Half of a Virtual Tour of My New House

Okay, okay, okay - I've procrastinated long enough. It's time for y'all to see photos of my house. But, because it would take lots and lots of pics to show it, and my room's not completely finished yet, I'm only going to give you 3/4s of the tour. Deal with it. ;)

Welcome to my house!



This is my door. If you look to your left, there's the upstairs living room. It's got very comfortable couches and a fireplace, the latter of which isn't working because of a gas problem.



We're moving away from the living room...



To the dining room! This is the smallest room in the house - which I don't mind, considering I don't sit there all that often, contrary to the evidence of my book and food on the table right now...



That door leads to my deck - yes, we have one. It's awesome, but not so much in the winter. I'll try to take a pic of it when it's light and I'm home - if the two happen to coincide someday.



This is my kitchen - well the window seat in my kitchen. My roomies call it the Dorothy Kitchen because it's so bright red and blue. I love it. No more two-butt kitchen - there's actually room!



Here's the actual kitchen part of the kitchen.



These stairs are off the kitchen to the downstairs.



This is the first room you see - which is kind of a hall. It has an electric piano and storage space.



This is the washer and dryer I use in the laundry room. They're pretty amazing - you can set all types of cycles. I'm easily impressed when it comes to appliances.



This is the downstairs living room - it has awesome 70s wood paneling and couches from that same era. I pretty much love it, even though I haven't spent that much time in it so far.



This is the kitchen that's just off the downstairs living room. That fridge isn't actually plugged in yet (it needs to be cleaned out) and I don't think the water works there. Also, there's not so much as a microwave on the counter. Or a stove or anything. Good thing the upstairs one is so big. :)



Downstairs bathroom.



Sink and cupboard and such in the downstairs bathroom.



Thanks for joining me on my virtual tour. Join me soon for the rest of it!

Since I've been gone

Well, since I've moved I've had a lot on my mind. Here are a few points:

I have no idea how to put things together. I read one list of directions for the rack for my file folder box and my eyes glazed over. Even with the pictures on directions, sometimes I'm still in the dark. This makes me feel incredibly incompetent, yet grateful for people who have the logical sense to put things together. Here's to the engineers of the world - I salute you.

It's weird that my home is now still a house, but contains no family - that I know of, yet. When I head home from places now, I have to remind myself I live in Holladay.

Getting organized/decorating my room - I'm awful about it. I still have empty boxes and my old bed hanging out. I get the urge to organize at the oddest times - like 1 a.m.

Trying to organize five different girls' cars, plus their friends' is hard, especially when you have to line them up in order of departure in the morning. Although, when you know you're pretty much the last one to leave, you just try to park in front.

The end, for now. Pictures of my new place to come...sometime in the future.

An ad I actually like

Much of my time at the Park Record consists of building and changing ads for the paper, which is not my favorite thing to do design-wise.

But my favorite things might change because of this ad I just made today.

(Except girls in white dresses still ROCK!:)

It's been CRAZY - what with the Film Guide for the Sundance Film Festival going to the printer on Monday and production having one less day to work on it because we thought it wasn't going to actually happen because there weren't any ads sold for it - until Monday. So, two of us are working on the layouts for the actual Guide, and three of us are working on ads for it and for the upcoming Saturday paper. I've built and changed about 100 billion ads today alone and want to change my name to Ad Amy. What do you think? Or AdGirl. Or AdTastic. You get the idea.

Seeing as I built all the ads, it wasn't surprising that I built an ad for [NAME OF ADVERTISER DELETED] It was going to be built in black and white originally, and I still liked it then, but then the guy from the resort emailed me and asked if it was going to be in color, so I switched out everything to color - and fell in love.

[Picture of this ad deleted because owner of said anonymous company was upset that I put it up here - even thought I built it and I have some creative license attached to it, I just decided because he wanted me to take it off I would - because I work for the Park Record and anything I make for them also belongs to them, so it's legally tenuous and I don't want to have to deal with it.]

I especially love the coupon - it just feels more professional than anything I've made in my life. It was kind of a fluky thing, too, putting the logo in the coupon- it was because I couldn't fit it anywhere else. I also just discovered Onyx font and it just works for this ad.

In moving news: I'm finally moving into my little house in Holladay. I've been postponed from Saturday to Monday to Tuesday to tonight - mostly because the van I'm moving in was in the shop. Oh, and my own car. But tonight's the night and I'm stoked! Pics to come.

In Micah news: He told me he had two brains yesterday.

"How did that happen?" I asked

"Well, I have a brain from preschool and one from kindergarten," he replied sensibly.

I thought to myself, "Wow - that kind of makes sense," and actually said out loud, "So, I have 18 brains? I've gone to 18 years of school, counting preschool and kindergarten."

"Yep," he said.

Then he told Becca his theory and she asked how many brains a person could get.

He said something to the effect of "however far they go in school."

That kid...too smart for his own good and not even in first grade yet. Oy.

Cardinal rules

I've been thinking a lot lately about cardinal rules we all hold near and dear to our hearts - as a family and as an individual.

I should probably back up and explain what I call cardinal rules and at least a partial explanation of why I've been thinking about them.

Example of a cardinal rule: For many people, being on a time is a cardinal rule. You're never late - the end. To be late, especially on a regular basis, is the most rude thing you could ever do to this person; they can't fathom a good enough reason to be chronically tardy and are horrified and profusely apologetic when something happens to make them late.

Other areas for cardinal rules - cleanliness, germs, tact, honesty, church callings and attendance, etc.

I was talking with my mom about someone who bothers her sometimes with her/his seeming lack of consideration, among other things. I brought up the fact that since I'd grown up with her, I knew all of her cardinal rules, and unless I wanted to be in trouble, I avoided breaking them like the plague.

Other people who have not grown up with me, yet are trying to join the family, don't have the luxury of knowing these rules offhand, and must learn them. Sometimes they learn them by breaking them and facing consequences for rules they didn't know existed.

We talked about how cardinal rules are good things to follow - but sometimes aren't the most important things in life. Almost everyone has a different set of them - at least some of them are towards their good.

Maybe we all need to take a look at what are cardinal rules for our lives - what we live and die by - and whether they're really important.

Heck, I know I am.