Catch Up Post

December 1st! It's been a while since my last post, so here's what's going on in sunny Montclair:

We are both working at Titmouse, hence the slack in posts and free time in general. I am managing to play a fair amount of Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, per week, so rest assured. Now that it's almost winter, I'm starting my annual playthrough of Twilight Princess, where I am mostly running off cliffs as I re-teach my brain to play on inverted controls.

Yesterday we went to a post-Thanksgiving potluck at a new friend's house. We met them the day before on the way home from Long Island, and they started talking to us by showing us the new Faulex one of them had bought behind a minivan near Canal Street earlier that day.

Our apartment is still quite messy, but all of the rooms have finally been repainted, and most of the wall decor has been put up. Therefore, I present to you a Before and After gallery:

Bathroom before

Bathroom after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Kitchen before

Kitchen after

Living room before

Living room after

Dining room/office before

Dining room/office before

Dining room/office after

Foyer before

Foyer after

~Extra pictures~

There is this useless little wall near the window in the kitchen, so I put up a couple small shelves for extra storage.

I love me some hanging baskets, and I painted/installed this pegboard to store my pots and pans.

I put our supply drawers here in front of the window thinking that Fred would enjoy the perch.

Food pictures by dining table

Used my new circle punch to make a paper decor for the wall near my desk

Put this mirror with a shelf in the living room

Bought this nightstand/end table at the Goodwill near BU right before moving. Had to clean the spilled oil/lube out of the drawer and replace the knob, but now it's perfect as a remote holder.

This fairly-new lampshade was damaged in the move, and despite my best efforts (duct tape) would not stay up on the shade frame. Finally, I sewed it to the hoop.

Altair, Ezio, and Ezio in position to strike.

Never thought I'd own coasters, but bought a couple of these on a whim from Anthropologie before moving. Thought they would look nice on the new coffee table I'd just acquired.

Bought this for I think $15 from a girl in Brighton.

Made this succulent pillowcase.

And this dual-sided pillowcase (which Fred loves to lay on because it's long and just his size).

The real challenge with selecting paint color was working with our open floor plan - all the colors had to go together. I saw these two colors together in a picture online and loved them right away. They look better in person, but of course the camera can't capture the true color. The reddish-orange is called "Clay" and the green is called "Leaf". The gray in the kitchen is called "Stone." Very crazy here.

This rolly cart is awesome and we're going to store more stuff on it.

Sometimes Fred needs a breather from his fast-paced lifestyle

While painting, this is how Fred helped out

~Halloween Pictures~

I bought a bag of bones from Target and made this Diablo-item wreath for the front door.

When it comes to candy selection, I don't fuck around. No filler, throwaway candy like Dum-Dums and Tootsie Rolls.

Because I like to be crafty whenever I can, I made little treat baggies for the kids to take instead of loose candy. Because they'll really care. So I stamped the images on the white paper, punched that lacy design on the top, and stuffed each baggie full of 3 fun sizers.

This bowl of baggies was a few layers deep, and by the end of the night was completely empty!

Since I wasn't working at Titmouse yet on Halloween, I handled all the trick-or-treaters, which was fun because I got to praise all their cool costumes. Fred watched them through the front window or sat nicely in my arms as the kids pet him. I played spooky old music, and when Tim got home from work we watched Beetlejuice together. Halloween is my favorite.

~Obligatory Fred Being Cute Pictures~

Fred fell asleep in my lap so we played with his lips.