True introvert?

I am alone at home, tasked (by myself) with the task of cleaning the house (the entire thing). Haven't done that for an embarrassing amount of time.

Facing this I naturally procrastinate.
I "småplockar" (pick up and sort loose items off the floor and surfaces) in preparation of the big bang activity of running the hoover around the place and try to pep talk myself into why cleaning the house is not a bad thing.

I actually end up realising this is far from a bad thing.
Because when thinking of "things that could be worse than this" I come up with the following:

1. Having to go outside - meaning having to wash up and get dressed properly.
2. Having to go see people - meaning having to act smart, dress smart and be smart.
3. Having to go to an event/party - meaning having to dress up, fix hair and face and think of matching accessories and god do I bring a bag will I sleep over do I have to bring a change of shoes..? 

The two latter have the aspect of "having to meet and interact with people" assumed. This is not something I do if I have an option to not do it.

All of the above are SO much worse than cleaning the house that I ended up being rather cheerful at the prospect of staying in and cleaning the house today.

Yay me.

Yay introversy.

http://www.linusjonkman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/introvert-vs-extrovert.jpeg

Well why not?

If I had a cramped attic space - this would be how it would be furnished...

Original from imgur.

Gosh, I could see the space under our stairs looking like this in a few years. A little silver paint, a couple of old car seats and a lot of old displays and buttons and bob's your uncle! :-)

Yeah, where IS that winter?

Scandinavians.

I really, really don't see the point in the type of winter we're having right now. Really.

If I wanted this type of winter I'd settled down somewhere even further south. Or better yet just skip the whole concept of winter all toghether and settle down somewhere nice and cozy, like Australia.

Sure, keeping the house warmed up during winter has never been cheaper, so that's something. But having to buy new rainclothes for the kids SEVERAL TIMES during the same season because they wear them out - unheard of! :-[

Would you ever feel at home here?

I found this picture when looking for non-table alternatives for our living room, lounge area. I'm after something soft to put my feet on rather than what we have today, a table we rarely use for anything other than putting our feet on.

I felt so smart and innovative thinking up this idea, but will have to realise I'm not first with this one...

Looking through the photos for this property for sale - would you ever feel at home here?

http://www.lagerlings.se/pictList.aspx?objectID=387

Greetings from the cleaners?

Found this word on our kitchen benchtop this afternoon.

Oh, the letters were there before, only they used to say "HEM" as in home in Swedish. :-) Planning to put them up on the wall somewhere in the kitchen.

The apple tree is gone

Our neighbor took down his apple tree today, wee! :-) That means we have to build a new fence. That old apple tree has slowly been pushing the old fence over to our side making it so skewed that we found it would be impossible to build a new terrace without straightening it up (e.g. replacing it with a new one). Fortunately our neighbor wants a new fence more than he wanted to keep his apple tree, so there was no argument about taking it down. :-)

So the ball is rolling now. S has measured up and worked out what's needed to make a new fence and placed an order with a local sawmill. The timber will arrive chopped up and ready to be put together sometime next week. Then it's time for the new terrace... :-)

Season's premiere

We had our first dinner on the terrace tonight. Yay! :-)
S even brought out the pillows for the chairs so we were sitting comfortably in the evening sun. I had to put on a jumper (over t-shirt and jeans) but that's pretty much what I had to do all through last summer so the temperature's not too bad. :-)

T was sleeping in his pushchair, it feels good to have him sleeping outdoors in the fresh air.

This weekend we'll put some oil on the outdoor furniture and see if we can rent a device to clean the decking. Spring is here. :-)

The car made it, again.

The car made it through the annual checkup again, without comments. Yay! :-))) The inspector handed me the keys with a smile and promised there were no serious issues to report. He didn't quite rage about the quality of it, as last year's inspector did, but hey, I'll settle for a smile.
Our good ol' Volvo keeps rolling, thankfully without any expensive problems (never mind the indicator lamp which turned itself off a few months back). 8-) Touch wood it will keep rolling another year.

Minimizing

In a sudden burst of efficiency this morning I cleared up most of the pile of papers that has been gathering on my desk since we came home from the maternity ward with Tobias. :-) Yay!
The pile still exists, but now it's more up to date and contains only a notepad, papers, receipts and bills to be dealt with this month. :-)
I found lots of interesting stuff there, much to do with being pregnant and having a baby but also a few "very important" work papers. Huh... what? I can't remember a fragment of what made them so important that I decided to bring them home... 8-)
It'll be interesting to switch on that part of my brain come August later this year. :-)

Second of advent

A day for sleeping in, decorating the house and playing Warcraft. Yay! :-))

...and yes, the Easter-decorative chicken remains on its shelf, couldn't put it away after discovering it in its new outfit... X-D

Christmas time has begun...

:-)

Mum helped us get the Christmas curtains ready and hung in the kitchen, yay! The livingroom has to settle for a summer/winter change, no need for Christmas curtains in there I reckon. The kitchen now also has two sets of curtains to change between, Christmas and "the rest of the year".

It's so nice to not have to think about at least that part of everything, making and hanging curtains. Now all I need to do is sprinkle the place with ornaments of all shapes and colours and get the place as Christmassy as possible come the first of December. :-)
I'm actually really looking forward to it, it's our first Christmas in our own house. :-)

First snow!

Almost forgot, we got the first snow this weekend - yay! :-)

Owned

We are now officially owned by the bank.

The difference:
- we now pay rent to the bank, instead of to HSB.
- we now have a bigger place.
- we now pay less per month than before.

Feels like a win-win. :-) But we'll see how much we spend on heating the darn thing come next winter. We've promised to turn off the computers (all except the server) when we stop using them from now on. We have no phone or internet yet, so the computers will be a non-issue to start with (HOW WILL WE SURVIVE???).

The previous owners had cleaned the place "ok". I would've loved them to clean the walls of the bathrooms, to actually wipe the dust off edges and top of things etc and to use a dust-free wipe when they wiped everything in the kitchen (S and I agreed that must be why every cupboard door looked so "fussy"). So we should probably talk to them about leaving us a nominal sum of 1000 SEK for that, I mean we're paying our cleaners between 2-3000 to clean the apartment.

I should be packing, but instead I've been checking AH in Orgrimar. Yeah, got to keep on top of the market, right? ;-)
Best get going.

Happier than ever

I am happier than I've been in a long long time (and I'm a generally happy person, mind you). And I'm also more tired than I've been in a long long time.
But we get the keys to our house (OUR HOUSE) tomorrow and we're spending the first night there tomorrow (TOMORROW!) and we're moving our stuff across on Saturday.

I can't sleep, I keep thinking of all the bits and pieces tucked away everywhere that we haven't packed yet and I can't help getting all giddy from thinking of our new life in this new place. I went to bed at 00:30 last night, couldn't sleep, finished reading a magazine, tried to sleep, failed, read a few chapters of my book and finally managed to fall asleep right before 03:00. Only to wake up right before 06:00, same thoughts buzzing around in my head.

A few years ago I wouldn't have been particularly excited over moving houses. I have moved... approximately 15 times the past 17 years, so I know the drill (it's only a house, a place where you put your stuff). But this is the very first time I've actually owned my own place.
OK, I only own half of this one, but it's still big. :-)

I best go pack a few more boxes! :-)

New house

Jesus, we bought a house. :-D

Believe that! I went there today together with a building inspector, to fulfill my obligations as buyer. It was not funny.

There are a lot of things to think about with a house. There's a flat roof. There's ventilation. There are rotten windows. There's outside panelling. There's drainage around the foundation. There's garage roof leakage.
There's a garden that's all mud.

Oh well.
The building inspector promised to finalise his formal notes quickly, then I need to have a chat with the insurance company about insuring the thing (unless the building instructor advice us against buying that is).

Got to find SOME way to keep busy, eh?