life, she is a taskmistress/interior decorator

So the rest of our furniture came today.

Only it didn't.

Perhaps I should back up, yes?

One month ago, oh, tomorrow (give or take, going by dates and not days of the week), we left Maine. We left Maine while almost all of our Earthly Belongings stayed there, in the same apartment they had inhabited since we arrived in Maine three years earlier.

Recently, the Earthly Belongings joined us in the District of Columbia. This was a greatly pleasing event, but given that we have upgraded the total square footage of our living space, we ran into the problem of Not Having Quite Enough Stuff (tm).

We knew this was going to happen and had, in fact, planned for it by acquiring new Earthly Belongings that were due to arrive shortly after the old ones did. This was our first-anniversary-and-Christmas gift from my parents (hi Mom and Dad! Best gift ever and we love you!!), and the stuff we picked out is absolutely the most wonderful stuff I've ever found -- I'm really, truly in love with it, and if you know me and my previous vague indifference to home decor, you know how big a step that is.

Until its arrival, we created some stopgaps that would soon be rendered obsolete (an end table as a coffee table, for example) and a few that would last until more Earthly Belongings of a less urgent nature took their place (the steamer trunk as a stereo stand).

Anyway, the new and wonderful Earthly Belongings arrived this morning. They came from South Carolina -- it would seem that we have created, via our decor, a very pan-United-Statesian home, as befits our new zip code, I guess -- and were everything we hoped for and more.

Except the pieces that didn't arrive.

As you have been reading this, you may have noticed that there are pictures of the dining room and bedroom. There are, very intentionally, not pictures of the living room, because one of the pieces that did not make the trek from below the Mason-Dixon line yet is, in fact, the new coffee table.

(We're also still missing the lamps that go on the bedside tables. You can just imagine them there.)

Adding to the frustration, though, is the fact that while we still do not have quite enough Earthly Belongings, we also have now too many Earthly Belongings. By which I mean, we have this ugly old television stand that we do not need and have no place for, but we do not actually have a good entertainment console-y type thing yet, so we're using the old coffee table and aforementioned steamer trunk. Now, a "good entertainment console-y type thing" is by no means an urgent necessity, so I'm not really complaining -- I'm just sort of dumsquizzled by simultaneously having stuff I don't need while not having stuff I sort of do.

Still, the bedroom is perfect and the dining room just makes me want to invite everyone over as soon as possible. (Yay!) Even Jim's office-cum-guest room is looking put together, and there will be pictures of that as soon as we get more light bulbs.

We are 95% completely settled. Of course, as y'all know, I hate limbo states and have the patience of a flea, so I'm focusing on the negative, which I shouldn't. Please be assured: I'm actually supremely excited, and when everything is really, truly, 100% done, I will be the happiest girl on earth.