State of the Neko address: week 72

song+ Wasted Years- Maroon 5- Live: Friday the 13th
book+ Nora Roberts' Bridal Quartet series
quest+ getting rid of a bunch more stuff
upper+ making serious progress
downer+ still tons to get through
attire+ shorts and a grey tank
drink+ water

not being a Monday, this is late, but this week i don't really care. our phones are temporarily off, service should be restored this weekend upon paying the phone bill. i've made substantial progress in my efforts to clean up and get rid of stuff, but i forgot that Harley's training takes a giant leap back for a few days every time we really clean. last night she got on the counter and knocked a thawing tray of pork chops to the floor then ate half of them. she was put in her kennel as punishment but remained unrepentant. after Kyu left for work, but while i was still asleep, she knocked over the trashcan and dragged its contents across the entire downstairs of the apartment. it still looks like raccoons threw a wicked house party, and i've been cleaning up for a solid hour already. i've got the kitchen more or less in line again, but since the living room carpet is less broom-friendly and has more furniture to work around i'm taking a well-deserved break to save my back. X.x i'll get back to it in a bit, when this is out of my system.

if the dog's behavior hadn't imploded last night i'd be upstairs trying to finish the office today. my goal is to get it organized enough to set up both my easel and the exercise equipment i actually do own.. it's presently stuffed in the downstairs closet. i've gone through boxes and boxes of art supplies and two HUGE portfolios of old art and weeded out the useless things. i didn't realize i had three almost identical sets of oil pastels. i how have two (one unopened and one well-loved) and the third (gently used) is going to Moose who expressed a desire to play around with them a few months ago (not knowing i had some for her, as i myself didn't know) i also have three different sets of watercolor pencils (two of which are specialized for doll face ups; 1 neutral/peach/brown and 1 pink/purple/grey), a nearly-pristine set of chalk pastels, two differently sized sets of Prismacolor colored pencils, two differently sized sets of Prismacolor markers (plus assorted grey scale separates), about five of the exact same inking pen (but being my favorite i knew i had multiples of it), three or four metallic paint pens (gold and silver) in thin tip, wide tip, and calligraphy tip- some of which seem to be exploded messes from storage at the wrong temperature. i got rid of lots of the art done in high school by myself and Kyu. not all of it, but the stuff neither one of us really liked. i kept mostly what i wanna actually display, and Kyu did the same, and i also kept one piece that i'm not crazy about, but i did SUCH a good job i couldn't stand to let it go. no false modesty there. xD it's a bright green snake working it's way through grey scale foliage, done in colored pencil and charcoals over an immensely frustrating week my senior year. i have no fondness for snakes, but it's so GOOD i can't make myself throw it out. i found more paintbrushes, and shoes from old dolls that fit Vanille (my pukifee Shiwoo) and Chloe (Kyu's Uyoo).

aside from finding things i knew i'd kept but couldn't figure out where, i'm realizing that i don't need most of what i held on to. i'm fully aware of my pack-rat nature, and i've been fighting it for years now, but going through this crap i can't imagine why i kept some of it in the first place. i sincerely doubt that next week i'll find myself regretting throwing out a journal with half-formed essays from my freshman English class. for most of them i ran out of time to write before i got my point across. so yeah, getting rid of stuff isn't emotionally harrowing for me or anything, it's just that we've got SO MUCH STUFF between the two of us, it's taking a long time to get at it all. i am proud to say though that rather than a packed-full closet that won't close in the office, there are now three neatly-sealed and labeled boxes on the top shelf and a stack of action figures in their boxes since there's no space to display them on the floor next to a single portfolio of art we're keeping and one full of unused canvasses and blank sketchpads. xD granted, i still have my rather substantial fabric hoard to get sorted and organized, but that's the fun part, so i'm saving it for after the weeding-out is done. xD of course, when the office is done it's on to the bedroom, then the living room. i figure if i do the living room last, i'll be around (and not upstairs working) to calm Harley's freaking out and we can possibly keep her from undoing it all.

i'm looking forward to being done for a few reasons. for one thing i really hate to clean, but another is once we have less stuff laying around i'll have a better idea of what space we'll need when we move this fall. the place that Kyu wants didn't have an available unit to tour when i went by with Moose, but Kyu's seen it since it's where James was living when they met in junior high. there's a floor plan with dimensions for it online and i worked it out on graph paper, but i'm visual enough to wanna walk through it before committing. it's a little bit smaller than our current place but would save us about $200 every month. the other big reason i wanna be done is that i have ideas for sewing and painting and various dolly & hobby endeavors but i'm trying to be mature and finish what i already started first. maturity sucks. xD i wanna work on purple glitter sneakers, and ivory lace ballgowns, and completely abstract swirly painted messes of emotion, but instead i'm cleaning up after the dog, then later clearing out piles of junk we don't need. *sigh* yeah it looks better, but i'm really a very instant-gratification kind of person. i'm willing to work for a reward, but i prefer them immediately and not in the long-term. that's why it's so hard for me to work out consistently even though i hate being overweight; it's not an immediately obvious reward. like if i sew a dress, then i have a dress at the end. if i paint something, i have artistic feedback from whoever i show it to. when i work out i'm just tired and sweaty at the end, it's not like someone's all "oh, wow you're suddenly 2 sizes smaller, that's amazing!" X.x when i dance i have fun, but there's not space for that now, and when i (used to) run it gave me good thinking time, but my asthma kicked in and i pretty much had to stop running until i could control it, and by that point my chest was too massive to behave any speed quicker than a brisk walk. i miss being able to run without pain and discomfort, but i was like 12 or 13 last time i could. maybe when the office is done i'll take the Xbox upstairs and hook up the Kinect to dance in there without tripping over the dog.

really lately i've just been missing the feeling of throwing clay on the wheel in my old ceramics class. i can see what i'd like to make (stoneware inspired by each of my very different family members), but i don't have a way to do any of it and that has me frustrated. i suppose the answer is to say that yeah, Jenni i'm totally interested in anything you can tell me about taking college courses. and hey, i even found my high school transcript in the cleaning process! xD

also when are we gonna have our next Girl Day? the Xbox/Kinect and Dance Central (for grownups) Kinect Adventures (for kids) are totally ready for family awesome-time. as am i, i miss you guys.