On Cleaning, Family and Friends.

Status of the move: 8/10ths done.

If there's one thing I've learned in my moving is that you can NEVER have too many hands. When it comes to hauling boxes and hiking up stairs, one really must have friends to spare. Since I come from a pretty traditional Mexican family, we know how to treat our helpers. Since I'm a raging lush, I know how to treat MY helpers. Why lunch and mimosas of course! They'll deserve them once they have to drag all our furniture up the stairs. We have 8 large pieces, two tvs, and two beds to move tomorrow. My room is almost done, just my clothes, and the bare necessities are left. Oh and another huge under the bed storage box full of books.

About moving: Really, if you're a bibliophile like me, moving is never going to be easy with the books you cannot bear to part with. I even purged them, and planned on taking them to the used book store (so I could get MORE books at some point) and still I have seven boxes of books and no place to put them.

Back to the subject, I am having my fantastic and overwhelmingly lovely boyfriend and equally as charming and wonderful best friend come over and help me move and unpack tomorrow. I have invited a few choice flaky friends to also help, but we'll see if the draw of free booze will be worth them showing up. I plan on putting my two favorite people to work alphabetizing my trashy romance novel collection, and strategizing on where to put my furniture. I have a very worn bedroom set that I am pretty sure dates back to the 1920's. Which is in various states of refinishing. But I could never give it up, I have this HUGE vanity mirror that I adore more than anything. Its just frustrating because its so damn large. And then hopefully, if time permits, I can drag them both to ikea and we can look at bookcases and shelving. Once we have a bit of an understanding of how many books I have and how much space I'll need. I even contemplated making a cinderblock bookcase, but I'm not quite sure how classy that will look.

My grandmother came over today to line the kitchen cabients. Liner keeps dust and other nasty things from invading your dishes. I stole some of the cling liner and lined my medicine cabienet and bathroom drawer. It really makes gross boring drawers look much cleaner and less shady.

Today's Moving Gem: The 99 cent store is god for many things.

I'm sure my college friends would be sure to tell me that the 99 cent store uses sweat shops, cuts down rain forests and child labor. But honestly, at this moment in this economy, I could give a flying fuck less. I was able to buy every single cleaning product (plus shower stuff for my brother, paper towels, toilet paper and toothpaste) for 23 dollars. I'm not kidding when I say every single cleaning supply you'd ever need. It costed more to get a mop and a broom at walgreens (ok so WAY overpriced) than for me to get all that stuff. And I found it quite charming, if inconvienent, that they charge for plastic bags. In addition, they also sell condoms. How win is that?

While my grandma meticulously lines the cabinets, my brother bitches and moans about being unemployed, and living in the living room and how crappy it is. I really am not sure how living with him is going to be. I can't even get into how frustrated I am at his whining. The point of my grandma mention is, that my mom doesnt have a bed yet, so she has to sleep on my air mattress, but like a dumb ass I packed my air mattress with all my sex toys. So this is how the conversation went:
"babe? I'll need the air mattress. Is it in one of the boxes in your room?"
"[shit!] Uhhhh, let me look mom, I think I uh, maybe its still at home."
[Frantically search for the box with air mattress and strap ons in room hoping against hope that it is there and not at my stepdad's house. No such luck.]
"no, um its well, at the house. [stare at grandma guiltily] If you go pick up the boxes dont open them. I uh, well I think there might be some scandalous, and really shady things in there. [please don't let her ask what I mean, please dont let her ask what I mean.]

Thankfully my mom loves my use of the term Shady and Scandalous and laughed awkwardly and let it go. I thank god every moment that my grandmother is hard of hearing, because that would have been difficult to explain.

Gem Number 2: Never Pack Your Sex Toys in a Box Your Mother Would Look in.

Next Post: Just How Many Trashy Romance Novels Does This Slut Have?
(She MUST be exaggerating, no one has seven boxes of books full of bodice rippers.)

146th Street My New Home

I'm Kay.
I love blogging.
A lot actually.
I love searching other people's blogs and reading their writing. I have a few other more private blogs which I keep carefully hidden, and in which my writing is more of a stream of consciousness and less well thought out.
But, I decided to finally give into this blogspot thing and make a specific blog for a specific purpose.

That purpose you ask? Why my new apartment.

I rolled over one morning, after my mother and I found a new apartment because of her impending divorce, and realized; I've moved quite a lot.

From my childhood home (a rental and a duplex), to my elementary school home (another rental and another duplex), to my adolescent home (bought and paid for), to my mother's apartment (rental, post divorce), to my step dad's house (bought and paid for, pre and post marriage), to my college dorm (+ a roommate), my college apartment (on campus + same roommate), a hotel (converted to college dorm housing, - a roommate), to my little house on California street (a duplex, + cat, + housemate), and back to my step dad's house. That's ten moves. This is not counting the every two week switch between my mother's apartment/step dad's house and my dad's house during my mom's first divorce. I'm pretty much a moving pro.

Every living situation is different. My dad is a little crazy, childish and over protective. My mother has always been able to make any place we stay, apartment, trailer, home or tent, a home. My brother, used to be my best friend and now is just annoying. My step dad is the same as my dad just mix in a dreadful temper. My old roommate from college was fun, neat and pretty much my best friend. My housemate at the California house was a dominatrix sometimes, kept baby possums and was about the most kick ass woman I've ever met. So I decided to blog about these experiences in hopes that my tips and tricks may help someone out.

Truthfully, I'm of the mind that every story here is Worth a Fortune.

Today's Gem:
Find a constant in your life and depend on it.

When my mother and dad got divorced at first, I was only in middle school. My constant was this big green army issued duffel bag. I think it was my dad's when he was in the army. Anyone who asks a divorced kid if they "had two of everything" has been reading too many Babysitters Club books. (Does anyone even remember that, about how Stacy was SO lucky because she could have two of everything?) I was too poor to have two of everything, so I stuffed every ounce of clothing into that huge green duffel bag and carted it back and forth from one house to the other. I really don't know what I would have done without it. It was so huge I could stick almost my whole wardrobe in it with room to spare.

Now that I'm not 13, I have something a little more spacious. My car.
I keep it in good working condition, despite the bird poop, dents and Oktoberfest disaster thanks to my dad. He's a mechanical genius. I realized once I moved back from college, and never knew where I was going to spend my night after I got out of work late in the evenings, that I got tired of borrowing girlfriends tampons, beach towels, pajamas, makeup and high heels. It was so frustrating to put on a friends drug store makeup before we'd go out bar hopping when I KNEW I had a ton of Lancome at home. I hated having to make the extra 45 minute trip out of my way to home when I would get out late from work to pick up "going out clothes" and pajama's and end up missing the pre-partying all together.

So I did some brain storming. Why not keep a bit of everything with me? After about a MILLION trial and errors I have put together the perfect "Slut Bag" for all my after work needs.
How do you ask? I took notes on where I usually ended up after work (bar hopping, a friends house, my boyfriends, karate class, the gym) and where I would be likely to go before work on on a weekend while out with friends (the gym, the beach, the park). And I made a list of everything I would need for each place.

The Gym/Karate:
I've been taking karate for almost a year and always need something extra for class. It never fails.

• Medium sized duffel bag:
• Karate Gi and belt
• Sparring gloves
• Sports bra
• Trial size febreeze (for when you haven't had time to wash that shit)

Small awkward triangle backpack:
You know what kind I'm talking about, the ones you NEVER use but ALWAYS get as swag. The one that cuts your boobs in half?

• jump rope
• extra socks
• Ipod shuffle (that I bought when my car swallowed my large ipod and then spit back out again)
• lock and key (I can never remember combinations)

Evening and weekend stuff:
Very Key: Invest in two large duffel bags or a really large canvas sacks. One is to keep in the car to clear out the worn clothes, shoes, books and other junk you've brought with you, and the other one is to keep in the trunk. This probably takes up the most space

• Trial sized (in your favorite scent) shower and lotion accouterments. Take your full sized ones and fill 3 ounce bottles full of it.
• A bath towel.
• Break down and really invest in your slut bag's makeup bag. Nothing is worse than using inferior brushes and pallets when you're trying to get laid.
• Nail polish, remover, cotton balls, nail file and clippers. Nothing says class better than freshly painted nails. They can dry while you drive.
• Whatever your facial regime is outside of traveling, it should be the same within, take those travel bottles and fill them with toner and your facial moisturizer. You never know what kind of hard water is coming out of the spout!
• a hair dryer and other hair supplies. You don't need anything fancy, I keep bobby pins, a really good root lifter in my car and a tiny bottle of hairspray. You just want some volume before you go out, not a total makeover.
  
• shower flip flops, because gross, you never want to shower at the gym without them.
  
• a pair of pajama pants
• an extra pair of underwear
• tampons are a MUST!
  

Just for fun:
I know this may sound silly but... really, you never know. I keep everything in one of those little cloth drawers in the corner of my car. It takes up little to no room!

• water balloons
• Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. (Well, any good book that you wouldn't mind reading again, nothing looks lamer than you sitting there texting while waiting for someone because you don't want to look alone. That does not allow anyone cute to come up to you and make conversation.)
• sidewalk chalk
• bubbles
• sunglasses
• a beach towel, suntan lotion, tanning oil, and bathing suit in its very own bag.
• a box of granola bars (I'm always hungry after Karate, and I don't want to stuff myself).
  
• A quart of synthetic oil. Any slutty bitch knows when her oil is low or needs to be changed (every three months or 3,000 miles) and checks it before and after any long trip. A flashlight and tire gauge.
  

You may laugh at this post. But really, you don't know how many times I've been asked to hang out with people who say, "man I wish I had x,y and z" and I take great joy in telling them, "Oh let me get it out of my trunk!" When I am going to take a trip and have to fly, I just take out the large duffel bag with my makeup, and shower stuff and don't have to worry about the liquid flying rule since its already set! And I cannot tell you how good it makes me feel to be able to come to work in the afternoon, after a hard night of drinking and being scandalous, to a clean face, pinned up hair and fresh deodorant.

Ok, I'll leave it at this for now. I've got plans to see some of my college friends for drinks tonight.

Next Post: The Move and Unpacking My New Apartment