Adventures of a Tofu Slut

My parents gave me a magnetic spice jar in my stocking this year, as a tester to see if they'd work for me (instead of the giant useless bag of spices I currently have), and it's great. So I bought some more. I'm having a terrible time getting the stickers off the (magnetic) back, though. I found that when I left the sticker on, the jar stuck to the fridge, but peeling off the stickers hasn't really worked either. Anyone have any great ideas for getting the stick off something? I tried nail polish remover, but it just smeared it around.

If I ever get these to work, they're going to be so awesome. But right now they're just annoying and in the way. :P

Last night it was almost cold enough to put the quilt back in the quilt cover. Almost! So I did. QUIIILLLLLLTTTTT. And then, of course, I was too hot, because it really wasn't quite cold enough, but the joy of snuggling under the quilt made up for it.

Clearly there's something wrong when this is the most exciting thing going on in my life. :D

I just cooked my first real (non-salad, non-sandwich) meal in the new apartment! It was kind of disastrous!

It's entertaining cooking in a new kitchen - I'm still not totally sure where we put some things, so there was a bit of a shuffle to find the measuring cups. Also, the spices still don't have a place to live, so they were a bit awkward to find. And then, there were bugs in my basmati rice! I somehow completely read the recipe wrong (even though I've made it dozens of times before), so it was a little overly cumin-y. Finally, the (brown) rice totally didn't cook -- "min" on this stove is basically completely lacking in heat. A good thing to know.

So, yes, dinner was not entirely tasty. And I was so looking forward to it! Oh well.

Last night I made the stupid mistake of having some wine with dinner, after a frantic day at work, and then I basically fell into a coma and did nothing for the rest of the night. THIS IS NOT HELPING ME PACK.

Also, no-one wants my TV. I'm kind of at a loss about what to do with it at this point. I guess Goodwill will accept it, but it's really too heavy for me to carry any length of time, so I would definitely have to cab it to Goodwill, but I'm not entirely sure I could even get it down the stairs without falling over myself. I will try, though! And I suppose if I'm taking the TV in a cab to Goodwill, I can take all the rest of the stuff as well, so I can stop with the daily lugging of two bags of books. Still, this was not on my schedule.

I can't believe no-one wants a free TV! That still even mostly works! Suckers.

ETA: Never mind, someone wants my TV after all, assuming everything works out with pick-up. Phew.

The deployment of boxes and moved furniture around my apartment is becoming dangerous - I got up to pee around 2 last night, and in the 7 steps from my bed to the bathroom, managed to run into 4 things. OUCH.

I've been sort of trying to watch So You Think You Can Dance (because, dancing! good dancing, usually!), but it's like something is conspiring against me: over various days, I've had to be out of the apartment while it was being shown, the reception has been terrible because of thunderstorms, I've been out for dinner, and then last night, I would have sworn on Captain Jack that it was Tuesday. I even questioned myself as I was looking for a break from packing - "Is there something I mindlessly enjoy and can get on a non-fuzzy channel? No, it's Tuesday."

Tuesday? Really?

Today I did the most tedious of all packing jobs: removing the magnetic poetry from the fridge.

I just sent out my first Freecycle post (for the camera and discman that I've been trying to get rid of for ages). It was a frightening experience! The FAQ is all, go ahead, wait 24 hours, pick whomever you like - except that I got so many emails in the first 10 minutes that it was stressing me out. And then people were emailing again, asking if I'd gotten their first email! Eep!

So I panicked and picked a couple of people. Except now of course I wish I'd waited, because there were people who wrote really cute stories, and that sort of effort should be rewarded. Oh well. I have more stuff to get rid of, so we'll see what happens next time.

This post brought to you by the fact that clearly I'm not fully competent on Sunday night.

I was going to make soup tonight, but I grossly overestimated what I'd be able to carry home from the grocery store, so I jettisoned all the soup ingredients. Carrying stuff home is what I really hate about grocery shopping, I think. After all, I didn't have any objection to it at the last place I lived, but we were right across the street from the store. I'm not super far away here, but it's enough that I have to be careful how much I buy, especially if I'm getting both soy milk and orange juice as part of the groceries.

Actually, I think with most of the chores I hate, it comes down to one specific aspect. Laundry, which I just despise lately, is all about the moment when, after wrestling the basket down all those stairs, I discover the machines are in use. Hate! Other than that I have no objections. With cleaning the bathroom it's trying to reach the opposite wall of the bathtub, with washing the floors it's moving all the stuff out (and then back again), with cleaning the kitchen it's the timing - catching it just after taking out the recycling, but when there are no dirty dishes, so that I can clear off the counter in order to wash it.

Although really, it's just that I'm lazy.

Seriously, what happened to this week? I'm quite certain that I've been at work for the last 3 days, unless I'm having very vivid hallucinations, but all I've done is...nothing. Or at least that's what it feels like, and my electronic to-do list (which moves anything I don't finish to the next day, in RED even) is backing me up. I just don't know.

Meanwhile, at home, I'm on a bit of a home-revitalization kick. I've divided my apartment into 6, and each weekend I'm tackling one of those six areas, doing a very thorough cleaning (including the parts I usually ignore, like the BLINDS WHICH ARE FILTHY), plus clutter tossing, pulling out things for Goodwill, and decorating. Last weekend I did the bedroom - I cleaned the filthy blinds (which took forever and is really the reason my tiny apartment got divided into 6, because I am lazy and there are 2 sets of blinds in the living room), took everything off the bedside table, both bookcases, and the metal stand that stands in for a dresser and washed them all down, moved everything away from the walls and under the bed and super-vacuumed, and dusted all the ledges and moldings and corners. Living on a fairly major street and leaving your windows open all the time certainly builds up the dirt, I tell you. Then I trekked to IKEA and bought a new bedspread, new sheets that actually co-ordinate (and what I thought was pillowcases, but turned out to only be one), and curtains.

Sadly, when I went to put the curtain rods up, I discovered that the area around the windows is entirely plaster, so the screws just fell out again. Boo! Today I picked up some of those plastic things that supposedly help with the screws, but apparently I need a drill. So I think it's back to the drawing board. Maybe I can find some sort of curtain rod that just sticks to the wall? The curtains are very light.

This weekend: bathroom. Which means I have to clean the shower tiles. Lame. And then I'm finally going to call my landpeople and complain about the fact that the drain doesn't so much drain. 5 minutes, and I'm in water up to my calves, and then it takes 15 minutes to all disappear. No wonder I can never really get the bathtub clean.

Two days into the long weekend (or possibly two and a half, because there was that night that just passed, and you can draw your own conclusions about the fact that it's noon and I'm not officially counting any of this day as having happened yet), and I have been very, very productive. Which is to say, very productive for me on a weekend, which is probably equivalent to not particularly productive for most of you.

ANYWAY.

Friday night I spontaneously did my taxes at 8 o'clock at night! And then I did them again, because the result was exactly what I got last year, originally, before I discovered that extra zero that made my return much, much smaller. So I was a little paranoid. But it's all good, hooray.

I also randomly cleaned out my closet on Friday, and created a small pile of things to go to Goodwill, and a much larger pile of things that are too small but I refuse to believe that I will never be able to wear again. And then yesterday I found clothing storage bags that go under the bed, and they exactly fit the amount of clothing I had to store, *and* perfectly fit under the bed, between the boxes, despite my lack of measuring before I went to the store. HaHA! To recap: project conceived, started and finished within 24 hours. This has possibly never happened before.

In between that there was brunch with lovely people, including DramaPrince (who was in fact the quietest person at the table), and also a trip to Electronics Store of Doom, where I attempted to make sense of the fact that the 8G iPod Nano is basically the same price as the 30G iPod and how am I supposed to know what I want? Poor sanity_clause, who attempted to help me through my confusion. I really did think that I'd decided just what I wanted an mp3 player for, but clearly not.

I also, once again, attempted to fix my wireless, but I just cannot connect to the site where (I think) you set everything up. At least, it's the first step in all the fixes, so I assume it's important. Also, my instruction manual seems to have disappeared. And sadly, my router isn't being supported anymore, so the D-Link support people wouldn't help me. FINE THEN. I'm still mulling what to do about this, so we'll just file this one under "attempted to be productive even though didn't actually get to cross anything off the to-do list".

And this morning, I took my laundry downstairs even before I had breakfast. Hardcore. Normally I can barely sit upright before breakfast.

And now I'm going to clean something. Possibly my window ledges. And, of course, listen to my neighbours. Sigh.

(Note: if you're counting things I actually did here, and thinking, "Damn, that's barely productive at all!", I did do a few less exciting things like go to the library and buy groceries. Don't worry.)