Camping in my Living Room

I am currently camping in my own home. There's a suitcase in my empty closet. My sleeping bag and a bunch of blankets are taking up a chunk of the living room floor. That's where I'll be sleeping the next 4 nights. Otherwise, there are just a few random remnants of my life in GJ hanging out in my apartment.

All of my stuff is on its way to my parents home.

I need to clean my apartment.

I also need to apply for jobs today, although I'm still hoping for good news about this potential job tomorrow.

My productivity is being limited by the fact that my TV is gone. I can't apply for jobs while watching things on Netflix, and Netflix is so tempting.

Fingers are still crossed.

Captain Productivity....Up, up, and away!

So, I have been out of town the past two weekends. It's resulted in my apartment being a general disaster all week, so I'm gonna clean up my mess, and then hopefully still feel enough motivation to apply for a job or two.

I've already loaded the crochet projects into their appropriate baskets, made coffee, sorted laundry, put the clean dishes away.

Right now, I've got the timer going for a load of laundry. I have four more lovely, color-coded mounds taking up the living room floor. It's a laundry rainbow, but I guess that's what happens when you wait 3 weeks to do laundry--towels, bedding, bathrobe, all the random extras need washed at once. I wore most of my jeans at least 3 times.

I've got a stack of receipts and mail next to me to sort and log. I will sort the mail into piles for filing, shredding, and responding. I log all my receipts into a notebook with categories of spending so that I can see how much I am spending and assess how I can improve my finances. My budget is pretty tight, so it's important to know where I stand. Right now I stand in a mound of receipts because I've been on the road a lot, and that happens. This will have been a pricy month. Hopefully October will be like August...surprisingly cheap.

After that, I think I will make zucchini bread to work as breakfast. I have a rule when it gets down to the last month-or-so before I move that I have to be very creative with my food and eat what I have. I ran out of cereal yesterday, so the baking supplies will be developing breakfasts for the remainder of my time here. I think when I get down to the bare bones of my fridge, freezer, and cupboards, I will buy 1 bag of  potstickers and 1 of edamame for my dinners. I will perhaps buy a few sale microwave box meals for lunch at work. Potstickers smell like feet when microwaved, and it's never a good idea to make your work environment smell like that.

Of course, the cat crawled into my lap while I've been blogging, and that always ruins my motivation to do anything. This morning she was curled up next to me on the bed, so I read the first 50 pages of Water for Elephants instead of getting up. I really do need to apply for jobs though, and I'd also like a relaxing bath to perhaps indulge in more reading about circus folks, so I'd best clean up this place. A serious vacuuming should be in order after the laundry rainbow is washed, dried, and folded and no longer on the floor.

Things Are Nice

I feel pretty good about life.

1. I turned in a full draft of my project on Friday.
2. I got a hair cut to get rid of the nasty dead hair from my misadventures with hair dye over spring break.
3. I cleaned the house today. Everything smells like orange. Mmmmm.
4. Lindsey and I are frying fish for dinner.
5. It looks like I'm going to beat Chris at Scrabble.
6. I think I found the perfect place to live in Grand Junction.

The only things working against me are allergies, my cat is shedding right now, and I'm a bit behind on my tech writing project. I can't really complain. Two of those are seasonal, and the other I can get done.

Nothing can take me down now that I have a full draft of my writing project. I best be grading now though. I promised my students I would get caught up this weekend.

A Classic Cheryl Friday (and a Pseudo Classic Saturday)

Last night was a classic Cheryl Friday for sure. I went home and decided that I needed to just chill out on the first night of spring break before I start working on stuff.

So what did I do?

I pulled up Netflix to watch something that I would truly enjoy. No compromising with the tastes of others. I opted to watch Merlin. I loved it! (Yes, all good things do come from the BBC.)

I also pulled out some pencils and paper and did some sketching. I am super out of practice, and I wasn't that good in the first place, but it was a great Friday, though cat kept trying to claw my blanket and sit on my notepad, but what are cat's for if not to be a nuisance?

Before becoming a graduate student, I used to wake up on Saturday morning, start baking something and set to cleaning. I don't do that anymore. Grad school has helped me to ignore dirt, but this morning I tackled the clogged kitchen drain and the pile of dishes that resulted. I am the master! I want to deep clean, but I don't feel motivated to just go nuts, so I'm breaking things up by day. Tomorrow, I'll dust and tackle the floors on the main floor. I'll break up the rest of the cleaning later.

It's not worth baking since no one is here, so that can't be a part of classic Saturday.

I best get off to take care of Naomi's cat CB--I'm far too late on that today. I'll spend most of the afternoon and evening with CB, grading I think. I am soooooooooooooooooooooo far behind on grading. I might do a little creative writing too though.

When I return this evening, I will crochet and watch more Merlin with my cat who is currently napping.