Balance

Home, Work, Blog, Etc.

Today’s a balancing day. I didn’t get a blog post out before 11 this morning like I like to; instead I slept in till 8:30 (leaving me half an hour to get ready for work, which is pretty typical). I was a little extra tired due to our good weekend in Oklahoma City, which I enjoyed but tired me out due to missing out on my “sleep in” days, AKA Saturday and Sunday.

Actually, here’s another part of my lack of energy: somehow I threw out my back last Friday so I’ve kind of been taking it easy so as not to a) aggravate the pain and b) give it a chance to heal. So here I am blogging from my bed (I’m usually at my desk) among piles of pillows like an old timely invalid. It’s actually quite cozy. Somewhat contrarily to what I just finished saying about being an invalid, I’m also doing laundry and such… including putting away my suitcase from Christmas (I got back over 3 weeks ago, just sayin’).

Catching up on chores like this make me feel better about not being a hypocritical blogger. Creating a comfortable and stylish living space is only half of the battle–keeping it clean so that it looks good all the time (not just when I clean and style it for photos) is the REAL challenge that I’m focusing on maintaining. For the record, ever since “living room week” and all the photos I took of the room–it HAS stayed quite clean since my initial cleaning & styling! Now I’m trying to get my bedroom back to it’s full glory. I mean, it’s great to take on projects, work on them, and complete them, but being a mature adult and having a neat and tidy living space is a life long project and deserves to be celebrated just as much as another DIY.

Unless you have a maid. Then it’s not really Do It Yourself.

Easiest DIY to Date

Yesterday I took you all through a tour of my teeny tiny kitchen. This is much easier to do virtually than in real life, because in reality the kitchen can only house 2-4 people comfortably.

Now I’ll let you glimpse my 27 inch stove and the easiest DIY I’ve done in the apartment so far.

Nice shot from a fancy crouching down angle.

The pots are hanging above the stove because they look cool and, really, where else would I put them? There really isn’t another place for them.

Luckily for me, the “hood” over the stove (which provides no air flow whatsoever and is strictly for looks) has a lip big enough for the dowels to rest on. Before I got the dowels, everything was hooked onto the lip so I knew it would be strong enough to hold all the pots.

The DIY involved me measuring the space above the lip, going to Lowe’s, buying some dowels and having the nice guys at Lowe’s cut them to size for me. Earth-shattering.

So, there you have it, a super-easy solution that in my opinion looks cool and brings all these important things within arm’s reach when I’m cooking :)

Haiti out of Reach

Haiti keeps being dangled in front of me, and pulled away, like teasing a cat with string. If they need volunteers so badly, why do they make it so expensive to go? In October 2009 I almost had an opportunity, but going would have meant missing 2 midterms. Now I have the opportunity of going for a week but it is extremely expensive, $2000. I wouldn’t want the Mr. to miss the opportunity (he wants to go too) so that makes the trip in actuality $4000. (Half of our remaining car loan, to put in perspective).

I’m stuck in a catch-22. I want to be involved in international development, but my international experience is fairly limited (the result of studying abroad for 6 weeks as opposed to a whole semester). Without considerable international experience, my job prospects are limited–many applicants will surpass me in this. However, our current financial situation won’t allow us to just drop everything and fly away.

I guess this is an exercise in faith and patience. I hate exercise.