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Flying through fall
Nov. 7th, 2013 08:09 amChicago move, day...38? Ish? Man, time goes by quick. Especially when you lose a week to illness.
The settling-in continues apace, albeit with a certain frenetic urgency thanks to the impending arrival of guests. I finally have the bones of my reading nook set up - there's a little alcove off the living room that's been earmarked for it but filled with boxes until now. (At least they were mostly boxes of books?) But it's got a chair, a lamp, and a nice tall half-full bookcase in it now. Just in time for me to decide I'm taking up piano and move everything out of it to make it my keyboard nook. (Not sure if this will actually happen. But I've been thinking I should learn piano for a while, and it seems the likeliest spot. Though once we get the boxes cleared out of the living room and the couch pushed over a bit, there may be space by the Juliet balcony too.) Today will likely be unpacking more book boxes, and probably hauling the empty ones down to the storage space. Soon I'll need to put up a Craigslist ad for someone to come and take them away.
I've finally gotten all our IKEA purchases put together, and on the whole, I've been fairly pleased with them - they've been very well-engineered, with easy-to-follow directions and all the holes lining up and parts fitting correctly (unlike some other flat-pack furniture sellers I could name). The only exception, somewhat ironically, has been those HEMNES bookcases I angsted about buying. Somewhat to my surprise, the grey-brown color actually looks far less blah in person - it has sort of a purpley tone to it, and we've been decorating with an eye for purple accents. (The one in our bedroom looks especially nice, as our new bed set is a similar tone of purple, just darker.) Unfortunately, they've just not been as well-constructed as the other pieces we bought - I built two of them, so I'm fairly sure it's not just a fluke. One had significant issues with the screw locks on the fixed middle shelf not lining up properly; both had an issue with the second backing piece being slightly too large for the space you slot it into. Neither was an end-of-the-world problem (though I splintered one of the anchor holes trying to fix the screw lock thing on the first one - nothing heavy on that shelf!), but compared to how absolutely stellar all the other IKEA furniture we bought was, it was a surprising couple of oversights. Ah well. Maybe I'll email them about it and see if they'll send me another coupon. (I received a $25-off-your-$250-or-more-purchase coupon in the mail, which was awesome...literally three hours after returning from spending over $700 with them, which was not. And of course the fine print specifically forbade applying it to previous purchases. Ah well.)
Meantime, I'm looking around at things to occupy my time once the house is unpacked and set up. From the 13th through the 19th, we're having guests, but after that I'm going to have rather a lot of spare time. After hearing a friend talk about it with enthusiasm, I'm thinking I might try learning aerials - silks, trapeze, high-wire, that kind of thing. It seems like the sort of thing that would slot well with someone used to yoga and gymnastics rather than running or lifting, and I've always enjoyed the theatricality of it. I was a little concerned that the fact that I'm no longer in my twenties might be an issue, but according to the Aloft Loft, most of their students are in their thirties and many of their professional performers didn't start taking lessons until that age. (I wonder if it generally takes people that long to get over their fear of heights.) While it would be neat if I could learn it well enough to perform, even just the conditioning/balance/postural aspects all sound beneficial. And it's definitely not something I could have done in Arizona or Alaska. (Of course, their "taster classes" this month land smack in the middle of guest-time. Bah. I guess there's no reason I couldn't just dive right in and take a trapeze class, though...)
I'm also thinking about seeing if I can volunteer at the Old Town School of Folk Music; they have a program in place where you can earn credits to use towards concerts or classes. Most of the volunteer opportunities are things like ushering or concession-selling at concerts, but it says they occasionally need help with data entry and the like; maybe I can talk my way into an office-type gig with an eye towards eventually getting a paid position. We'll see.
The weather's been just lovely - crisp and cool, with a nice balance of windy/rainy and sunny days. There's even still some leaves on the trees; I'm hoping they'll last another week so my mother can see them when she visits. I must say, I could get used to this whole idea of autumn as an actual season, rather than "that two-week stretch between the leaves turning colors and the snow falling" like it is in Alaska...
The settling-in continues apace, albeit with a certain frenetic urgency thanks to the impending arrival of guests. I finally have the bones of my reading nook set up - there's a little alcove off the living room that's been earmarked for it but filled with boxes until now. (At least they were mostly boxes of books?) But it's got a chair, a lamp, and a nice tall half-full bookcase in it now. Just in time for me to decide I'm taking up piano and move everything out of it to make it my keyboard nook. (Not sure if this will actually happen. But I've been thinking I should learn piano for a while, and it seems the likeliest spot. Though once we get the boxes cleared out of the living room and the couch pushed over a bit, there may be space by the Juliet balcony too.) Today will likely be unpacking more book boxes, and probably hauling the empty ones down to the storage space. Soon I'll need to put up a Craigslist ad for someone to come and take them away.
I've finally gotten all our IKEA purchases put together, and on the whole, I've been fairly pleased with them - they've been very well-engineered, with easy-to-follow directions and all the holes lining up and parts fitting correctly (unlike some other flat-pack furniture sellers I could name). The only exception, somewhat ironically, has been those HEMNES bookcases I angsted about buying. Somewhat to my surprise, the grey-brown color actually looks far less blah in person - it has sort of a purpley tone to it, and we've been decorating with an eye for purple accents. (The one in our bedroom looks especially nice, as our new bed set is a similar tone of purple, just darker.) Unfortunately, they've just not been as well-constructed as the other pieces we bought - I built two of them, so I'm fairly sure it's not just a fluke. One had significant issues with the screw locks on the fixed middle shelf not lining up properly; both had an issue with the second backing piece being slightly too large for the space you slot it into. Neither was an end-of-the-world problem (though I splintered one of the anchor holes trying to fix the screw lock thing on the first one - nothing heavy on that shelf!), but compared to how absolutely stellar all the other IKEA furniture we bought was, it was a surprising couple of oversights. Ah well. Maybe I'll email them about it and see if they'll send me another coupon. (I received a $25-off-your-$250-or-more-purchase coupon in the mail, which was awesome...literally three hours after returning from spending over $700 with them, which was not. And of course the fine print specifically forbade applying it to previous purchases. Ah well.)
Meantime, I'm looking around at things to occupy my time once the house is unpacked and set up. From the 13th through the 19th, we're having guests, but after that I'm going to have rather a lot of spare time. After hearing a friend talk about it with enthusiasm, I'm thinking I might try learning aerials - silks, trapeze, high-wire, that kind of thing. It seems like the sort of thing that would slot well with someone used to yoga and gymnastics rather than running or lifting, and I've always enjoyed the theatricality of it. I was a little concerned that the fact that I'm no longer in my twenties might be an issue, but according to the Aloft Loft, most of their students are in their thirties and many of their professional performers didn't start taking lessons until that age. (I wonder if it generally takes people that long to get over their fear of heights.) While it would be neat if I could learn it well enough to perform, even just the conditioning/balance/postural aspects all sound beneficial. And it's definitely not something I could have done in Arizona or Alaska. (Of course, their "taster classes" this month land smack in the middle of guest-time. Bah. I guess there's no reason I couldn't just dive right in and take a trapeze class, though...)
I'm also thinking about seeing if I can volunteer at the Old Town School of Folk Music; they have a program in place where you can earn credits to use towards concerts or classes. Most of the volunteer opportunities are things like ushering or concession-selling at concerts, but it says they occasionally need help with data entry and the like; maybe I can talk my way into an office-type gig with an eye towards eventually getting a paid position. We'll see.
The weather's been just lovely - crisp and cool, with a nice balance of windy/rainy and sunny days. There's even still some leaves on the trees; I'm hoping they'll last another week so my mother can see them when she visits. I must say, I could get used to this whole idea of autumn as an actual season, rather than "that two-week stretch between the leaves turning colors and the snow falling" like it is in Alaska...
