A Saturday Stroll

I woke up this morning at 8:30 when my alarm went off. I immediately turned it off and woke up again at 10:30 and reluctantly got up. For breakfast I had chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, and subsequently made myself go for a walk. It eventually turned into a 4.5 mile walk, the likes of which I probably haven't done since my last trip to Europe. Considering, however, the insane amounts of calories I ingested in the form of bread, cheese, booze and other delicacies while there, and the amount of weight I lost due to all the walking we did, it's probably a good habit to get back into.

I left for my walk at 11:30, and originally walked around a loop down Pacific Coast Highway and then across a through street and back up Bellflower towards my apartment - all in all, about 1 mile - before taking a longer loop up Pacific Coast Highway, across Atherton, and down Bellflower for a total of 3.5 miles. Strangely enough, my right hip hurt during the first mile, then not at all, my left hip hurt during the last mile, and continued to hurt for the next hour or so. Perhaps it means I should've worn my knee brace, although mine is so frayed and worn I really need to invest in a new one.

I have some pictures of the bananadillas and their flowers so that you guys could see the Californian kind:





I got home at 1:30 pm and had a quick lunch of eggrolls before I hopped in my car and drove to the Ross (a discount store) I had popped into during my walk. In my original scout of the place I saw three baskets stacked in each other, decorated in green and white chevron stripes, and I thought the three were on sale for $3.99. When I came back I saw that each basket was sold separately for a total of $12. They weren't that nice, so I didn't buy them and continued to snoop around the store looking for anything that might make my life easier.


I fell in LOVE with these glasses, and the set was only $4, but I firmly reminded myself of my bank balance and didn't buy them. But they're so cute, I had to take a picture.


Echo and Narcissus really love sitting on the teeny baby chairs my grandfather made for Lidia and myself years ago, and I saw this and thought they would love these just as much, perhaps even more since velvet is probably more fun to sharpen your claws on than leather.


I saw this in the accessory section and totally fell in love, but I don't NEED a giant lead crystal "diamond" and I certainly have better things to spend $20 on. So I'll keep an eye out for one when "I'm a grownup" and can (pretend to?) afford one.

After Ross I decided to quickly jaunt across the street to Marshall's (another discount store) to see their selection. Marshall's has brand name items and is much more expensive, but significantly cheaper than the department and boutique stores where their items originate. I found a bunch of things I'd like to have: hydrangea, pumpkin spice, gardenia, hibiscus and other lovely triple-milled hypoallergenic soaps; teeny little lined paper hardcover notebooks decorated with gilt butterflies and birds to keep in your purse; expensive shoes and lovely leather satchels; and some of the nicest cookingware I've ever seen in a discount store.

I've been sniffing around stores for a really decent large pot (I'm probably going to have to wait till Macy's has another sale) and saw a beautiful one, pinged my fingernail against it to make sure it was heavy enough, decided it was superlative, picked up to look for the price and realized with a shock that I had indeed spotted the best pot in the store: its discounted price was $40!!
Definitely waiting for the Macy's sale.

I went home feeling rather defeated, but consoled myself with the fact that I'd been into two of my favorite stores in the world with some truly tempting items and hadn't spent a penny.

I spent the rest of the day editing and organizing the unedited photo albums I've been putting off for far too long. I edited 11 of them and still have five left!! I've been letting them pile up in my "undedited" folder for months. I'll try and work on at least two or three more tomorrow.

I'm making a collection of self-portraits, mostly because I can, partially because I love playing with makeup. Here's my favorite one right now:


Okay it's late and I'm tired. That's all for now!

Orientation

Was so much fun! I got there a little early and there was only one other girl in the room so I sat near her and we chatted while other people started to fill up the room.

Turns out there are supposed to be 22 people in my cohort! There are 13 in last year's, and another 10 or so in the third year plus group. The graduate student coordinator, Dr. Loewe lead the meeting and basically told us what was expected of us before we could graduate, gave us a short bio of all the professors in the department, and discussed a few of the classes we need to take and possible paths for some of us - like I, as an archaeology focus, would take some geology classes and remote sensing and that sort of thing.

We went around the room and introduced ourselves, and I thanked my lucky stars I had gone to Ethiopia because everyone except about four students (including myself) had graduated with their BA years ago and worked in places like Chile and Greece and done additional "minor" work in California, Arizona, and the greater West, as well as being directors of the local historical society or having two Masters' degrees already. Where do people find TIME for this?? I need to hurry up and get a book published so I can keep my own end up.

After Dr. Loewe had talked a few of the other professors looked in and talked about themselves - Dr. LeMaster, the department head, Dr. Schindler, who is in charge of the new filmography division of the department (apparently one kind of MA you can get here you can produce a film for your final project instead of a thesis), and Dr. Quintiliani, who is really nice and actually got her MA at CSULB.

Then we "ended" the meeting and started talking to each other and the professors. I asked Dr. Loewe about the field schools - since I heard a lot had been canceled - and he said there were usually two or so a year, and if there was one at one of the other Cal State universities that I really wanted to do, I could go along on that one. He said most of the things that had gotten canceled were two or three week study abroad opportunities they would do several times a year before the recession hit and no one had money for flights anymore.

I signed up for the anthropology association, talked to a couple of my fellow students, and then walked to the plaza nearby to this restaurant called L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and got a chicken rice bowl to go. I got home and was so starving I barely took my shoes off before I started in on it and it was SO yummy!

I spent the rest of the evening half asleep in my armchair, watching tv shows and enjoying my last few days of having nothing to do. I had a bowl of chocolate fudge brownie ice cream for dessert and it was really the perfect night in.

Whose Line Is It Anyway?

I spent today tooling around, opening my books, reading a page or two, closing them, and then walking around more. In an effort to make my day more interesting I made mashed potatoes for dinner, which was lots of fun, but also lots of calories so I won't do that again for awhile.

OMG! I'm watching Whose Line Is It Anyway and Richard Simmons is making a guest appearance! When did this happen?? I love this show, it never gets old :)
...but seriously, what is with the sparkles Richard???

Anyway. I was examining myself in my mirror today and couldn't stop laughing at my awful tanlines from the flugtag.

I mean, that's a bad tanline!! And I have to tan so judiciously so that I don't get cancer, I'll have these for awhile. What a mistake-a to make-a!

I called Mom and Dad today and at one point we were talking about being grown up, to which I said, "I don't think I'm grown up yet. Today I bounced on my bed, I regularly spin around on my desk chair till I'm dizzy and have to lie down on the floor, and I eat jello every week."
Can you do all of those things and be really grown up? Even though I have loans and bills and a BA, I don't feel grown up...don't want to either. Some parts are nice, but everyone who's ever had a bank balance to worry about knows how nasty some of the other parts can be.

Speaking of bank balances my ex-boss finally emailed me today saying she's found my paycheck and is mailing it to Mom and Dad asap. I'm excited, it should be here in a week or so and then I can go buy that 24-pack of Stella at Sam's Club. That should last me a LONG time since I usually only have two or three beers a week at most, usually just one if I go out on the weekend. I also need to look around for one of those corky things that you can put in wine bottles because I really don't drink much more than a glass or a glass and half at a time, and I always manage to destroy the cork when I'm taking it out (I need a machine like Dad's) so that complicates things. That's why beer is just so much easier. But it's so much more expensive here (which is ironic, that wine is suddenly so much cheaper and better tasting than the beer I can afford) that the cases at Sam's Club are really my only option...but they're expensive chunks of money!

Enough about money. I was wondering about rearranging the shoes in my closet. As it goes now I have two long lines parallel to the doors. I want to try lots of lines perpendicular to the doors, because if I can fit three or four pairs in each line, then I can probably fit a lot more shoes in there.

I have orientation tomorrow. I am SO nervous. I really hope I make lots of friends. That's the only thing that's bad about California - I don't really know anybody.
It's strange though, on my facebook I have had dozens of statuses about the move to California and everything...and today a girlfriend of mine was looking at my album "California 1" (keep in mind I created a "California Apartment" album two weeks ago) and immediately commented saying, "You moved to California??"
Facebook is so weird.

It's late...and this Richard Simmons episode of Whose Line is HILARIOUS...so that's all folks!

Keeping it cool

This "heat wave" has been going on for awhile now, and although I love the hot weather, living in 98 degree weather on the top floor of an apartment building with no A/C has made me appreciate cool weather more than I used to. I started trying to beat the heat by drawing back all the blinds and opening all the windows. I still felt totally cooked between four and seven p.m., and yesterday I suddenly remembered something I read in Betsy's Wedding - that in the hot weather Betsy would 'do the housework early' and then draw all the blinds down, which helped cool the apartment down. So for yesterday and today I've kept the window open, but the blinds on the east side of the house closed. The south window I open the blinds because the sun never shines into it and so doesn't overheat the apartment. It's SO much cooler! I guess the simplest way really is the best after all.

I made the best omelet today - 2 eggs, 1/4 cup corn, 1/4 cup bell pepper, 2 tbsp chopped onion, and 2 slices bacon (chopped). Get this, it's totally filling and only 260 calories! I love cooking.

After lunch I went to CVS and got nail polish remover and cotton balls. I drooled over the makeup for awhile, and made up an imaginary list of all the things I'm going to buy when I'm rich - fancy mascaras and expensive lipsticks and glitter! Lots and lots of glitter!

I got home and didn't want to study so I took more pictures of the apartment now that it's slightly more settled and organized.


My front door!


My room from one corner.


My room from another corner!


Is it bad that I totally want to flip these every time I look at them??

Shopping

I spent this morning getting some rather necessary items for the upcoming school term.

I started out at Target and got 150 sheets of college-ruled paper, an 80 page college-ruled notebook and a folder for $1.54. Then I went to Big Lots and got a heavy vinyl shower-curtain liner for $5 to use as a dropcloth for when I paint. I was about to drive to this Portuguese store I found online when I remembered that I needed shoes I could walk to campus in.

So I drove about ten feet away to a Payless Shoe Source (I did look at Target but they didn't have anything nice) and I found three really nice pairs of shoes. One was silver for $9, one was bronze for $12 and one was bronze for $17. I definitely chose the silver ones, but spent nearly an hour trying to decide which pair of bronze ones I was going to buy - I loved the expensive pair more, but the cheaper pair was really more sensible, so I ended up buying them. I'm going to wear them a few hours a day to slowly break them in, and hopefully avoid blisters.

After I got the shoes I finally drove to the Portuguese store. It was fairly easy to find, but there was a ton of traffic on the highway. It's a pretty small store, but the first thing I saw when I walked in was bottles and bottles of Casal Garcia! It's $8 a bottle, so it's definitely special occasion wine, but it's good to know that I can get it. I also found cans of Sumol ($25 for 24 cans) and best of all...drumroll please...Super Bock beer!!



We can't get it in Florida, so I sucked it up and decided to buy it. At $7 for a 6-pack, it's cheaper than any of the other decent beers I can get here, so it's totally a good investment for a special-occasion beer.

They also have chorizo and smoked linguisa, so I have a supply for when Thanksgiving rolls around. It also occurred to me that just making stuffing every once in awhile and having a week's worth of meals in the fridge might be a good idea. Especially during exam weeks...just a thought! I also saw bags of bacalhau and wheels of cheese, so it's definitely a "special treat" store.

And, on Fridays and Saturdays they have fresh pasteis de bacalhau for $1.25 each. That's not too expensive, definitely something to think about.

I'm trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight that I can have a beer with. Probably roast chicken and potato again. I feel so sorry for those people who subsist off of Ramen and mac n cheese.

Red Bull Flugtag

Last Saturday I went to the Red Bull Flugtag in Rainbow Harbor, and I just managed to edit the pictures today. FYI, the Red Bull Flugtag is a competition where people enter to run "flying machines" off of a huge ramp into the water and see how far they fly. They're graded on how far they fly and the originality of the dance/skit they do before they launch the machine, and the creativity involved in building the machine.
So here are some of my favorites:


I LOVED the arch, it was totally cute.










This is the CSULB one, but I didn't see it fly.








This one was called "Peeping It Real"


These guys called their flying machine "Unexpected Delivery"








The Jetsons!






There were 70,000 people watching!!! In person!!

Department of Motor Vehicles

I spent the morning at the DMV, trying to get my California drivers' license.

The first thing that happened was that I got lost. The highways in California still scare me, and the DMV was so close to the exit that I didn't see it when I left the highway and drove on for several miles trying to find a place where I could legally U-turn and finally executed one that was probably illegal, but the road lines weren't marked yet so I didn't care. They can't cite me for illegally crossing a double yellow line when there IS no double yellow line, now can they?

I get to the DMV and into the parking lot, and there is no parking! I manage to hail a police officer and he tells me to park in the street somewhere. So I drive a quarter of a mile away, park on the side of the road, utter a prayer to the road gods that I don't get towed - I carefully checked to make sure it was an unmarked curb, far away from a fire hydrant, and with no signs banning parking at certain hours.

I left my apartment at 10 am, for a 10:50 am appointment, at a DMV 8.3 miles away from my place. By the time I parked my car it was 10:45 and I had to rush a quarter of a mile in my bronze wedge sandals to the DMV. I don't know how it's done in South Africa, but in the US if you want to take your driving test (the one where you actually drive, not the written test) you have to get there before the place opens and wait in a line that wraps around the building several times. You can't make appointments for it unless you have some sort of special circumstances.
I had to weave through this line, find the Appointments Only line, and then wait there till I got to go to the counter. I managed to get to the counter at 10:55 so I wasn't too late, but I was definitely sweating bullets.

Once I got my paperwork to fill out and my ticket, I got to wait in a lovely hard plastic chair till my number got called (although I was glad for the seat, some people were standing). I filled out my paperwork in a minute or two and spent the remaining forty-five minutes of my wait playing Bejeweled on my phone. That game was the best $4.99 investment I ever made.

Their system was actually pretty interesting: when a number was up they would announce it over the loudspeaker and there were tv screens everywhere showing the number (mine was F041) and the counter you were to go to. My number finally got called and I went up and handed over my Florida drivers' license, my Social Security card and my greencard. I had one really nervous moment when the lady went to photocopy them...I couldn't see her and my heart was seriously in my throat till she came back and handed all three back to me.
She had some pretty negative comments about immigrants, but I think they were directed towards Mexicans in general - although she did make a nasty comment about the federal government taking her house from her and giving it to me (an immigrant). I wonder how bad things really are in California, if all the Mexicans are really causing problems, or if they're just a useful scapegoat.

Finally I got some new papers and went to a different desk to get my picture taken. I guess the flash is an afterthought, because my photo shows me grimacing rather than smiling, but it's a drivers' license photo, no one expects much.

Then I went to another room and waited in line for far too long waiting to a) get my test, b) a booth to open so I could fill it in, c) back in line to turn my test in. Then I watched as the guy graded my test and I only got TWO wrong out of THIRTY-FIVE!! Booyah! I was so relieved when he wrote "PASS" on it - I'd been torturing myself with the thought of having to come back again - and was told to go wait in another line to get processed.

This last line was mercifully short, and I only had to stand at the counter for fifteen minutes or so before everything was in order and the lady told me to expect my card in the mail between 3 to 6 weeks.

I then rushed out to make sure my car was still where I'd parked it, saw that it was, and drove home feeling better than I had all week.
When I got home I had a quick lunch of eggrolls, then put my shoes back on and walked to the campus ID office to get my ID card. I had to fill out a sheet of paper, show them my drivers' license (my Florida one), smile for a picture (I looked MUCH better in this picture) and then wait for literally 60 seconds and my card was printed and ready.

I walked home and my feet hurt so much I went down to the pool in flip-flops and dangled my feet in the cold water. Then I came up and as it was 5 pm so I started dinner.

I had dinner, watched the French 24 news, and then called Mom and Dad. It's now late at night and I'm relaxing with a glass of wine. Tomorrow I'm going shopping for sandals I can wear and run all over campus and not get blisters in. And I'm thinking about stopping at this Portuguese deli I found online - I need to get a good source for chorizo so I can make myself real Thanksgiving stuffing. Distance and money are NOT going to do me out of all my family traditions!!!

Heat wave

So it FINALLY warmed up here in California! It's around 85F during the day, and as the sun shines into my apartment in the afternoon it gets warmer than that, so I'm sitting here with the blinds and windows and door open. The breeze feels great, and I jumped in the pool earlier, which was totally refreshing. (It is a FREEZING pool, so it was great to enjoy it for a change.)

I called Mom today and she says this one doughnut shop we used to pass all the time when driving around Long Beach is the best one in town and has "superb" apple fritters. Guess where I'm going for breakfast tomorrow? Fridays I totally get to have a good breakfast. It's Friday after all!

I'm having Pin's orange chicken for dinner tonight, with a glass of white wine. Then I'm going to settle down in front of the tv and watch Project Runway. What a night :)

All fixed!

Well my car is officially fixed, took the guy all of ten minutes and only cost me $150 (instead of $250 like some of the other quotes) so it could've been a lot worse. Of course when I parked after getting home I parked too close to the left again, so I inched out like a snail and inched back in like a geriatric snail, and still nearly suffocated from holding my breath. If only the parking spaces were three inches wider!! But I parked okay.

I'm thinking about installing strips of foam going out sideways so I can tell where my mirror is when I'm parking. If I touch the edge of the strips, I'm not going to touch the pole...right??

So today is Wednesday. I want a doughnut. But I ate 2,230 calories yesterday, so I really shouldn't. I'm supposed to eat 1,800. I wish the CSULB gym was open but it won't be for awhile yet. I did go tan by the pool yesterday, which was nice, only one side of my face was red for the rest of the day, even though it looks normal this morning.

There are doughnut stores EVERYWHERE here in California. I asked my neighbor about it (because everyone in California is supposed to be super-skinny) and he said they never stir from their darkened bedrooms except to get fast food (in their cars), and apparently they have 24-hour DRIVE THROUGH WINDOWS for their local doughnut stores! I'm appalled.

I'm also desperately resisting the urge to buy junk food. They have Arby's here and I haven't had Arby's since high school...and Carl's Jr was so yummy...and they have In-N-Out Burger and Jack In The Box here, when they didn't in Florida. Jack In the Box has a $4 combo that has a drink, curly fries, and a chicken burger with TWO chicken patties! I was dying for one last night but heroically resisted...heroic til I ate a pound and a half of carrots trying to not go out and buy it and then eating two candy bars...sigh!

Why is food so fantastically yummy?

Saturday the 14th and How To Cook a Tongue

Friday the 13th has never been my problem. Saturday the 14th is ALWAYS my problem. This Friday I went to a local Mexican restaurant with one of my neighbors and was very favorably impressed with the chicken burrito and nachos that I got. Then we went to his apartment and watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It turns out they had an actual ending written, but ran out of money so the studio sicced the cops on them and shut down filming. That's when the old man/policemen bits were filmed, and the animated bits done. I love film majors, they're so full of interesting tidbits. For example, did you know that When Harry Met Sally was supposed to be a documentary of real couples, and all the segments with the couples on the couch are REAL?? It was always one of my favorite movies, and ever since I found that out, I've loved it even more.

Saturday I woke up grumpy and out of sorts, and decided to go check out Big Lots (a discount store). I had fun wandering around, and then stopped by Trader Joe's for a bottle of wine and some dates.
It was when I came home that disaster struck. I parked in my spot and realized I was too close to the Cadillac on my left, so I reversed out and made to pull in again. Now, the surface of the parking garage is flat, but the road leading up to it has a very sharp slope, so the easiest way to get up on to the floor is to hit the gas quickly. I did this, but was at the wrong angle and knocked my passenger side mirror off. I reversed the minute I felt contact, but of course, it was too late.
I realized I had no duct tape in the car, and knew I had none in the apartment, so out of options, I called my neighbor who was at home AND had duct tape. I should really bake him cookies or something. We managed to get my mirror affixed to the side of my car, and after a couple of anxious phone calls to Mom and Dad I managed to pull myself together sufficiently to start looking for body shops and quotes.

The rest of Saturday was spent grumping around the apartment and trying to fix my computer when it kept crashing. I'm blaming Firefox, so I've switched to Opera, and hopefully that set of problems will present no more.

Although, I'm really glad I have my parents and not someone else's. Mom's reaction was to sigh and say, not to worry we'd figure it out somehow. That almost made it worse, because I hate asking for more money on top of everything else they give me, but at least my car will be fixed soon - I can drive slowly on ordinary roads, but I refuse to go on a highway until it's fixed - and I can have a reliable vehicle again. But some parents I know about, like my friend Hilary's, remind me of how lucky I am in that department. Her father makes six figures, and yet he won't give her any money for college or living expenses because he's "broke". Considering all he has on his plate is his house, wife, and dog, I don't know what he's talking about. So she's taking out loans for undergrad, and has a ton of loans for veterinary school to look forward to.

Today I forcibly directed myself to Sam's Club (minor roads only) and bought two tongues for $15 (most tongues are $20 each) and a box of 60 Eggo waffles. The box of waffles cost $8, but in a supermarket a box of 10 costs $3.50. So 60 waffles in small boxes cost $21, for a total savings of $13. Not bad, huh?
Then I went to Albertsons, which has a decent selection, not quite what I'm used to from the ones back home, and got a few small things like butter, orange juice, bacon, tator tots and that sort of thing. That came to $18, so hopefully I'm setting a good precedent for my grocery costs.

I came home, parked very carefully, and unloaded all my groceries. Then I set to cooking my very first tongue. I called Mom first, and then according to her directions I put the tongue in the biggest pot I have(which is pretty small, I'm going to a discount store as soon as I feel I can afford it and buying a big one) along with bayleaves, allspice and a peeled and quartered onion. I left it to boil for 2 hours, but due to the small size of my pot it kept boiling over if I left the lid on, so I had to take it off and replace the water every so often so my pot didn't boil dry. Peeling it was really difficult, but I'm sure once I get used to it it'll get easier.
Eating it was definitely my favorite part.

I think I'm going to sit back and relax with a crunchie bar. I'm going through my South African loot way too quickly. But sometimes a candy bar a day is what's necessary to keep the depression away. And they're cheaper than Prozac!

Earthquake machine

Yesterday morning my alarm clock went off, I turned it off, rolled over and slept for another hour and a half. I finally made myself get up, made some breakfast, and then settled down in my armchair with a textbook before it happened. At first I didn't really notice anything, and suddenly I realized my apartment was shaking and my stove was making a hellacious noise. I dash to the window to see if people are running out to the street and what do I see? A huge truck outfitted as an EARTHQUAKE MACHINE! There were some workers in my front yard with probes stuck into the soil and looking at machines connected to the probes.

It's very reassuring and all to see that they take earthquake safety so seriously here, but that machine was parked in front of my building for twenty minutes, and I'd like to see Albert Einstein focus on HIS textbooks when the stove in the next room is jumping up and down like a rattly, clunky Mexican jumping bean. Those machines are so powerful when it moved down the street to test the building next door my entire apartment was STILL shaking!

Settling in: Wednesday

Wednesday was supposed to be the day we were all "done" furnishing, and could spend our time exploring Long Beach and having fun. Ha! That totally didn't happen.

We got up early and decided to drive straight to the "big" IKEA in Covina, and eat at a diner there, but when we got there we remembered IKEAs have restaurants, and had our breakfast there. Mom got Swedish pancakes and lingonberry jam as well as a cinnamon bun, whereas I had breakfast potatoes, eggs and sausage. Mom said the pancakes tasted just like some sort of Afrikaans pancakes and I tried the jam and it tasted great. My breakfast was apparently very South African because the potatoes tasted just like SA chipped potatoes, the eggs were real, and the sausage links tasted just like escort pork sausages (only they were much smaller). Needless to say, we bought a packet of the sausages before we left, and they are now in my freezer.

Breakfast over, we moved along to the furniture departments in search of the loveseat/sleeper sofa and the dining table and chairs we'd previously decided to buy. Unfortunately, when we found the loveseat its price had gone up and we decided not to buy it. This turned out to be positive in the long run, since the main room of my apartment is on the small side. And while the loveseat is built on a small scale, the other furniture takes up enough room that I prefer to have the space than the loveseat.

Anyway, I was disappointed, but I knew the move had cost a lot so I didn't protest the loss of the loveseat, but went on to the dining room department instead, where we FINALLY found the little table we'd been looking for. We drifted through the other departments, admiring and wishing for a superfluous income till we got downstairs to the accessories department, where we got two green tubs for my closet to hold my socks and underwear, a green hand towel for my bathroom, two green cushions for the hard wood chairs of my dining set, and a green and white plastic dustpan and brush. (I'm sure you're beginning to see the theme here.)

We got a cart and picked up the table and chair set I wanted then proceeded to checkout and drive home where the great assembly mania began.

To start with, we'd tried to assemble the bookcase the night before but couldn't figure it out, so we'd gone to bed tired and annoyed. We called Dad before we set out to IKEA and he insisted there would be holes drilled in certain parts so that we could do it and we'd obviously using the wrong part. After getting back from IKEA and hauling everything up the stairs we took a second look at the bookcase and sure enough, he was right. Although, we're still a little mad at Target for not LABELING the pieces as the directions said they were.

So the bookcase was assembled in mere minutes, and then we started struggling with the desk. And by struggle I mean we fought with it from the time we got back from IKEA (a little after noon) till Mom's friend Joe called and asked to meet us at 3 pm, and only finished it late that afternoon AFTER we got back from meeting Joe.
Joe was very nice, and the restaurant we met him at was very nice too, with its own beer and some seriously yummy calamari. It was set on the beach too, and we got to look at the waves flowing over the white sands, the effect only slightly marred by the big oil rigs and tankers sitting in the bay.

Once we were home and the desk was finally assembled, we began on the table and chairs. The IKEA items were much easier to construct than the Target ones, but by this point Mom's and my hands were seriously sore and the table and chairs took longer to assemble than would be the case otherwise. When we finished though, and everything was organized, seat covers on chairs, printer and computer on desk, it was totally worth it. My very own furnished apartment!

By this time we were starving again, but didn't want to have a repeat of Tuesday night, so we were trying to decide where on earth we were going to go, when I suddenly had a brainwave and asked Mom if she still had that Outback Steakhouse giftcard she'd been given awhile ago. She did, I checked my Garmin for a nearby location, and we set off.
The food was yummy - I had a mixed platter with chicken, shrimp, fries and baby back ribs while Mom had something smothered in mushrooms with garlic mashed potatoes. Unfortunately when we ordered drinks Mom ordered a glass of wine and I didn't feel like wine so I got a beer. The waitress said, "It comes in a big bottle, is that alright?" I assumed she meant an oversized bottle (like 1 1/2), so I said it was fine, but lo and behold the beer she brought out had a volume of ONE PINT EIGHT OUNCES! Needless to say, I did NOT finish it. I did drink nearly a pint though, so I didn't feel too guilty about wasting the rest of it.

After dinner Mom and I went to Target to pick up some last minute things, not the least of which were some groceries since I had practically nothing in my pantry at that point. Then we finally got to put everything away and go to sleep after a very VERY long day!

More Pictures!

The after pictures:

Pictures!

My luggage:



The before pictures of my apartment: