A Grown Up House

You know what the difference between a grown up house and a college house is?
Frames. Yep, plain old fashioned picture frames. Silly I know.
My coworker and I talked about this a bit at break when she asked how settled I was in my new apartment. I told her I was still drowning in boxes, empty and otherwise. (goddamn trashy romance novels!) And how I spent a ton of money this weekend on frames, and trying to make my room look grown up and not so childish. She related to me her realization on "grown up" homes, when she went to a house party that a friend was throwing with her boyfriend. She walked in and all the dinner and flatware matched. Posters and pictures were in frames and there was a color scheme going. That's when she realized SHE was a grown up.

One of my really good friends from college is living with her much much older boyfriend, and she is/was always the type to worry about matching and stuff. Now that they live in his house she's even more aware, even though she really cant change anything without his consent. My Partner In Crime is similar. She loves the color combination of purple and grass green and has crafted her room at her parents house to showcase those colors. When I was living in the California house I choose every color of red imaginable and decked my room out in that. But it was still a college room, with posters that didn't match and Christmas lights. So I threw out my Christmas lights, and decided on something a little different for a color scheme. Orange, black and golden yellow. My mother and best friend insist that its going to look like Halloween. But I think if I'm careful and go heavy on the black and light on the orange (or tend toward a more bronze orange) I should be ok. I'm kinda nervous. I'll be a grown up.

Yesterday I took one large step in being a grown up and purchased 50 dollars worth of picture frames. Three poster sized ones, one long narrow ones, four 8x10's, and four little ones. I framed some of my favorite pictures from Team Gay in Santa Cruz. I took two of the large poster frames and collaged my last weekend in Santa Cruz Polaroids, juxtaposed with a few of my favorite (This one is called "Wrong Nail") Gil Elvgren pinups. I always had a collage wall in the dorms with things I found interesting; articles, ads, flyers, pictures and bottle caps I found around campus. I decided to toss all that crap and keep only a few cherished ones for my pin up polaroid collage. I have about six or seven fans that I want to put up on the walls also, that I've collected over the years. Now its all about moving things around and getting a stud finder.

Today's Gem: Ikea has the best frames for your money
For fifty bucks I got 14 frames. I bought six black frames and eight clip frames which consist of just glass and particle board for backing with silver clips keeping them together. The tiny clip frames come in a pack of four for 2.99. The large clip frames which were measured about 20x13 or something were only 4.99. The black frames were 4.99 and 7.99. I swear you cant go wrong because they were 20 dollars a piece at Michaels!

These large clip frames are ideal for a collage of pictures. I saw these really cute frames at target which were about the same size that consisted of different panes of glass in one frame which gave each picture placed on each glass panel depth. They were so expensive. So I settled for these clip frames instead. I went to Michaels and got scrapbooking paper in my highlighting colors (orange and gold) and placed them as the backing. Then collaged them to give them some depth all on their own. I tend not to be the type to want symmetry for some reason. I like everything to be a tiny bit asemetrical. So mine are all at odd slants and going wonky directions. We'll see how it looks. For more practical reasons these clip frames are ideal because if you decide your color scheme is different you can change out the back paper for your new color. I have a feeling this will happen every six months or so for me. I get so bored easily.

Gem #2: Michael's > Joann's for crafty stuff, but Joann's > Michael's for price.
Ugh I paid six dollars for yarn for beardaversary. WTF! I'm pretty sure it would have been cheaper at Joann's. And I feel like I'd also get a ton more of selection. My beard btw is going to be rockin'.

Hmm, I think that's about it. Oh, yeah, one more: always always always check the As-Is area of ikea. I snaked a rockin' black shag rug from the As-Is area for 53% off. (And by snaked I mean I literally snaked it out from under some hipster/scenester/goth/punk girl, she was just staring at it with her hands on her hips and Partner in Crime whipped it off its hanger and we stuck it on my cart. Man did we get the stink eye) It was only 24 dollars. It was the floor model so it did have some left over sticky paper residue in the corner but with some tweezers and carpet cleaner it looks as good as new. And now I can use my huge hardwood floor for more than just walking. Like impromptu champagne-taco bell-picnic-framing-parties with the Partner in Crime on my clearance urban outfitters square floor cushions. Or as Partner said, "Now you can have sex on your floor!" Hmph. That'll be the day.

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.)