Thursday, September 24, 2009

Elation!

I just got my first grown-up (permanent) job! Finally! I'll be honest, I started to lose hope a little bit. I thought that I must actually be an unemployable loser. Turns out, I'm an employable loser! Sweet!

So I guess all those papers and exams and hectic schedules really do pay off. I was starting to question all of my career/educational choices as I sat around my house feeling sorry for myself all day every day for the past month.

Celebrations are in store! There's a sparkly alcoholic beverage I've been meaning to try. This might be the occasion!*

*I have been on exclamation mark overload ever since I got the call this afternoon! I'm! just! so! freaking! happy!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Wacky Misadventures

Quick update: I moved into a rowhouse in south Baltimore with my main squeeze - and no one else. We've been living together for two years, but during that time, we've always had roommates, so this is the first time we've lived together alone. Which is nice. We love our house. It was built in 1920 and has original hardwood floors and interesting reclaimed wood accents and vintage 1950's kitchen cabinets. We're renting right now, but there's an option to buy. We're not in a position to buy at the moment, nor do we feel particularly warm or fuzzy about the neighborhood, but you never know.

We decided we wanted to paint pretty early on, so we went to Home Depot to get a bunch of swatches, which we hung in every room and carefully considered the benefits of subtle differences in blues, greens, reds, and even greys. In they end of course, we went to the Loading Dock and picked up a 5 gallon bucket of reclaimed green paints. Volunteers go to landfills and find half empty (or half full?) cans of paint and mix them based on color and type. And we're avengers of the Earth, so this seemed like a good option. I'm also still unemployed, so the fact that a 5 gallon bucket of paint regularly costs $10, but was on sale for $7 was also a selling point.

And what could possibly go wrong? Well, actually, it went pretty well. Mixing this much paint is hard enough as it is, but there were clearly several different colors of green, so mixing it well was really important. We realized how important when the paint on the walls dried, showing just how many different shades of green (and yellow and blue) were in that one bucket. It took two second coats until we got a method of mixing/painting that left us with a nice even color, but you know what? It looks pretty damn good now. And the color doesn't exactly match the swatch we picked (I say it's bluer; Brian says yellower), but it's a nice color. We think we'll go this route again.

Wanna see?



Any discoloration you note is due to lighting rather than paint.

Overall playing house has been a lot of fun. It'll be more fun once I'm employed and can spend more than $7 on nonessentials, but all in due time.

Other than that, it's been same ol', same ol'. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a good job and enjoying my time off.

Enjoy the fall y'all!