Obsession du Jour
I’m sort of in this weird holding pattern with the book right now. I can either decide that I’ve reached the end of the book and go back in there and add to it from the middle with more scenes to really flesh things out. Or I can decide that our heroine wants to continue on her messy journey and keep on writing out into a future timeline.
Extending the storyline sounds like a royal pain in the arse, since I had the story arc ‘just so’ with all these different moving pieces and everything got all wrapped up into a pretty bow at the end. If our heroine keeps trundling along, then I would either need to tear apart the package and rework it, or I would have to create a whole new set of problems and resolutions for everybody. Blah blah blah.
So while I let all of this percolate, I’ve begun to get absolutely obsessed with the clutter in our apartment. I like to say that Steve and I are crammed into a one bedroom apartment for now, as if this crowded situation will be remedied soon enough with more space. We all know this is absolute horse hockey, as with more space inevitably comes more S T U F F to fill it up. And with the market as it is, we are going to be living here for at least another year.
With that realization, the discomfort of our living situation is finally bugging the living crap out of me. There is clutter everywhere. It’s a very irritating and unwelcoming feeling to walk into our apartment when you’re instantaneously assaulted with a bike, a trash can and two bags of golf clubs. And that’s just the foyer.
Last night, I chugged two glasses of wine with dinner, stuffed my face with some chips and then went totally nuts. This morning I had three trash bags filled to go out, and I have only just begun. I have a very detailed plan of attack to trim the fat, and by the end of this mission, everything left in our apartment will have a home. No more full wardrobe sitting on the dining room table. No more running into furniture because the path to get by is fraught with clutter. Oh, about that. It’s sad when you get used to sporting massive bruising on one leg because you repeatedly crash into the same sharp edge of an end table. There have actually been jokes made about childproofing the furniture for my benefit.
Katie Morton
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Oh you MUST pick up the book "Apartment Therapy" at once. My friend and I each got a copy last weekend, and we are so inspired and doing the "8-week apartment cure" in our respective apartments now. First step is decluttering and cleaning, with a vengeance! The author actually lives in a 250-s.f. apartment in the West Village with his wife AND their 1-yr-old baby girl. If he can make that work, well... I am in awe. My relatively palatial 430-s.f. apartment in Brooklyn is going to be kick-ass when I'm done. So many great tips and loads of inspiration, all in a little paperback. Good luck with your own mini-palace. ;-)
I actually looked into that book, but 8 weeks is way too long. I will be done by the end of this weekend. The kitchen already looks fantastic, the living room is coming along -- still more work to do there, but the bathroom and bedroom are about done. I'm a little OCD when I set my mind to something.
What happened to the whole condo thing? Not to pry, but Id think that right now would be a great time to buy.
There's still a loooooooong way to the bottom of the market in our area. So if we bought something now, we'd immediately lose all of our equity as pricing tanks. We're still keeping our eyes open either for A) something we just Must Have or B) some fabulous deal via desperate seller or foreclosure. But we're in no rush to pounce, as prices are still dropping steadily here.
Are there any real estate sites you are using for these predictions or are you using an agent? I guess I'm trying to figure out when the market will "bottom out" in my area. Congrats on the progress on the book by the way.