I've been looking around my apartment, weighing staying or moving in the summer.  My lease is up in late July or early August and I need to start making decisions.  I think that with everything else going on this year, I should stay another year so long as rent does not increase.  I'm not crazy about the new payment system, which is a tangled web of problems on the best day and a complete wreck on the worst.  I would prefer that the gates, ya know, CLOSE.  But the apartment is comfortable, I like the layout.  And lastly - it's expensive moving.  Movers cost hundreds of dollars and because I was an idiot and bought huge funiture when I moved out on my own I've kind of sealed my fate where movers are concerned.

So I'm evaluating what I have, what I do, and what could make me happier.

And I start thinking about happiness, and I wonder if my Chinchillas are happy.  And now I get worried.  I'm not at home as much as I was when I got them.  I've steadily become more and more busy.  I no longer spend time each day feeding them raisins or scratching their little ears.  My Chinchillas aren't incredibly social, they're rather shy and perfectly happy just coexsisting in the same room with you, but that doesn't mean they don't feel my lack of presence.  I've begun to think that I should re-home them.  Find a person or a family who would take care of them and love them.  My Chinchillas are a little older, 7 and 5 if I remember correctly, so they are not breeding animals.  They're also attached to one another.  Both of those factors make it a little more difficult to find them a new home.  I'm moving very slowly on this idea.  But, if you're interested in them, shoot me an email at [ mailto:cidsound@gmail.com ] and we can talk.  I'm not looking to make money off of the rehoming, it's more about finding them the right home.

With that in mind I started to look at the rest of my furniture. 

• Bookshelves are a must. 
• The entertainment set has been taken over by more books, which is fine.  It looks quite nice with all those books on it. 
• I'm still very much in love with my overstuffed leather couches. 
• The ottomen are new additions, but hold all of my knitting stuff. 
• The old coffee table is now a side table for the couch and I've discovered its presence is quite necessary.
• The dining set..... has become a repository for 'stuff'.

The dining set could really go.  I wasn't thinking functionality when I bought it.  I thought 'dude, that's a seriously stylish and cool set' and it was mine.  I didn't think about how the height of the chairs would make it uncomfortable to sit there for longer than an hour.  When I lived at the apartments before the one I'm in now, I had people over for dinner all the time.  I haven't done that in ages, and really, my current friends would just as soon eat sitting on the couches, laptops in our laps or knitting in hand.  So I'm thinking I'll get rid of the dining set and use the money to purchase a lower table and a nice desk chair.  I'm looking at Ikea stuff, so for maybe $150 I could set up an L shaped work area and have a nice chair for writing.

My problem here is that Craigslist seems to be the only really useful place for something like this, and I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this.  I live alone.  People coming over to look at my furniture makes me nervous since I no longer know my neighbors.  I'm not sure how to get around this problem, but I'm thinking about it.  Suggestions anyone?