I wound onto the bobbin. I just sighed out loud having to relive the experience while typing this last paragraph.

But, finally, after all that drama, I managed sew the ribbon back onto the right side and put the whole thing together. On top of that, like the silver lining around a dark cloud, I successfully matched up the top of the inner pocket with the outer panel!

Success!

Once the roll was complete, I was so giddy and so happy that I successfully made something that does what it's supposed to do--that post-project high, forgetting all the misery that accompanies the actually fabrication process....until I get it in my head that I should try for another project and the cycle restarts itself. But for now, I'm going to savor in another victory over fabric and poorly honed sewing skillz.

Action shot!

Boy, do I have egg on my face!

I sometimes fail at life. Take these eggs for instance, I had grand plans for them to win the egg decorating contest at the Giordano Boys' Easter Feaster lunch. I spent time looking up decorating tips on Martha Stewart, debating whether to purchase those PAAS dye kits or if I should make my own colors, and figuring out how awesome I wanted to make my eggs.

I spent a relaxing Friday afternoon decorating the eggs--well, relaxing until I decided to use glitter, which everyone knows is the herpes of craft supplies. There are still remnants of the fine luster glitter on our table cloth.

Anyways, I headed down to Seattle that Friday afternoon to kick off a whirlwind Easter weekend that included hot dogs and beer from Shultzy's, drinks and Jake's Birthday at the Clever Bottle, a trip to Mt. Vernon for the tulips (which were not in bloom yet, so we ended up staring at fields of daffodils instead), root beer floats on a warm sunny day, starting up the BBQ grill again, a visit by the Easter bunny that brought me a chocolate bunny from Fran's, brunch at Adrift, and FINALLY the Easter Feaster lunch where I could get to show off my awesome egg dying skillz.

Well, given my propensity to fail at life, I complete forgot to bring the eggs with me to the party. Yes, I remembered to bring Megan's ice block that she left at our place a few weeks ago. And I did remember to bring back all the unfinished liquor to return to their owners. But eggs for the decorating contest? Left them in the refrigerator at home.

So now I'm going to share them on this blog, because decorated eggs kind of lose their appeal after Easter--as with the prospect of having to eat 5 hard boiled eggs somehow (one of which may be flecked with glitter).

Better luck next year, boys.

Continuing My Journey into the Depths of Misery.

Took me way too long to figure out which pattern to use and where it should go.

The crafting process to give my knitting needles a home goes on this week and if I felt mildly frustrated last week, this time around I felt like ripping the fabric to shreds, and I would have except doing that would destroy hours of my work and upset me even more.

Before I get into the nitty gritty of my misery, let me introduce you to Zelda:

Pretty girl.

Technically, Zelda is not mine, it belongs to an old co-worker of mine. Two years ago, I asked her if I could borrow her sewing machine to make a Halloween costume, she obliged and I happily took it home and made my costume.

Slutty sushi!

Then I conveniently forgot to return Zelda to her and then I moved and then I forgot again and now Zelda lives with me. IMPORTANT NOTE: I do intend to return Zelda to her rightful owner--and definitely before we move even further from Seattle. So there. It's not like I'm holding Zelda hostage or something. Zelda totally loves staying with me.

Ahem.

So, this week I worked on putting together the inner pocket, where the needles will go, and the other panel. Up until this point, I've read over the directions multiple times just to make sure that I didn't miss anything. WELL. It's definitely one thing to read it and know what you are doing and then to execute it successfully. The instructions noted a 1/2 inch seam allowance. Simple enough, I thought, except I completely overestimated my ability to measure things. Did I learn nothing from last week? This is what it looks like when you think you sewed with a 1/2 seam allowance only to go back and remeasure and realize you were juuuuussssst a bit off.

So close.

It would be one thing if I realized this on the first piece I sewed together, and to a certain extent I noticed that it didn't seem QUITE like a half-inch, but instead of measuring it exactly I said, "Fuck this" and sewed all the pieces together. It wasn't until I got to the end that I realized maybe I should have listened to that little voice inside me saying to measure it exactly. So yes, I had to go back and add a tiny 1/8th of an inch-or so to all the panels. But the biggest insult of the day was to come later.

The semi-completed inner pockets

The biggest, hair-ripping-out-est insult occurred when I put together the outside panel. Remember that last week I had to fudge the numbers a bit and re-work the proportions because I wasn't paying attention to what I was cutting out. This week, my terrible math skills came to a head:

The finished panel is supposed to be the same size as the inner panel (obviously), which, when finished, measures 19x22 inches. I CAME UP AN INCH SHORT. DAMMMMMIT. Adding insult to injury, I actually cut out a 1.5x22 strip in case I came up short, but given the seam allowances, it would have been too short as well. I suppose I could use a smaller seam allowance, but I JUST GOT USED TO THAT 1/2 INCH SEAM ALLOWANCE.

It was at this point that I decided that it was enough for one day. I will work on cutting out another panel next week and I will probably finish it up then (hopefully). Until then, here is what the (mostly) finished outer panel looks like:

Perhaps my knitting needles are better off living in a plastic bag, like hobos.