Finally -- my world is now filled with color.  The painters are gone, the apartment has been cleaned and I am slowly and steadily working on little home improvement projects for this week's cure.  I'm going out of order, but very happy with my progress so far.  Since the painting has finished, I've built myself a landing strip on the inside of the front door, bought some flowers, hung up hooks in the bathroom, changed knobs on the bathroom cabinet to match the hooks, the shelf and the towel bar (not up yet).  I bought a new shower caddy, some mini organizers for the medicine cabinet, a shelf for my pantry, a sliding drawer for under the sink, and I made an attempt to manage the cord monster behind the desk.  Here are some pictures of my progress.  In between it all I managed to go to John's 9th Annual Dive Bar Crawl and Joe's Foodie on Saturday night.   Topped it off by cooking myself some dinner and now I'm going to relax on the couch before passing out.

I've got some more pictures here, but just wanted to give you a taste of what's to come!

Just a little taste of what I'm living with at the moment.  Needless to say, I spent a great deal of the weekend outside of my apartment . . .

Looking back, I ate quite well this weekend.  A somewhat belated birthday dinner with my love, courtesy of the Lovely Miss Katie, brunch at Prune with Adam L., who was visiting from California, and Easter dinner with family in New Jersey, complete with a spiral ham!

The good news: I got a much-coveted reservation at Ko for next week.

The bad news: My apartment is going to be a half-painted, tarp filled, barely inhabitable disaster over the weekend (but not really that bad -- I've got offers for places to stay -- will be taking you all up on them!  And also -- will have a fantastic, freshly-painted apartment early next week.  Will celebrate by dining at Ko).

I was in Barnes & Noble this morning and, in fact, the cafe is co-branded with Starbucks -- something like "serving Starbucks beverages," and the Starbucks logo.  So perhaps I'm not losing it after all.  At least not in this particular instance.

It's going to be a big week!  New paint and light fixtures are underway.  My goals for last week were to finalize the paint colors (done), move some things into storage (done), and drop some stuff off at the electronics/clothing recycling event (done).  Got some love from Apartment Therapy this weekend, too!  I also started what I hope to be an ongoing process -- digitally capturing some of my memorabilia that it doesn't make sense to save.  More on that later.

Well, I'm doing my Apartment Therapy Cure a little out of order this time around, partially because I started before, and partially because I've got painters coming on Tuesday.  What this means is that I completed this week's assignment ages ago [This Week's Assignment: Get your hands on a copy of the book and read through page 69. This gives you all the ground work and gets you started with the interview and short quiz on the health of your home...] and that next week there will be changes on a grand scale in every part of my apartment.  For your amusement/horror, the before pictures (from the fall) are here.  I've done some decluttering since then, thank God.  Next week is about the kitchen, which I'll try to tackle a bit while I'm getting ready for the painters this weekend.  Stay tuned for some new light fixtures, a new bathroom shelf and towel rack, and, yes, color on the walls!

Flashback to the holiday season -- I want to pick up a Starbucks gift card to give to my trainer (he's got a little Starbucks addiction).  I'm in Barnes and Noble and walk up to the counter in the cafe.  "Do you have Starbucks gift cards?"  The woman glares at me.  "No," she replies, "This is Barnes and Noble."  "Right," I respond, slinking away.  Given how much they look like Starbucks and the amount of cross-marketing out there, I had always assumed that the B&N cafes were in fact Starbucks plopped into the bookstores.  Hell, there's a Starbucks in our office, why not B&N?  (Why didn't I check to see if the one in our office sold gift cards?)  Sigh.  My dad must feel pretty good about all that cash he funneled into my education right about now.

I am exhausted.  I spent a chunk of the weekend doing homeowner-ish things, like trying to finalize my paint colors (more on that later), buying light fixtures (including one that ended up being broken, which means I'll have to haul BACK to friggin' Ikea), dimmers, switch plates, and a towel rack and shelf for my bathroom.  I have learned some interesting things about myself, primarily that I do best with decorating when I am limited to a finite set of possibilities.  I have also learned that I need to have a deadline (like the fact that the painter is coming) to get my butt into gear.  Stay tuned!  Oh, and on a semi-related note, the Spring Apartment Therapy Cure is underway.  This time I mean business.

1) The thought of naming a daschund "uni panini" (after the sandwich at El Quinto Pino, which I have yet to try).

2) The similarity between Match.com profile headlines and the descriptions of the sakes at Decibel:  "round & superbly balanced," "elegant & smooth," "extremely dry with mellowness and richness."