Interior Pictures

So I decided my apartment was finally in good enough shape to start sharing more pictures of it, for you curious ones out there. It still needs a lot in the way of decorations, but at least all the furniture and stuff is taken care of. Also, it's not quite as tidy as it might appear here, since I was running around ahead of myself the whole time to move various bits of junk behind me for the pictures. (And that's quite a trick, let me tell you, running ahead of and behind myself at once.)

You can look at the whole set of the pictures here. My bedroom layout is working okay as it is this way, and the new bed is nice. I'll might want some small rugs for the extra floor space, and I definitely need something nice to cover the vast expanse of empty wall. Ditto for the main living room wall, but I'm thinking some large-scale, ongoing art project for that. That could be fun. In the living room, I put the TV, rug and couch all on a diagonal, which I think looks neat, though it's hard to tell in the photo. Kind of marks it out as a separate space from my little "office" area in the nook behind it, too.

Anyway, it's all coming together nicely, and it's definitely feeling like home. I like it a lot.

Singing! Dancing! Playing!

Gary had his 70th birthday party yesterday and it was fantastic. It was at Etz Chayim (née Palo Alto YWCA) and tons of people completely filled the building with music and dancing for the entire afternoon and evening. It was really nice to get a good fix of some things I haven't really done much of for a couple months (or longer): shape note singing, irish tunes, and contra dancing. I need to try to start doing some of that stuff in the normal course of life again soon. All very fun.

I also saw Galt and Janet again for the first time in years, which was nice, and met their 10-month old son Connell, who I absolutely adore. He seemed like the happiest little baby I've ever seen, just toddling around smiling at people and trying to get a hold of any musical instrument he could see. He's definitely got music ingrained in him already. And when his daddy starts playing, he just doesn't have eyes for anything else. It's wonderful.

An Interesting Space Problem

Things are coming together nicely here, though I'm still stalling on unpacking all the books until I have my bookcases positioned in my bedroom correctly. The main problem right now is one I've never encountered before: too much space. Ideally, I want my bed on the back wall, facing the window. The other primary things to include are the dresser and two bookcases. Given the closet on one wall and the window and heater on another, that leaves pretty much just one wall to put them against. However, that leaves a completely empty area about 8 x 8 feet that you walk into in the entrance, which feels enormous. All that open space sort of decreases the coziness quotient that I'd like to have in a bedroom, so I'm trying to figure out what to do with it. The bed is already sticking out into the room, rather than being long-ways against the wall. I'm considering moving it against the other wall, sticking in from the side to divide the room more in half, then putting the bookcases against the back wall. The downside to that is that the bed is more in a line with the door and also has me facing the closet and bathroom, rather than the window. I'd just as soon take some of the extra space and put it in the living room if I could. Anyway, this is all very tricky. I often have a very definite feeling for where things belong in a room, but this particular room is being difficult. Interesting problem, though.

Moved!

Everything went quite well on Saturday, thanks to everyone who came to help me move. There was a bit of a worry early on when the Uhaul place told me they had never heard of my reservation (Greg tells me this is business as usual for Uhaul) but luckily enough they had something available and it worked out. It took under four hours to load everything up (including disassembling some furniture), drive it down to the Live Light Ward, and unload/reassemble it all. Unpacking the many boxes stacked up around here will still take awhile, but the essentials are done and what little furniture I have is up and situated. There are a number of things I'll need to buy, but it's at least somewhat resembling a home, rather than a storage area. All this space is still a little mind-boggling: a bedroom AND a living room AND a kitchen! It's the first time I've lived anywhere with more than one room to call my own, and just deciding what room things go in is an unexpected challenge. Fun, though, and I'm definitely liking it here so far.

Big Lindy

I made it back to Steppin' Out for some lindy hopping last night, after missing it for a month or so. Trevor and Megan's current lesson series sounds like something that should be in my spam folder ("Increase the size of your lindy in just four weeks!") but it's fun. There are a few muscles complaining right now about this drop move we did, but at least I know what to stretch next week.

Richard Kear performed a fantastic West Coast Swing routine there, too, and it's made me want to start taking his lessons again. I love it when a dance(r) is just so delightful that it makes me laugh out loud. The music isn't funny, the dance isn't funny, but they just fit together so perfectly that the sudden jolt of happiness needs to come out as a laugh.