KirstenL4W

I’ve been thinking that my page looks a little blank, mainly because I don’t have a nice pretty user pic. Of course I don’t want a picture of myself up there. I generally don’t like pictures of myself, plus I don’t want to be identified too easily by random people who find me online. So, I’m a bit torn between the two pictures above. I think for now I’ll go for the Dala Horse, since the colors go a bit better on here and it’s different. I do like dolphins, those who know me know that I collect dolphin-themed items. But since I moved into a small studio apartment I’m going to be paring that collection down to only the items I truly like, and I am going to try my darndest to keep my collection that way.

So anyway, enjoy my user pic. If you really like the dolphin, go see it on a more regular basis at my Live Journal blog.

Photos courtesy internet search

Ok, so I don’t post here every day, it’s more like 1-2 times per week. Boy do I ever enjoy it though. But today, I couldn’t resist. I had to sign up for LiveJournal, just to see what it was all about. Don’t worry, I won’t be abandoning you, my faithful reader. Right now I’m still at the playing around stage on LJ, just to see what it can do. I’m pretty used to Blogger and what it can do, and I’ve got things the way I like them. Blogs aren’t created overnight, unless you have a serious caffeine addiction, which I do not. So who knows. I still plan on keeping this one. To me changing blogs is like changing email addresses - people get so used to using one that it confuses them and annoys them when you change. I’ll still play on LJ, and we’ll see what happens with that one, but Blogger will still be my home blog.

One would think that Las Vegas, the fastest growing city in the country, would be a prime area to build an IKEA. Despite pleas from myself and countless others, IKEA still won’t come here, which means we must go to them. Covina, CA is the closest one - a mere 4 hour drive each way. Did I mention that the drive is through barren desert? There’s like, 2 towns the whole way down there until you get to civilization again on the other side of the San Bernadino National Forest. Ok, 3 towns if you count Baker. Still, that’s a long way to go without anything to look at.

It’s been about 2 years since my last IKEA trip, and since I just moved into a new place, I figured it was perfect timing. Besides, I’m just about out of salmon sauce. I’ve been doing my homework, doing my budget and checking out what’s available so I could go in with a plan of action.

Saturday morning I woke up early to get a head start on the ride. I like to get there, eat an early lunch, shop my brains out, and be back by dinnertime. I was on the road a little before 7am, before most of the traffic. I had my carefully selected music since I detest playing radio roulette, and I had plenty of water and some snacks for the drive. Everything was going along fine until about 30 minutes before Baker I saw a small something on the road. I was in the left lane, and with a big rig next to me, there was no chance of moving aside. The shoulder to my left was dangerous at best, since it was in a pass (a pass, for those who don’t know, is a winding road through a somewhat mountainous area that has little of anything else except danger). This small thing was gray, looked like metal, and was about the size and shape of a 2-liter soda bottle cut in half. I tried to avoid it, and I thought I had enough room to either straddle it or go around, but I was wrong. I hit it with my right front tire.

Luckily, I had both hands on the wheel and was in complete control of my vehicle the whole time. I got to the right, put my hazards on, and carefully went out to survey the damage. Oy Vey! Who knew a little thing like that could do so much damage to a measly tire? There were 4, count ‘em, 4 huge gashes in the sidewall of my tire. It was toast. Even if I carried Fix-a-Flat with me, it wouldn’t have helped. Good thing I know how to change a tire - almost. I secured my car, set the parking brake, put something behind the opposite tire to keep the car from rolling, and got out the gear. My idiot tire had air in it, so I got that out and jacked up my car. Those stupid things that come with the car are almost useless. You can’t get enough torque to do the job properly! But I managed, until it came time to take the tire off. Those stupid lug nuts were so tight, I could not get them off. I had just given up and was starting to walk to the call box to call for help (I don’t have AAA, and I’ll tell you why in a moment) when a trucker pulled over to help me. He finished changing my tire and since he had a car carrier with some room on it, offered me a ride to Barstow, but I decided to go to Baker and see what I could do from there.

I got my scrap rubber put away and the rest of my tools in the trunk and continued on my way to Baker. Boy, was I nervous driving on the idiot tire on the highway. And in this part of the country, if you’re not on the highway, you’re on a dirt road that may or may not be legit, so highway it was. When I got to Baker, I found a garage that was open. The proprietor, who had 2 teeth and no hair, said he could fix my rim, which was dented by the mystery object, and said he’d sell me a new tire, all for the low price of $65. Since my Dad owns a garage, I knew this was a decent price, especially being in the middle of nowhere - I could have been seriously hosed with no other options. The guy fixed my tire rather quickly and I was on my way, praying hard that there would be no more mishaps on the way. I can’t afford it!

I got to IKEA just fine, only set back by 45 minutes which I believe is record time for being in the middle of nowhere. I ate my lunch in the Swedish Cafe, and continued my thorough search of the store to make sure I got everything on my list and didn’t miss any other incidentals. Here’s what I bought:

I wanted the Bjoberg storage bench, but taking into consideration the money I just spent on a tire, along with the fact that the box is a bit too big and heavy for me to drag into my 2nd floor apartment by myself, I ended up with this instead. I have it covered with a throw blanket so it doesn’t look so primitive, and someday it will go nicely in my lakehouse. Another bonus - it only took about 5 mintues to put together. I’m pretty well versed in IKEA furniture assembly, and this one is something anyone can do.

I also wanted some stuff for my kitchen, to make the best use possible of the ill-planned space I have. I’ve been lusting after the Grundtal series, so after careful consideration of my needs and some of the habits I’ve been developing in regard to my space, I got the mid-sized rail, the single paper towel holder, and the chopping board. It’s already hung over my sink and I must say, really classes the place up.

A spur of the moment purchase was this colander, and let me just say, that thing is HUGE! Sunday afternoon I made some pasta salad, using an entire 16oz package of pasta, and when I used my new colander to drain it, the pasta barely filled it halfway! I don’t usually cook large quantities, so usually my little old-style Tupperware colander does just fine. But this will come in really handy when I do have those larger amounts. Besides the attractive price, this colander will look really nice if I neglect to put it away.

I was looking at lighting, but I still have not decided what to do about my computer area, since both floor space and desktop space are at a premium, there is no outlet in the ceiling, and there is no wall switch that corresponds to the outlet there. So I’m still thinking that one over. I also thought about a picture frame for some art cards I got a couple years ago, but I decided that I should unpack my decorations and see what I still want to do at that point before I go and buy any more decorations.

Now, why I don’t have AAA. See, when I lived back east, my dad just put me on his account, and it didn’t cost me a thing. I still never really used it because the only times I needed a tow, it was either snowing like crazy and they wouldn’t come get me, or it was really late at night and even if I did get AAA to tow me, I’d still have to call Dad and wake him up so I could get home, so in those cases I just bypassed AAA and went straight to Dad. Once I moved to Las Vegas, I paid $79 to transfer my membership and didn’t use it at all. So I decided to discontinue it. Now, considering what transpired on Saturday, I still don’t think I’ll get it again. For one, I was in the middle of nowhere and might still be waiting if I had called for help. And I still would have ended up buying a new tire. Still not worth it to me. My car is fairly new and well-maintained, so overall I’m not worried about a breakdown, and we already know I can change a tire as long as I have some muscle available. My biggest worry during the whole tire incident was having my day ruined by not getting to IKEA at all, and/or being bit in the ass by a certain poisonous legless reptile that is abundant in desert areas. I was actually more afraid of that then my car being hit or some psycho trying to “help” me. Again, not something that AAA could help me with.

So all in all, my IKEA trip went well. I got set back just 45 minutes and $65, which considering the circumstances isn’t too bad. I got most of what I wanted and got home about 12 1/2 hours after I set out. For some reason I was exhausted when I got home, which is unusual. Long car trips usually leave me invigorated and restless, and I can’t sit still when I get out of the car. Saturday, though, once I got all my stuff in the house, I collapsed. Literally. I got home about 7:15pm and was asleep before 8, and I slept all night long. And that was the best part of my day.

I did it! I finally figured out my stereo system! It took me awhile because, well, I’m a girl and therefore not genetically predisposed to understand that sort of thing. Besides, the main thing throwing me off was the fact that I have an RF Modulator to be able to watch DVDs since I don’t have a DVD ready TV. None of my instruction books make any mention of this possibility. In fact, the book for my DVD player specifically says I can not play DVDs if my TV does not have the a/v jacks on it. So you can understand my confusion (Ok, girls, you can understand my confusion). But it’s done, it’s all hooked up and I have SOUND!!!!! Yee-haw! Check it out:

Now check out the electrical spaghetti behind it all:

Now I don’t want any comments from you a/v geek purists chastising me for having my back speakers in the front and not having my surround sound system balanced. My stereo system only came with 6 ft of wire for each speaker, and I’m not about to go out and buy a huge spool of speaker wire and have it running all over my apartment. I have sound, it’s way better than tv sound, and that’s good enough for me. Some day when I’m wealthy I’ll get a nice Bose wireless system with far fewer components to hook up and tiny wireless speakers. Then I’ll have balanced surround sound. For now, it all gets piled the way you see it. At least the right and left speakers are on the proper sides, and my subwoofer won’t bother the downstairs neighbor. And Officer Friend can finally sleep at night knowing that his so-called little sis has sound.

I have no further comment regarding the title of my post.

When I got home from the office tonight, there was a note taped to my door from management. It reads:

Dear Resident,
In an effort to improve our community we will be power washing and repairing stucco on the buildings to prepare them for painting. This will start tomorrow June 13 and continue until the work is completed. Please remove everything from your patios and balconies and keep them empty until we are completed. Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
Sincerely,
Resident Administrator

Dear Management Office of My Apartment,
Since I have no patio or balcony, just like the rest of the apartments in my building, I will kindly disregard your note. However, I will be sure to remove the welcome mat from the carpeted 2nd floor landing that I enter my apartment from, just in case you want to pressure wash that. I’ll also be sure to keep my windows closed until you are finished with this. Although you failed to mention the effect that pressure washers have on open windows, I am well aware of the consequences, which thanks to your oversight, many of my neighbors will find out about the hard way. Thank you for your irrelevant advance notice of upcoming cleaning of my non-existent patio/balcony.
Sincerely,
Apartment ###

Now, for the rest of my to-do list. Besides the few things I still have to get to increase the functionality of my apartment (like a lamp for my computer area so I can see my keyboard), there are many things I need to do to minimize stubbed toes and make it look a bit more inviting. So, here goes.

*Finish contacting people about my change of address
*File stuff and finish organizing desk area, since it’s all unpacked
*Get out the instruction book and attempt to figure out my stereo
*Failing that, get a friend over here who knows about stereo stuff
*Properly make my bed so I don’t have my comforter and blankets on the floor
*Organize closet since I haphazardly hung everything when I moved in
*Keep up with cleaning and chores
*Start unpacking my decorations and figure out where they will go, then put them there
*Continue to purge unnecessary items
*Email Helen at church and tell her that when she changed my address, she added me to the mail merge twice, so now I get 2 newsletters
*Go thru my inbox, print/save what I want to keep and delete the rest
*Call cable company when they are open and tell them again to add my email address to my new account. It’s only my spam email address, but still!
*Go through my favorites/bookmarks and clean those up
*Re-learn meal planning so I can better plan and budget for meals so I don’t have to rely on so many hastily purchased crap food meals (and PMS related junk food binges)

Is that all? I hardly think so, the list seems awfully short for everything I feel like I need to do, but then again with the hours I work (nearly 60/wk) I guess it IS a huge list. I’m starting to feel like my end-of-summer goal date for being settled, with the above-mentioned hominess, is a bit ambitious.

I’m really looking forward to my visit back to New England in just under 2 months. My mom will be holding a birthday party for Bubba and Messy J, since my visit will be right in between their birthdays. I can’t wait to see them. Bubba, being the pre-teen that he is, is online a lot but can’t quite hold a conversation with his Aunty, since his typing skills are similar to that of many people his age. You know what I’m talking about - the kind of internet-speak that leaves literate adults like myself saying, “WTF? R u stupid or wat?” Messy J, on the other hand, is more interested in the physical world around her and is still a bit too young to grasp the virtual world, and therefore talk to her Aunty. I give that one a few more years before I start getting incessant messages from her in the same kid internet language I don’t understand. Being a girl, I’m sure I’ll get many more messages from her than I do from Bubba.

My mom is looking forward to that favorite New England pastime, antiquing. Seems every time I come to visit there’s an antique shop or fair she wants to visit. Now that I’ve been away for awhile and and starting to suffer the effects of too many big box stores and not enough old anything (and no, old people in the line at the buffet don’t count), this time I’m actually looking forward to it. But even though the town she has in mind is rather small and isolated, I fear it will take about 3 times as long as I want it to, so I should try not to make any plans for that day. I also have friends to visit and food to eat.

Oh yes, food. I mentioned in a previous post that one never things about being able to find their favorite foods when they move to another part of the country, and it’s one thing I’m looking forward to when I go home. Cheap lobster. Top-split hot dog buns (there, I said it - I’m from Massachusetts!). Good Italian food. Mom’s cooking. Dunkin Donuts and Au Bon Pain. Farm stands. Roast Beef Sandwiches. Newbury Comics. Oh wait, that last one isn’t food! But I still need to stop in for a wicked good time and cheap CDs that are hard to find at the big box stores. And yes, I wear my Toothface T-shirt proudly!

Ok, now that it’s getting late and I still haven’t relaxed yet today, I should probably do that so I can get a halfway decent amount of sleep. I have to work both jobs tomorrow, and apparently a higher up manager will be in the store tomorrow so I’ll need to be prepared - dressed 100% according to dress code, perky and ready to sell sell sell! Joy.

Bored - stuck at work with so much to do. I have to run home and do a few things then run out again for a bit of grocerying. By the time I get home at night I barely have time to relax, never mind do anything that I want to do at my house to make it a bit more put together than living amongst the half-assed unpacking I’ve done so far. My to-do list grows longer every day. If I didn’t need sleep at all, I could get some of it done, but my work schedule gets me every time. Then I spend my only day off during the week out and about doing other things I don’t have time for during the week. Such is life.

To Do:
- Go home, enter some receipts in Quicken and see how much money I have left.
- Make a quick grocery list (it includes lots of chocolate) to buy enough food to see me until payday later this week.
- Go back home, unpack groceries and collapse.

I’d finish this list now, but I can finally leave the office. My last project person just left and I’m certainly not gonna sit around here blogging all night!

So here it is, pictures of my new apartment (finally!). I know you’ve all been so eager to see it. To the left, you’ll see an approximate layout so you can get yourself situated. My apartment is slightly different, in that it is a mirror image (the kitchen is to my right when I walk in), and the door is a bit different. The coat closet is next to the kitchen, not by the door. Other than that, everything else is pretty much the same.

Here’s my desk area, which is in the alcove. I have to remember to push the chair in when I’m done, or else I’ll stub my toe on it. I already learned that from experience!
This is my “bedroom” which is on the wall opposite the door. Yes the bed is a mess, but I’m not a big fan of making the bed. Here’s my “living room.” Kermit sits in the chair and thinks he’s the king of the remote. I haven’t the heart to tell him I gave him the stereo remote. The stereo isn’t plugged in yet because, being a girl, I don’t have a clue on how to plug all my other components into it and make it work. The TV is plugged in though, on the small wall between the kitchen and alcove. I have the TV on a swivel stand so I can watch from the dining area, living room, or bedroom, but not the office since I don’t have enough mirrors set up to be able to watch tv around corners. Here’s my kitchen, with its woefully inadequate storage. The cabinets are a lot smaller than they look. It gives me a good reason not to buy lots of cool stuff for the kitchen, but I do have my zester. And yes, the dishes in the sink are clean - that’s the clean side they’re on. Here’s my bistro-style dining area. Once I start dealing with the decorations (which are in the boxes at the end of my bed) there will be a lovely picture hanging above the table so the wall isn’t so glaringly white, like my legs. The wall to the left, with the bookshelf on it, is angled at about 45 degrees and leads to the coat closet (the wall that’s on is parallel to the dining wall), which as I mentioned above is next to the kitchen.

So that’s about it for my apartment. I decided not to show you the bathroom because it’s tiny and unexciting. I do still have some unpacking to do, but with 2 jobs it’s not going to get finished anytime soon. At least the place is functional. I can use the kitchen, eat dinner, sleep and cleanse myself. I also have access to my closet, so I can make myself ready to face the world. After that it’s all fluff, and will get done as time allows.

Now, my internet saga. The tech guy came out yesterday and went through all the “you’re a stupid girl” excuses before he got to the real problem. First, it was the coax I got. Apparently the stuff they sell at Radio Shack is useless, so he re-cabled things for me. Then it was my modem, which worked perfectly fine before I moved and isn’t really that old. Then, with my tv, he had to put the coax back in the old sequence because the so-called tech support people on the phone aren’t really technicians. Then he had to replace my cable box because he couldn’t program my remote with the older one, which isn’t really that old and worked just fine before I moved. Then he went outside and fiddled with the wiring and told me he had to move my connection to a new port, and voila! it worked. Geez, he should have done that in the first place!!!!! Even I knew that it wasn’t my equipment or coax. So anyway, I am now online and blogging from home, finally. Now I can get back to my old schedule of email in the morning and sleep deprivation due to internet use at night, which is the way life should be.

In other news, my car hit 30,000 miles this week. I’ve had it for almost 3 years now, so that averages 10,000 miles per year. When I lived in New England I averaged 20-25,000 miles per year, so this car should last me awhile. But then again, living in Las Vegas, everything I could possibly need is right down the street, so I never go anywhere. Oh well. That’s it for now. It’s only 10:30pm and I have a lot more net surfing to do before church tomorrow.

Fingers crossed - today’s the day I get internet at home. I really hope this cable guy can do something and get everything working properly. I’m so tired of not being able to get online at home and do all the things I’m used to doing. I’m leaving work early today to let the cable guy in. My appointment is between 3 and 5, so since I’ll go home and wait, it will be about 4:45 by the time anyone shows up. But that’s ok, it will give me a chance to get a bit of housecleaning done.

So that’s it for now. Hopefully my next post will be from the comfort of my own home, and will include pictures of said home. Otherwise, I’ll be blogging from work on Monday. See you all soon, I hope.

All I can say is thank goodness I have internet access at work. I’d be dying a slow and painful death otherwise. After yet another lengthy call to tech support at the cable company, it is apparent that the signal coming into my apartment is not strong enough to support broadband. It’s barely strong enough to support digital cable - the digital channels don’t quite have enough volume to be heard over my ancient a/c unit, and that’s with the tv volume all the way up. I also don’t get my On Demand channel, it keeps saying there’s some sort of error. Hopefully all of that will be fixed when the technician comes on Friday.

In better news, my DVD player does work. I took it to the local mega-electronics store (the red one where you can actually get some help) and played stupid saying I didn’t know if it worked because I didn’t know how to plug it in. They hooked it up and it does actually work. So now I’m thinking that the sequence for my coax plug-in is only because of the weak signal, and once the tech fixes that I should be able to go back to the old sequence which should make my cable tv and DVD player work without having to rewire everything every time I wanted to watch a movie. That would be a serious PITA. Now if I could just figure out the damn stereo system, I’ll be a happy camper.

What I miss most about being online is not just getting to be online all the time, but I don’t get to talk to Bubba. Boys his age don’t call their Aunty, and won’t email either. IM is the only way to get in touch with the kid. I’m also bored in the morning, since my routine is interrupted. Usually I get up, pee, get a glass of juice, and sit down at the computer for half an hour or so. Now I’m just oversleeping, which really sucks. Oh, and I can’t even do the slides for church because we don’t have powerpoint at work. If we did have that I know my boss (being the church council VP) wouldn’t have an issue with me taking a little time to put that together. So I feel myself being reduced in the efficiency and functionality that I used to have. This sucks. I was so looking forward to having my own space and having everything all in one room so I could watch tv and be online at the same time and really multi-task. But alas, it is not to be - at least not right now. That tech better be able to fix things for me. I don’t have the patience for dial-up and I don’t feel like getting hosed by the phone company for DSL.

I did unpack my camera cord, so once I get online at home I will be posting pictures of my place. Look for them soon (fingers crossed!)

Just when I think I’m getting more and more settled every day, I got an unexpected surprise last night. My cable got shut off. It’s not from non-payment, I pay all my bills on time every month. The cable company screwed up. See, I had an overlap in service on all my utilities, so they all ended at my old address yesterday, but started at my new address on the day I signed the lease. So Saturday when I moved in, I got the tv hooked up just enough so I could watch tv, and yes, I had my digital cable box with the DVR with me. Plug everything in, works fine. But last night, just a bit after 8pm when I was on the computer doing some data entry, the tv went silent. I went and looked at it and it said my set-top box was not authorized for use. So I called the cable company. The tech that I talked to said it was a billing thing, and oh, they close at 8. So I quickly hooked up my dvd player, which was actually about 20 minutes because I have no aptitude when it comes to audio/video stuff like that. I can find the plug that goes into the wall, but after that I’m lost. Anyway, since I have a VCR and non-cable ready tv, I also have an RF modulator. One of my a/v geek friends told me the sequence to hook it up in, and I wrote it down way back then so I wouldn’t forget. It’s worked like a charm.

So, when I called the cable company when they opened this morning, I got billing who told me that my box hadn’t been switched to the new address. Yeah, that explains why it worked since Saturday and suddenly stopped working last night. Then they did a few things on their end to move the box to my new address and reset it, but that still didn’t work, so I got transferred to a tech again. At least this one didn’t sound like she was in India. She said my sequence was wrong. Ok, that really explains why it worked for 2 WHOLE YEARS at my old address without any problems, and why I had tv service until it got shut off before I even hooked up the other equipment. Yeah. Anyway, she walked me through the new sequence, which I wrote down, and for some odd reason it worked. Now hopefully my DVD player still works because the shelf it was on collapsed when I accidentally knocked the support out of place, and it all fell down. I’ll find out later.

Now all I have to do is hook up the receiver and CD player. Those two on their own I can handle, but I really can’t figure out how to get tv sound out of the receiver, which I would really like because my cheap tv has crappy sound and watching DVDs is frustrating sometimes. I think there’s something about testosterone that bestows a/v knowledge upon people. Being a girl, I obviously don’t have enough testosterone running through my veins to get it right. I need to recruit a guy friend of mine to get that hooked up.

I’m actually kinda glad I didn’t have my computer online yet when all that happened last night, because I was trying to balance my checkbook and pay bills, which I usually do online, so I can just imagine that I would have been in the middle of hitting “send” for my online payments when everything got shut off. Having no tv was annoying, but that really would have pissed me off. The wonderful tech girl I spoke with this morning assured me that I should have no problems when I hook up my internet, and I really hope she’s right.

In other news, I didn’t get much else done as far as unpacking goes last night because of the a/v issues. I also had some errands to do so I really didn’t feel like it. At this point I’ll most likely wait until Saturday, an actual day off, to get some more stuff done since although my place is still crowded with boxes, it is functional. And that will have to do for now.