What I Wore to Work in June
What I Wore to Work Today: June 29, 2015
Top, skirt: Ann Taylor
Belt: Target
Shoes: Payless
Look at those beautiful green basil plants, early in the summer before they died. Those were the days.
Mystery baby quilt: red, pink, and orange
I came across these quilt pictures while updating my photo folders. I don’t remember anything about this quilt and I hadn’t renamed the pictures yet to provide clues. Maybe it was for a friend in Minnesota, baby #3? The pictures were taken November 2013, does this theory work with that timeline? Have I made quilts for all of their children? If that’s the case I better get cracking on the quilt for baby #4 due this fall.
Before and After: Paper Towels
Before
After
My new kitchen is smaller than my apartment kitchen, with less storage and unusable counters tucked in corners and cabinets that are suited for somebody 6’2″ and not 5’2″. Also, there’s not a single cupboard large enough to hold a cookie sheet, and no there’s not a drawer under the oven.
There is a wide ledge outside the kitchen window, which looks onto the large patio and backyard, so that part is cool.
This paper towel holder helps my kitchen feel closer to completion.
Before & After: Ivy RIP
Before
After 😦 😦 😦
The night before the movers came I dropped off all my plants at my new house, leaving them near the front porch area on the east side of the house. The plants came from the dining room, the balcony patio, and by the front door of the apartment. By the time we showed up at the house mid-afternoon the next day most of the plants were sunburned and dying, even the ones that had been living outside in the heat all summer.
I don’t know yet how much of the two large plants from my dining room will survive. They might have healthy bits at the base to start growing again after I trim yards and yards of dead vines. It was not the triumphant moving experience I anticipated.
between the Before and After: it spent a year not growing
Before and After: Balcony Plants
In 2013 there was a single Lack Ikea table on my balcony with a spider plant that I had transplanted into a slightly bigger pot that basil was sold in and is not meant to be permanent. I don’t see any pictures of the original almost-dead little spider plant that I saw on the Lowe’s clearance shelf and said “I can save you!” The balcony also had a pack of lettuce that failed to grow and a big planter of dirt.
Two years later that spider plant has outgrown its actually-a-pot-this-time and would like another one, and the round planter has two basil plants that are doing ok. The Lack table is at the bottom of a pile of plants and shelves.
The balcony has assorted tables, shelves, and chairs. It has a hummingbird feeder, a seed bird feeder, and a bird bath. Some of the plants are thriving and others will get a chance at a better life at my new house soon.
Before and After: Front Door Planter
There are multiple sets of photos on my computer taken over the years with the plan to post Before & Afters. I’m moving to a house in a week and there won’t be many Afters for these. As I like to say, some problems resolve themselves if you wait long enough.
Before pictures on the left, After pictures on the right.
The ponytail plant didn’t make it so I bought a spiky $1.50 plant on a whim. It thrived even through a summer so I bought another when it appeared on the left-for-dead clearance shelf. The bit of white showing through between the plants is a seashell from my childhood. I had a shell collection as a kid and it’s the last one I’ve kept.
On a less successful note, the sweet little ivy plant is not growing well in the planter and it hasn’t exactly died either. Yet?
’80s Training Montage
What I Wore to Work Today: June 24, 2015
Shirt: Levi’s outlet store
Pants: Limited
Belt: Target
Shoes: Payless
Today’s Songza playlist is ’80s Training Montage, to pump me up for chores. Let’s vacuum!!
You’re pumped. You’re ready. All you need is an awesomely cheesy personal soundtrack to energize you as you grind through your workout. Let these ’80s (along with some ’70s) songs lead the way.
Time for a haircut?
What I Wore to Work Today: June 22, 2015
Blouse: Loft
Pants: Limited
Belt: Target
Shoes: Payless
I’ve started pulling my hair up a lot, partly because of the heat. Again, we’re all fools for living here. This sort of climate is not suited to support 4 million people in a two-county metro area. I was one of the almost-a-million people who moved here between April 2000 and April 2010. (I arrived in not-quite-triumph August 11, 2004, after getting into a car accident in Bernalillo, NM that totaled my car, a beautiful 1991 Ford Taurus that I had owned for a week. Welcome to post-college life!)
Am I doing anything about the obvious folly of living here? Am I, perhaps, moving to a more sustainable area? Maybe a state with water? Haha, no, thanks for the offer but I’m going about 3 miles down the street if all goes well.
Intent to Vacate
What I Wore to Work Today: June 19, 2015
Blouse: Don’t remember
Jeans: American Eagle
Shoes: Payless
I submitted a Resident Intent to Vacate form. I gave notice that I will be moving out when my lease ends August 31 instead of renewing, after more than five years in this apartment. I want to live in a small rental house with a yard and space for a small raised bed garden in the sun and, if I should be so lucky, a dog door already installed. Still in the same city and even the same general area, ideally a couple miles closer to my office.
I don’t have a place lined up yet, I’m counting on The Universe coming through for me. If the weeks have ticked by and there’s no house for me I’ll get an apartment, and I’ll experience the fun of new carpets and layouts and neighborhoods and routines (where will I do my grocery shopping??) and it will be Okay.
It was a spontaneous decision. I received my reminder and rent renewal offer and was disappointed to see rent increased again. Two weeks passed. Then I thought, “Wait, what if I don’t re-sign???”
The last time I looked for a new place a 5 1/2 year relationship had just ended. He moved into the spare room and I started my apartment search. The atmosphere in the house was civil and embarrassed, like a doctor’s waiting room where you see somebody from work flipping through a magazine. You nod politely and wish they weren’t there — your mind drifts to possible reasons for their visit and you don’t want to think about it, why are you even imagining that, what’s wrong with your brain? It’s uncomfortable even though nobody is doing anything wrong, and you’re relieved when they’re out of sight.
This time around I’m moving for the fun of it and I’m excited.
Thunderstorms are scary
We had a rare thunderstorm in May — it’s usually one of the months with the least precipitation, second only to June. We also had rain in June this year, the first measurable rain in the first two weeks of the month since 1993 and the first measurable Phoenix rain ever on June 5. That leaves June 11 as the only remaining day without recorded precipitation over the years.
My dog did not appreciate the May storm. I was sitting on the living room floor doing something or other and she came to make her concerns known. She stared at me, she stared outside, she stared back at me. I declined to make the thunder stop happening so she settled in to watch the storm through the sliding doors from the safety of my lap.
Rabbit Style News 