Reinventing the Wheel

I'm still alive.

Jersey is different. For one, I could not find Old Bay. (What the hell is wrong with this state?) I'm trying to make it home, and it's kind of working. For anyone who was unfortunate enough to talk to me during the first couple weeks I was up here -- sorry about the emo.

The first order of business seems to be pretty obvious: invest in the place. I'm starting with the house itself. The stairs were/are the first order of business. I really wish I'd thought to photograph them before going to town on the horror. They seem to be unfinished. As in, there is a support wall running along the stairs -- but they stopped building the wall, so it's just a row of support beams. Uneven support beams. With large gaps between said beams and the stairs. Aside from being somewhat architecturally disturbing, it also gives the (extremely accurate) impression that there are giant holes in the staircase.

The previous owners decided that the way to combat this was to put wallpaper over everything. Okay, fine...but they didn't use wallpaper. They used contact paper (the sticky stuff you use to line shelves). They also decided that, since wallpapering stairs involves a lot of measuring and cutting, they would shred the paper into chunks, going for a collage effect.

Oh...and did I mention? The paper was a faux marble. In a peach-orange. I took one look at this and decided it was my first crusade.

The evil not-wallpaper is gone; I replaced it with a fake stucco wallpaper. It's not quite done yet, but it looks better. (My landlords like it, too. Bonus.) The holes in the stair columns are not gone, but they're camoflaged, which works for me. It'll take some time, but I like the sense of making the place look better. It also makes this, at least temporarily, my home, and not just some place I crash.

Socially, things definitely suck, and will for a while. Jersey is expensive. Yes, there are places to meet people -- those places cost money. I'm waiting until I have a steady job with benefits, and don't have to worry about fronting all my medical bills. Then, the quest for people can begin.

In the meantime, though, I have my hobbies: I am now knitting socks. Making caramels. Baking cookies. Crocheting bags. Reading books at a breakneck pace.

I am not bored, dammit, and will fill every spare second with hobbies.

And if anyone wants caramels/candy...Yeah. That was, maybe, a bad choice of hobby for a diabetic. (Just saying.)