Once again, blogging has taken a back seat to that attention seeking pal of mine- procrastination. This time, I do have an excuse up my sleeve though. The Move. I feel that it deserves capitalisation after the amount of effort I and poor Tom (who is charged with the heavy lifting) have poured into the project.
I'm proud to say that after a week or so of playing tetris with our furniture in the treehut that is our apartment, we are finally settled. Well....almost kindof sortof settled. You see, now that we have our own place it always feels like there's something that could be done around the place. Nothing major really but just little things. The only word for it is pottering.
This past weekend has been spent doing just that. Chucking out stuff, buying new stuff, tidying and so on. Yesterday Tom and I had to refrain from high fiving each other when we scored an 'extreme' dustbuster for nearly half price at Briscoes. Jesus we're only renting, what am I going to be like when we own our own house? Actually I can answer that. I will be my mother.
I'm the daughter of an almost compulsive potterer. Preferable to the compulsive gambler or alcoholic mother ofcourse - pottering is very much a middle class affliction. It never bothered me but I never quite understood it. Sunday afternoons spent vacuuming and putting stuff (mostly mine and my brother's stuff) back in it's rightful place. It seemed mad that she wouldn't also want to veg on the couch with an assortment of snacks. To be fair I suppose she hadn't mixed Baileys, red wine and whatever other alcohol we could get our hands on as teens the night before. Though even if she did have a big night, Mum would be up without fail bright and early the following morning, putting everything back where it should go.
It's strangely satisfying rattling around your own place. So much so that I chose Murder Burger (amazing Ponsonby burger joint) and the couch over having a life on Saturday night. I woke up at 8am this morning with an urge to put on a load of towels and wash the new purchases from Briscoes before putting them away.
Most Sunday mornings I wake up with an urge of another kind and it's not pleasant. It was quite a welcome change.
This pottering business is proof that we are selfish beings. I never had this kind of compulsion when flatting with others. My attitude was much more along the lines of 'why should I clean the bathroom when so and so hasn't done it for weeks?' I suppose you're a lot more tolerant of the person you share a bed with so when it's only the two of you then there's none of that. Also I have one of those very rare beings...a clean and tidy (most of the time) male.
So now that we've unpacked and the place is looking relatively presentable, my mind is set on entertaining. I guess you could call it the fruits of our labour, having mates over to “ooh” and “aah” over our pottering efforts. And let's be honest, we NEED some sort of social interaction if we're getting excited about dustbusters.
Till next time then, just off to organise the linen cupboard...
