Moving In

When we got to town, we were very excited to finally be out of the car and HOME.  Of course, we love traveling and visiting friends and family, but it can be so exhausting living out of a suitcase and juggling all the people who want to spend time with you.  Especially when you have to cram everything into such a short space because of how infrequently we're in town.  So yes, home was calling our names.

Having been here a full week now, I have compiled a list of loves, and not-so loves, regarding our new place.

Loves:
1. The apartment is on the National Register of Historic Places, because it was the first lager house in the US.  This is why our building is called the Lager House.
2. Because of #1, we have giant, wood frame windows, and original exposed brick and wooden support beams.
3. We have a balcony again.
4. From my couch, when the blinds are open, I can see the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, the Delaware River, and some other cool buildings.
5. It's surprisingly quiet here, even though we're right next to the bridge and highway.  The only thing we really hear is when the train goes over the bridge, and I don't mind it.
6. This place is larger than our last two apartments, so I don't feel squished anymore.
7. Washer and dryer!
8. Built in HDTVs in the living room and office.
9. A/C
10. Walking distance to the subway, various DELICIOUS restaurants, a small grocery, pet supply stores, bars, a gym, and some of the more popular tourist attractions.
11. Our actual street has none of these things, so street noise is nonexistent.
12. Did I mention how good the food here is??  Because it SO IS.
13. My office has built in shelving, and a ginormous walk in closet that I don't have to share with DS.

Not-so loves:
1. Bugs.  Creepy, fast, multi-legged things that come out of nowhere and scare the crap out of me.  They seem to be few and far between, but boy do they creep me out.
2. Dirt.  Some of which I suspect is due to a prolonged vacancy, just judging by the dust and the knowledge that it was empty when we toured it a month before.  The rest was obviously from the last tenants, meaning that the place wasn't cleaned by the landlord before we moved in.  It took me 4 hours and 3 magic erasers to clean all the walls, and I'm still not done with the bathroom.
3. Somehow, this place has the same bad plumbing as our last place.  Specifically, the shower hardware was installed incorrectly so that the single knob goes left for cold water, or right for hot water.  Showers are sometimes uncomfortable...
4. It takes 3 full cycles on high heat for clothes to dry in the dryer, even if there are only 4 things in there.
5. There is evidence of water damage in multiple places.
6. There are at least 10 light bulbs either missing or burnt out throughout the apartment.  (We have a combination of track and recessed lighting.)
6. The landlord has yet to return any of our phone calls since we moved in, so we none of this is even being addressed.

That's it so far.  Today DS and I pulled out the W/D combo to check the hoses for lint.  The exhaust didn't look too bad, but the intake was completely covered.  I'm hoping laundry tomorrow goes smoother.  I at least know that the heating apparatus is functioning, so here's hoping cleaning the back helps.  All things considered, I think this place is awesome.  The things that are wrong are completely manageable, and the things that are right are SO RIGHT.

We still have boxes all over the place, because there is only so much unpacking and arranging I can handle at one time.  But we're much much closer to being done, and I will post photos once we are.  I checked to see if there was anything useable from my move in photos, but they're all close ups of various things I wanted to document for the landlord whenever we move out.

The one thing I miss the most right now are my friends.  Right now, we don't know anyone, and without me having a job, I have no immediate hopes of meeting anyone.  It's incredibly difficult to spend all day alone, and then just get a few minutes of conversation out of DS once he's home.  It's like pulling teeth.  We're both adjusting, him to a new job that's more stressful and demanding, me to an utter lack of human interaction.  I wish we could just put an ad on craigslist for friends :P  But I did join a gym today, and we have briefly met one of our neighbors, who seemed cool.  DS has even been to the local climbing gym.  With any luck, we'll have friends soon.  In the meantime, if anyone wants to visit, you have our permission.

The Move

Is it Thursday already?  We've been at our new place for over 4 days??  Wow.  Well, let me tell you about the move.  Be forewarned, there is boring narrative to follow.

The cats were taken away, and I cried like a little baby.  They looked horrified.  The movers came and boxed all our stuff in a mere 7 hours.  I guess when the things aren't yours, you aren't as tempted to spend time touching, remembering, getting sidetracked by each thing you own.  Everything just got quadruple wrapped in white paper and stuck in a box.  DONE.

At the Palace, clinking glasses with the staff as we sang What a Beautiful World.

That night we started staying at our friends, to whom we gave our big tv.  It was a wedding present, and also a way to get rid of it since the new place has built in televisions.  We were not opposed to getting the best new thing whenever we manage to get a house :)  That Friday we did just a little bit of cleaning, but nothing much since we were basically told by our landlord that he was taking the money out of our deposit to have it professionally cleaned no matter what.  I was not about to break a sweat cleaning some place for nothing.  The pick up for our things was delayed until Saturday, but went smoothly.  Though there was some muttering about just how much stuff we had, and packing the truck had to be done carefully to make sure it all fit.  I don't know what to tell them.  A guy came to estimate our belongings' volume a month ago, and it's not like we got a bunch of new stuff...

Nell and DS looking at the city and the moon.

We took our friends out to dinner at The Palace, a Louisiana inspired grill that is soooooo good.  Then we all went up to Lizard's Mouth (a rocky spot on the mountain) to see the sun set over the ocean and take photos.  After too little rest, we caught a plane to KY, where we were picked up by my mom and her husband.

Me and Sam at Lizard's Mouth.

Monday we visited my grandmother, then the four of us toured the Louisville Slugger Museum.  I'm not sure how none of them had ever been before, but I made sure that was fixed.  Back in G'Town, we took my mom out to dinner for her birthday.

Kid in front us at the Bat game, covered in cotton candy.

Tuesday we hung out with my college friend Tim and his wife, and their dog Sterling.  We grilled burgers and learned a new way to make delicious corn on the grill.  After dinner we went downtown to see the Louisville Bats play.  DS was so excited because this guy named Chapman was relief pitching, and he's supposed to be the next best thing for the Reds.

Aroldis Chapman pitching.

Wednesday we picked up Chanda and went north to see Kelly and Jon.  We enjoyed their patio, and their cats, and the booze in their fridge.  For dinner we had Olive Garden, which I hadn't been to in years and years.  Seems strange.

DS, Tim and Beth at the game.

Thursday we saw Geno, walked the dogs, and I was surprised to discover my good friend Mike had moved back next door.  My brother even graced us with his presence.  We picked up the rental car, then DS made dinner for us.  Everyone thought it was delicious, and I let them know it's because Alton Brown can do no wrong.  (Seriously, try that 40 cloves and a chicken recipe)

Chapman's pitching speed.  DS claims we saw him pitch 101.

Friday morning we piled into the car and drove to Elkins, WV to visit with DS's grandparents.  It's only the second time that I've been there, and it was nice to have more than a few hours to see the place.  We spent the rest of the weekend bouncing between his two grandmothers, and I met loads of extended family at various dinners.  Elkins is beautiful, and decidedly cooler than KY this time of year.

Elkins as seen from the Triplett place "in the holla".

Sunday morning we loaded up the car again and drove the rest of the way to Philly.  Pennsylvania looks almost exactly like the region of KY where I lived.  At least, the region we drove through did.  We mostly took back roads out of WV, then took the Turnpike the rest of the way.  Stupid tolls, and lunch at one of those little stops on Turnpike was not great.  But I guess it was better than driving through places like DC the whole way.  That would have take an hour or two longer.

Once in the city, we quickly realized that driving here is nowhere near as nice as walking here.  It made me very happy that we chose to live downtown so we won't need the car hardly ever.  We managed to get some keys, drag in our few belongings from the car, and set up the air mattress before dinner.

Up next: Moving in.

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For some reason, I only have photos of a couple of things.  I'm assuming DS has the rest on his camera.  Though I know I forgot to gets photos of me with Kel and Chanda :(

Where does the time go?

I was just searching for my photos from Mardi Gras to show a friend, and realized they are not to be found here, on flickr, or facebook.  Why didn't I upload them??  I'm sure I took some.  It occurs to me that even with my incessant back-posting, my blog is seriously lacking.  So perhaps you would like an update.

I'm counting down my last days in Santa Barbara as we speak.  The cats are being moved by an animal transport service.  They'll be picked up on Wednesday, flown to Philadelphia, then boarded until they can be delivered to us in August.  The movers come Thursday to pack all our belongings, and then will pick them up on Friday.  We'll be staying with friends here until Sunday morning so we can tie up any loose ends, like cleaning, then we're flying to KY to visit family and friends.  We'll be there for almost a week, then we'll rent a car and spend the weekend in WV visiting more family.  Finally, we're driving to our new home, which will hopefully let us in.  Getting keys isn't something that's been worked out yet... We should be in our new place by August 1, and with any luck, should have our stuff the next day.  Though that's up in the air.

We've been trying our best to fit in all the last minute things we wanted to do here.  DS took one last climbing trip to Pine Mountain this weekend.  I've been to my last book club meeting, and hosted my last BSG night.  I've already said goodbye to several people for the last time in the foreseeable future.  Sad times.  I also thought it would be a good idea to make sure only things worth keeping made it to Philadelphia, so I've been combing through my belongings to cull the crap.  I actually had medication that expired in 2004, and mascara from high school.  Oy.

Because we don't need to pack, we are happy to be avoiding the unpleasantness of the cats protesting the destruction of their world.  I'm really sad that they'll be with strangers for nearly 2 weeks though.  Though not sad enough to drive them across the country again.. seriously.  I feel almost sorry for whatever sucker is flying with them.  Still, I am cherishing things like Felix bringing me 6 balls of yarn over a couple of hours, and Winston waking me up with a full facial and complimentary ear cleaning.  It's the little things ;)

I'm not sure how much internet time we'll have after Thursday, but I'll try to update when I can.

Hello to New Digs!

I'm sitting on the floor of my old apartment, which is more or less empty. DS and I have never been very good at actually getting everything out of the apartment when we move, which ends up lending itself to some extra, non-planned purging. He's left to drop some random stuff off at the new place, and then he's going to bring back lunch and oven cleaner (I have to admit I don't think I've ever cleaned an oven...)

I'm surprised at how clean this place is. It gives me hope that the December mega-move to CA will be not quite so bad as we're fearing it will. I'm happy to report that we got everything (except for cleaning supplies and aforementioned riffraff) into the new place in somewhere around 10 hours. And that's with lunch and dinner breaks and only one helper! (Bless her soul, Renae is a saint.. actually, if she were drinking while reading this, I'm pretty sure milk would shoot out her nose. But still, she was our sole volunteer, and we have waaay too much stuff even after all our purging)

The cats were ANGRY that we were moving. We had to lock them into one room all day (with all needed supplies of course) because they are notorious for running out the front door at every opportunity. I also read somewhere that cats get very anxious when they see all they know of the world disappearing out the front door. I think maybe they started getting angry when we started packing and purging about a month ago, because I found a suitcase that one (or maybe both, but I really think it was Winston) had starting using for a litter box. Things like that are always a sign of either a sick animal, or one that is very upset. And since they both seem more than fine now that they're in the new place full of their stuff, my guess is someone was sending me a message...

I think we might end up fitting into our new place even better than I had planned (I have to scaled cut-outs of all my furniture, and I like to draw out apartments and arrange my stuff before we move). That's pretty exciting considering we'll be extremely lucky to have this much space after December. Though I think the more we move, the more DS and I move towards the sentiment of less is more.

Oh.. and we're tired. Extremely tired.

Decisions

In a recent conversation with Kimberlina, it was pointed out to me that I never shared our moving decision. Not only did he get an offer from Salt Lake City, but also from Santa Barbara, California as well. A tough choice was ahead of us: go to Salt Lake City where there are friends and realistic living expenses, or go to Santa Barbara where the research is better and live on a box on the beach...

We chose the box on the beach. You think I'm kidding about the box, but only a little. We currently have somewhere between 1000 and 1100 square feet in our apartment, and it's pretty full of stuff. With nearly double the rent, we might get a 650 square foot apartment in Santa Barbara... pretty insane if you ask me.

The plus? He's really stoked about working with this guy, and we're both intrigued by the idea of living by the ocean (Santa Barbara is only about 2 miles wide, squished in between some small-ish mountains and the ocean). I grew up in a land-locked state and didn't take my first trip to the ocean until I was a senior in high school. And I've never seen the Pacific Ocean.

So the big problem now is.. getting a job myself that pays enough that we can both move around our apartment and not starve, as well as getting rid of enough stuff that we can move around in our apartment. Thus, I have begun purging. Like crazy.

Our current lease is up at the end of this month, and this place won't let us have a short term lease that ends in the winter (jerks!). So we're moving to someplace that will, and then moving again in December. It's pretty lame, but it's giving me an excuse to get a head start on the whole packing and purging process. I'm working on going through all of my stuff and packing it in such a way that a lot of the boxes can remain boxed until we get to California. But in doing so I've realized that even with getting rid of several pieces of furniture, there's no way we could fit into anything less than 800 sq ft right now.

Hence, a second round of purging. Tackling the stuff that I didn't think I could part with, and actually parting with it. I'm reading this book called "It's All Too Much", and it's actually really helpful. Things to think on:

1. If you're hanging on to things for sentimental reasons, or because it's too important, think about where it is. If it's in a box in your cellar or closet, how can it be that important?
2. Only fill your house with things that are either useful or beautiful.
3. If you haven't used it in a year, it's not useful.

600 square feet, here I come!