‘Tis Better to Dance with an Overbite than Not Dance at All

The move is complete and somehow we managed to squeeze 2000 square feet worth of things into 580 square feet of apartment. Luckily, 1. Mom was willing to let us store some things until they are sold and 2. The Goodwill drop off location is only three blocks from our new apartment. As a comparison, the basement apartment of my cousin’s house where we lived on Long Island was roughly the same size as this (with literally only six inches of daylight ever making it into that place, creating a virtual dungeon) but even though this apartment could be considered small, I am in love with the daylight that shines through to make it feel so much bigger!

Living room



Office / creative exploration space




That is pretty much the entire apartment, hope you enjoyed the tour.

Unpacking all of our many boxes has meant discovering items I either forgot about (most of which went to Goodwill since obviously they were not enough in my consciousness to require a need to keep them) or remembered being packed away and was excited to “find” again. One of the excitement items was my sewing machine and all the many pieces of fabric that go with it. In our first week here I have already hemmed the office drapery, created the living room curtains from scratch, turned an old shower curtain into a curtain panel for the shower window and made a fabric skirt for the bathroom sink. Last night however was the most fun of all because I learned the proper way (by hand) to hem a skirt during the first sewing class (of many to come) with Auntie.

I acquired this skirt from the massive clothing collection my Grandma left behind after she passed away several years ago. She was even more vertically challenged than me at 4’-10” (I think. That may be generous.), so the skirt may have hit her leg just above the ankle but on me it fell at the how-to-look-as-short-as-possible spot of mid calf. It is a casual style in sunny yellow cotton that I knew would get a lot of wear this summer so I packed up the machine, some supplies and the skirt and headed over to Auntie’s. There would be no way to accurately describe the belly aching laughs we both had last night while I hemmed this skirt (my first hand sewn item ever) but milk almost shot out of Auntie’s nose when we decided that the hem would probably not be complete until she was dead and I would be sticking remnant scraps in her casket, wearing the skirt to the funeral. Perhaps double stuff mint Oreos at 8:30 PM is a trigger for hilarity. I am thinking of wearing it to the show this Friday if the weather cooperates, mostly because I promised Auntie that I will be wearing it every day for the rest of my life. Of course it is much more likely I will be in my plaid shorts.




Something phenomenal also happened last Saturday afternoon; I finally became a non smoker. My torrid affair with the plant of death began so long ago that if those years of smoking were a person, she would be legal to drink by now. I had been trying to quit since about two weeks after I started smoking but convinced myself that I actually loved to smoke until about eight years ago. That is when I tried the patch; after watching my heart literally fling out the front of my chest and hit the wall opposite me about 400 times, I decided to rip that thing off and buy a pack. About a year later I tried what I called the “cold turkey with a straw” method. I carried around a straw that I cut to the exact size of a cigarette and every time I had a craving to smoke I pulled that out and inhaled air instead. I actually quit for about five weeks that way, which at the time I considered very impressive, but air just did not cut it and I went right back. Hearing that the gum was gross and not wanting to pop any pills, I skipped both of those methods. Then last week I was reading one of my favorite blogs and there it was. The Universe answered my pleas for a solution.

By now you all know I am a huge fan of Jason (no last name required at this point) and, like all people I respect and admire, I generally look into the suggestions they make for flicks to watch, music to purchase or books to read. I feel that the people who come in and out of anyone’s life are truly there for beneficial reasons and recommendations they make are probably well worth looking into. Would I consider Jason a friend? We have never met so no, not in the conventional sense of the word, but there are many like minded blog friends I have never met who have suggested various forms of media that I have loved so when I saw on his blog that he became a non smoker two years ago with a book he read I knew it was worth the $15 to give it a shot. I purchased the book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr, read it in three days, and officially extinguished my last cigarette at 2:00 PM on April 5, 2008. No withdrawal symptoms, not feelings of anxiety or stress and honestly no pangs of regret or need for the substance. I am now free and feel fantastic! In an effort to pay it forward, I genuinely thank Jason for the thoughtful recommendation and pass on the love to all of you who might be struggling with this. Buy and read this book today.



Other awesome things that happened of late include:

~ Dog sitting for the easiest, sweetest, most kickin’ dog on the freaking planet.

~ Cas Haley released a new album. If you like reggae or are just looking for some stellar summer music I highly suggest checking him out. Great vibe all around. Living near Dallas is a plus; you can see him live (lucky).

~ Acquiring two faux jobs. One of which is not through anyone I already know (she found my website randomly woo hoo!) and will be installing one of my favorite finishes, the other through my Evil Step-Mom’s very close friend who is an Interior Designer.

~ Being able to spend time with friends that I rarely got to see while living far away.

~ Catching the first sights of spring in New England as flowers begin to bloom.