Our house, in the middle of our street…

Despite the cheery bad 80s synth that you might now be hearing in your head, things aren’t too cheerful.

Our house (the one in the middle of our street) was broken into a little while ago, hence the lack of posting.  I’ve gotten some fun creative stuff done that I would love to share, but we’re still reeling a bit.

I’ve recounted the story more times than I’d like, and I’m well aware that I am terrible at narratives, so I’ll give the short of it:

- We were not in the house, and the cats were not harmed, although Rowan did escape and caused us to be in a massive panic until we found her sleeping contentedly in our tomato patch.

-Our neighbors thankfully saw the whole thing and called the police right away. Can you say really awesome gift basket filled with handknit items and homebaked goods? ‘Cause that’s what they’re getting.

-The thieves broke a window that was already cracked (my landlord is NOT getting such a basket…we’ve been waiting for repair for some time now) and got into my bedroom first. Of course, the only thing in my bedroom is my bed, my collection of knitting-related items, and a small altar with candles, incense and a safe-keeping box that my dad  gave to me. That box had all of my tip money and my “Celebrity Day” money that I got from working the store when Brittany Murphy came in (it’s a fun story in itself and am rather shocked that I didn’t blog about it). All together they managed to get their hands on about 400 precious dollars in cash, my old laptop that doesn’t even turn on (I had mine with me), and they basically smashed and destroyed everything (including my bed) in my room before being discovered by the neighbors and running off.

The police haven’t found anyone yet…however if the neighbors hadn’t alerted them to their presence, they probably would have made their way into the rest of the house  and we’d be in a lot worse situation.

So t’s been stressful. The “Celebrity Day” money was going towards the Atypical Youth Summer Sunshine Contest, and the rest of it was our grocery money for the next month or so while we paid off my physical therapy and prepared to start paying for school out of pocket.  We’re working on our landlord and may take him to court for not fixing the window – but even though the settlement may be lovely and cushy I don’t know if I want to deal with that hassle while also attending classes and continuing to work. We’ll see.

While I have already requested my days off for this summer’s vacation and can’t really do much about that, we won’t be going on our trip to Brookings for our anniversary/Matt’s birthday, and that is rather a devastating blow. I was really looking forward to some time away from this city, the heat, and I really wanted to show Matt around and teach him to build sandcastles.

I’ll be back soon with tales of handbuilt spice rack and kitchen carts, spinning progress, and two FOs and a new WIP.

Peace be with you!

FAIL

Mission Relax was a fail.

Mission Airtight Containers was a fail.

Mission Ani a fail?

Stay tuned.

21 years old, on vacation…

…and conducting internet searches for airtight food containers. How in the world is it that I am not just dripping with friends?

I took a couple of days off from work to provide myself with what I thought would be relaxation. But I’m really bad at relaxation. Really.

So far I have gone to play tennis, gone for a really intense hike, tried to organize my entire kitchen, taught myself to spin, and spent hours scanning in pictures from my massive collection of Things To Scan Because I Want Them But Seriously Don’t Need Ten Tonnes of Shit to Lug Around For the Rest of My Life.

And you know what? I’m still exhausted. And my neck, head and shoulders hurt terribly. And my leg? The one that I’m supposed to be reintegrating back into society? Did not need the tennis or the hike. WTF Ani?

As Matt left for work he suggested that I sit down and watch some DVDs that I’d picked up from the library. Now, get this. He suggested that I do so while lying prone on the couch with a compress for the neck/head pain…and not doing anything else. This is a painful concept for me. I picked up my spinning and he made me put it down. I picked up my crocheting, claiming that I didn’t need to see it to do it, and he made me put it down. Now, I’ve only made it through one episode before I had to get up and, yes, research airtight food storage containers. But I do plan to going back to what I was doing. And honestly, it’s doing me good in the long run. Because I found what I was looking for and now won’t get up and drive out to Fred Meyer’s just to purchase these containers that I want. They’ll take longer to arrive, so I won’t come home and immediately start organizing my kitchen. But I’ll still feel accomplished, and I’ll get to wrap my neck in lavendar/geranium/rosemary compressy goodness and get back to actually accomplishing nothing.

I have to go grocery shopping tomorrow, but it’s my last day off, so I will hopefully do nothing else. Maybe tomorrow will be a book-only day. But  after that? I’ll get to work and post some pictures of my lovely spinning progress (and maybe start a dictionary for the new curse words that I am inventing while learning to spin), and my other fibre arts progress.

Um. If you want really, really good airtight food storage containers, please go here. I bought some at Fred’s the other day, for my two kinds of spelt flour and sugar and both Matt and I love them. I long for the day when my kitchen is not full of bulk bags of beans, rice and nutritional yeast.  I might actually use some of the beans, rice and nooch if I actually can find it, too. Odd concept.