sillygoosegirl (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sillygoosegirl) wrote2006-12-11 09:18 am
sillygoosegirl) wrote2006-12-11 09:18 am
Entry tags:
Lovely Sunday
Yesterday was a really nice day. We made plans during the week to visit Pioneer Tree Farm up in McHenry, about an hour away from us. But I woke up in the morning inspired to move the furniture around in our apartment. The idea was sort of bumping around in my head before off and on, but at Ed and Mandy's Christmas party on Saturday, I was reminded a little more vividly how nice it would be to have a living room that didn't also have to double as the office and sewing area.
My first thought was to get rid of the couch that we can't get into any room other than the tiny bedroom, where it takes up a good quarter of the room, and move our bedroom into that room... making for a pretty cramped master bedroom, but leaving the big bedroom available to use as an office and sewing room. Josh, however, wasn't so keen on the idea of moving the bedroom or getting rid of the couch, so we talked about trying to move the couch into the living room through the balcony, and then moving the office and sewing stuff back into the little bedroom... and hopefully I wouldn't find it too claustrophobic this time because there would be a lot more space without the couch.
Except the idea of moving the couch in through the balcony has been intimidating enough when we were talking about doing it during the summer time with the help of our friends... the idea of doing it in the winter time by ourselves did seem a bit far fetched. But that prompted me to again think about trying to get it into the living room without taking it outside. The way in which it didn't fit was so frustration because it came so very close to being able to get into the living room. You see, when you come into our apartment there is a hall straight in which continues straight to the bedrooms, and has a tee off to the living room and kitchen, with the bathroom door across from the tee. The ceiling in most of the apartment building is high enough that we could stand the couch up on end, but in our hallway, the ceiling is only one inch higher than the length of the couch... so there is enough space for couch to be on end, but not enough to actually get it up on end (since it must pass through a diagonal on end position which is taller--the same deal as the Grandfather Clock case on Math Court on Square One). You can get it on end outside our apartment before coming in, or in the second bedroom, but the door frames are just a little too short to allow it to go through while on end. And of course it couldn't go around the corning without being on end... or could it? It was close to fitting so many ways...
Well, first we decided to see if there was any way in which we could take the couch apart. We ended up removing a good bit of the fabric stuff off the bottom of the couch to see what was underneath... since my parents got us a staple gun when they visited recently, so we had the tools to put the couch back together. We found some things we could unscrew, but taking the couch apart didn't seem like such a good idea... as it would have meant ungluing things and messing up the upholstery.
Then, because I am so stubborn, we still managed to find a way to get it into the living room yesterday... after almost a year and a half living in this apartment. The method? Bringing it into the little bedroom, then bringing the far end into the bathroom, bringing the other end into the hall closet (which required removing the door from the hall closet, removing all the stuff from the bottom two shelves, and removing the bottom two shelves as well), thus allowing the first end of the couch to go far enough into the bathroom to get the second end out of the closet and down the hall into the living room! I think this means I rock. And I think Josh's mother would be proud of my creative problem solving skills. Josh thinks this means I am way too stubborn. Eh, whatever--I think I'm about the right amount of stubborn, under the circumstances.
Following this, we suddenly had lots of choices about what to do with our furniture, and no idea (or rather too many ideas) how to arrange stuff... along with a lack of agreement as to how to arrange stuff. So we cleaned up the part of the living room that was to receive the tree, vacuumed, ate lunch (mmm... pastrami sandwiches), talked furniture a little longer, and then drove off to get our tree.
I was a little incompetent about the directions, but we found our way there eventually. We had a nice time in the car talking about the camera we're thinking of getting, and how we want to manage our finances next year... we started religiously tracking our spending on January 1st of this year, so it felt to me like we're coming up on the natural time to evaluate what we are doing. We will definitely continue tracking, but we're talking about budgetting a bit more in the coming year.
The tree farm was very nice. I felt from the website that the farm I picked out was going to be a little more Mom-and-Pop-ish, and a little less commercial than most of the others I found listings for. Plus, they were also cheap, a no-pesticides/paint farm, and 10% of their proceeds are donated to a local environmental protection organization. I was quite impressed by the experience. Everyone there was exceedingly friendly, and we found a very nice tree. The saws were sharp, and it was cool the way they had the machine to shake off the dead needles, and the device to "bail" the tree... it was this hoop they put the tree through, and as it came out it got wrapped up in this netting stuff. Awesome! There was also hot chocolate, of course... and there was a sign on the door of the warming house about a showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" which they had done last Thursday... yep, this is my kind of tree farm.
After, since we had driven right past Moraine Hills State Park, we stopped and hiked around for a little bit, but it was getting dark and the park was closing, so we didn't go far and were back on the road in a half hour.
When we got home, we made up a low country boil, like we had several times in Savannah on our anniversary trip... and set up the tree while it cooked. It was yummy as always. After dinner we walked to Walgreens to get some lights, since I'd used the ones Josh's parents gave us making a decoration with plastic cups (it's cooler than it sounds--I'll post pictures eventually), and we couldn't find the ones I'd purchased while we were in college. We got the tree lit, did a bit more pick up, talked furniture-moving some more, and then watched AI and went to bed.
I saw AI like 3 times when it was new and I remember really liking it, though thinking it moved a bit slow. Well, this time around it seemed even slower, and it really didn't seem as deep as I remember... I guess I hadn't seen other things like "Bladerunner" yet when I saw it before. Oh well.
Anyhow, it was a really lovely day. Practically a perfect day. It's the first day that Josh and I have spent all day doing stuff together off our computers in a long time... long enough I'd almost forgotten how much I missed it... and long enough I'd almost forgotten how little it matters to me WHAT we do together so long as we do it together. I feel rejuvenated and in love... in a way I haven't felt in far too long. It feels good.
We will be tackling the tasks of putting ornaments on the tree and moving furniture tonight, I think.
My first thought was to get rid of the couch that we can't get into any room other than the tiny bedroom, where it takes up a good quarter of the room, and move our bedroom into that room... making for a pretty cramped master bedroom, but leaving the big bedroom available to use as an office and sewing room. Josh, however, wasn't so keen on the idea of moving the bedroom or getting rid of the couch, so we talked about trying to move the couch into the living room through the balcony, and then moving the office and sewing stuff back into the little bedroom... and hopefully I wouldn't find it too claustrophobic this time because there would be a lot more space without the couch.
Except the idea of moving the couch in through the balcony has been intimidating enough when we were talking about doing it during the summer time with the help of our friends... the idea of doing it in the winter time by ourselves did seem a bit far fetched. But that prompted me to again think about trying to get it into the living room without taking it outside. The way in which it didn't fit was so frustration because it came so very close to being able to get into the living room. You see, when you come into our apartment there is a hall straight in which continues straight to the bedrooms, and has a tee off to the living room and kitchen, with the bathroom door across from the tee. The ceiling in most of the apartment building is high enough that we could stand the couch up on end, but in our hallway, the ceiling is only one inch higher than the length of the couch... so there is enough space for couch to be on end, but not enough to actually get it up on end (since it must pass through a diagonal on end position which is taller--the same deal as the Grandfather Clock case on Math Court on Square One). You can get it on end outside our apartment before coming in, or in the second bedroom, but the door frames are just a little too short to allow it to go through while on end. And of course it couldn't go around the corning without being on end... or could it? It was close to fitting so many ways...
Well, first we decided to see if there was any way in which we could take the couch apart. We ended up removing a good bit of the fabric stuff off the bottom of the couch to see what was underneath... since my parents got us a staple gun when they visited recently, so we had the tools to put the couch back together. We found some things we could unscrew, but taking the couch apart didn't seem like such a good idea... as it would have meant ungluing things and messing up the upholstery.
Then, because I am so stubborn, we still managed to find a way to get it into the living room yesterday... after almost a year and a half living in this apartment. The method? Bringing it into the little bedroom, then bringing the far end into the bathroom, bringing the other end into the hall closet (which required removing the door from the hall closet, removing all the stuff from the bottom two shelves, and removing the bottom two shelves as well), thus allowing the first end of the couch to go far enough into the bathroom to get the second end out of the closet and down the hall into the living room! I think this means I rock. And I think Josh's mother would be proud of my creative problem solving skills. Josh thinks this means I am way too stubborn. Eh, whatever--I think I'm about the right amount of stubborn, under the circumstances.
Following this, we suddenly had lots of choices about what to do with our furniture, and no idea (or rather too many ideas) how to arrange stuff... along with a lack of agreement as to how to arrange stuff. So we cleaned up the part of the living room that was to receive the tree, vacuumed, ate lunch (mmm... pastrami sandwiches), talked furniture a little longer, and then drove off to get our tree.
I was a little incompetent about the directions, but we found our way there eventually. We had a nice time in the car talking about the camera we're thinking of getting, and how we want to manage our finances next year... we started religiously tracking our spending on January 1st of this year, so it felt to me like we're coming up on the natural time to evaluate what we are doing. We will definitely continue tracking, but we're talking about budgetting a bit more in the coming year.
The tree farm was very nice. I felt from the website that the farm I picked out was going to be a little more Mom-and-Pop-ish, and a little less commercial than most of the others I found listings for. Plus, they were also cheap, a no-pesticides/paint farm, and 10% of their proceeds are donated to a local environmental protection organization. I was quite impressed by the experience. Everyone there was exceedingly friendly, and we found a very nice tree. The saws were sharp, and it was cool the way they had the machine to shake off the dead needles, and the device to "bail" the tree... it was this hoop they put the tree through, and as it came out it got wrapped up in this netting stuff. Awesome! There was also hot chocolate, of course... and there was a sign on the door of the warming house about a showing of "An Inconvenient Truth" which they had done last Thursday... yep, this is my kind of tree farm.
After, since we had driven right past Moraine Hills State Park, we stopped and hiked around for a little bit, but it was getting dark and the park was closing, so we didn't go far and were back on the road in a half hour.
When we got home, we made up a low country boil, like we had several times in Savannah on our anniversary trip... and set up the tree while it cooked. It was yummy as always. After dinner we walked to Walgreens to get some lights, since I'd used the ones Josh's parents gave us making a decoration with plastic cups (it's cooler than it sounds--I'll post pictures eventually), and we couldn't find the ones I'd purchased while we were in college. We got the tree lit, did a bit more pick up, talked furniture-moving some more, and then watched AI and went to bed.
I saw AI like 3 times when it was new and I remember really liking it, though thinking it moved a bit slow. Well, this time around it seemed even slower, and it really didn't seem as deep as I remember... I guess I hadn't seen other things like "Bladerunner" yet when I saw it before. Oh well.
Anyhow, it was a really lovely day. Practically a perfect day. It's the first day that Josh and I have spent all day doing stuff together off our computers in a long time... long enough I'd almost forgotten how much I missed it... and long enough I'd almost forgotten how little it matters to me WHAT we do together so long as we do it together. I feel rejuvenated and in love... in a way I haven't felt in far too long. It feels good.
We will be tackling the tasks of putting ornaments on the tree and moving furniture tonight, I think.