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Friday, February 17, 2012

What We've Been Up To: Packing, Tattoos, and Hoarders

Well friends, as you know this week has been a zero-sum dash to get all of our earthly possessions together in one place and ready for a four-day cross-country trip.

This is mostly the reason why I've been so absent on blogs lately.  My Bloglovin' feed is almost to 300 new posts...yee-ikes!  I'm taking a break from the throwing away of things moving now, though, to give you an idea of what our week has been like.

To begin I'll tell you that early in the week I decided to grant total control of packing over to my husband. I wouldn't pack or throw anything away until he told me to in order to protect myself from a full-on meltdown.  At one point he even told me he'd wait for me to leave before he packed because it was easier when I wasn't huffing around all stressed-like.

On Monday we slowly began putting stuff in trash bags and planning what we'd keep and what we'd take to the dump.  Because our new place is so much smaller than our current house we knew we'd be purging like mad people.  I don't know about you, but the feeling you get when you pack one tiny box and end up with 3 huge bags of trash is unparalleled.  I don't understand how people can become hoarders (but more on that later).

On Tuesday we puttered around some more and I got a [freehanded] skull tattoo!  This was actually a going-away present from Adam, who didn't think I had the guts to get a skull tattoo.  Well, ladies and gents, I proved him wrong.

Uploaded from the Photobucket iPhone App
This is just at the beginning--he drew the skull in sharpie on my leg first.


Uploaded from the Photobucket iPhone App 

An interesting note about this tattoo, and I hope it doesn't come across incorrectly.  I posted the freehand drawing on Instagram as well as the final result and literally received maybe 3 "likes", as opposed to my much more "friendly" sugar-skull couple, which got maybe 15 likes and many comments.  I don't really care, nor does it particularly hurt my feelings, I just find it interesting which tattoos people choose to "like" and those they do not.  Like it or not, we in the blogging world (most of us are hipsters, and I include myself in that) share a lot of the same tattoo fads--mostly American traditional pieces, non-threatening sugar skulls, swallows, roses, craft tools, baking tools, etc. It's not a bad thing and really makes a lot of sense, since many of us share a lot of the same interests.  I've never really seen a skull like this around the blogosphere, so I suppose it just isn't a lot of people's cup of tea and that's okay. I joked to Rob that maybe if I slapped a raven and an Edgar Allen Poe quote next to this one it wouldn't look so scary to people.  

Anyway my friends, on Wednesday we had a huge dump extravaganza (I didn't mean for that to sound as gross as it does).  We took two truckfuls of crap to our local transfer station and it felt amazing, like losing a collective 100 lb of weight in a day amazing. Funny story, actually.  At our dump we have a "share shack," where you can leave still-good items for other people to take.  When we drove up to it we were surprised with how empty it was but started unloading some of our items, such as a computer desk, a small dresser, some shelving units, an end table, etc. Almost as soon as we drove up, a swarm of people came to look at everything we'd left behind.  One woman managed to grab our dresser not 30 seconds after we'd put it down.  Another guy grabbed the end table from Rob's hands, then grabbed a vacuum cleaner hose and a broken door.  He had a huge smile on his face and said in a thick Maine accent, "One man's trash is another's treasure!" We left heavy with the realization that we probably enabled more than one hoarder that day.

On Thursday we got the trailer and put most of our stuff in it.  I'm lucky that my husband is a packing ninja and can fit a lot of things into a small area (that's what she said).  Today is being spent finishing up and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.

Uploaded from the Photobucket iPhone App

Poor Cypress is totally flabbergasted by the happenings in our home.  She looks at us like a person who's defaulted on their mortgage and whose things are being repossessed.

Uploaded from the Photobucket iPhone App

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we're leaving and what that means.  It deserves its own post so I'll hold out for that.

I hope you've all had a great week so far and happy Friday!

13 comments:

  1. oh man, packing is NOT my favourite thing. i will be very happy for you when the whole thing is over with.
    i loved the bit about the dumping extravaganza. and i love that you got a tattoo that is not "typical" in the blogosphere. i think that's cool. it's a tattoo! you gotta get the one that YOU love. :) it's sweet.

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  2. I love the new tattoo and what you had to say about it. Also, I think there's a bit of a gender thing going on with the number of tattoo "likes" as well. A lot of women (I'm thinking mostly of bloggers I've seen with tattoos, and I know I'm over-generalizing a bit) tend toward more feminine tattoos. Not strictly, of course, but the subject matter often tends to be things that are pretty or cute. I don't see as many ladies with scary looking tattoos, and your skull is kind of a scary skull.

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  3. I hate the internet and tattoos. Nobody knows anything but everybody acts like some kind of expert. It's so annoying. Don't even sweat it. There's a bunch of (kind of weird/funny) tattoos of mine in portfolios of the tattooers here at TZ and people will say the rudest things about them. Like the standard "who would get that?" stuff. And then I go "That's on me," and they shut up real fast. haha

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  4. your tattoo looks rad. and i like the description you gave cypress. she's so cute and confused looking in that pic hehe <3 good luck with the rest of your move!

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  5. OKAY I'm going to try this a second time. I still can't believe I lost my original comment!

    I can't believe how fast your last few days are going in Maine! In case I don't get to tell you again, have a safe trip there & keep us VERY updated on how things are going in your new home. I want to see pictures and more pictures! :)

    As for the tattoo thing, social media is so weird like that. I understand that your feelings aren't HURT but it definitely gets you thinking about the power of one little click. I think it's really cool that you had the guts to get something that is so drastically different from your other tattoos. It's not something I would personally get, but you rock tattoos like nobody's business, so don't think twice about it. :)

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  6. Sheesh my computer is being weird today... so sorry if I've already submitted this comment!
    I'm so happy for you being almost done with your packing! What a relief! And maybe you encouraged hoarders, but at the same time, maybe you helped out people who really needed those things and couldn't afford to buy them new!!
    Some people might just "dislike" your tattoo because it has no color, or because compared to the sugar skull it isn't their thing, but it doesn't necessarily mean they hate it. Just try not to let it get to you. =]

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  7. Adam is a packing ninja too! Maybe it has something to do with the Army. Loved the comment about cyprus and his photo, I literally laughed out loud! lol

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  8. so, i didn't even know you got another tattoo until now! otherwise i would have liked it on instagram.... lol ;) i pretty much like any skull in any shape or form because they always tell a story. i liked the "slap a raven and an Edgar Allen Poe quote" on it. you make me laugh. always!!

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  9. Aw, poor Cypress! I hope she's happy in her new home.

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  10. Haha, aww, I love that description of poor Cypress! I also often forget to like things on instagram, but I thought your tattoo was pretty friggin sweet the second I saw it. It's definitely a lot tougher/scarier than most of the tattoos I've seen on women, but that's part of what makes it really cool.

    Anyways, good luck with packing and moving!

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  11. What a relief it would be to give my husband the packing reins! I can't even count how many times we've had to move and every time, I feel like a crazy hoarder. Which, by the way, is the show I watch to clean my house. Because after you see the piles of feces next to the moldy refrigerator...well, you just can't pull out the clorox fast enough.

    I LOVE getting rid of stuff. It makes me feel so...in control. Hey, have a great official moving day!

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  12. How funny! My husband would go ape shit over that tattoo. Actually I better hide this screen before he talks about getting ANOTHER one!! hehe

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  13. i never even saw that skull tattoo on IG!!! i guess i never looked far back enough in your feed? anyway ITS AWESOME!!!

    (the sugar skulls were funny)

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