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This is the first weekend in, count'em, two months that we are neither doing major packing nor unpacking, assembling furniture, having company, or in a different state. First weekend of February was spent packing. Second weekend of Feb, daN's Mum came to visit. Third weekend, we went to Maine (what were we thinking?! but we had fun.) The following weekend, we moved. Weekend after that, we unpacked and bought furniture. Face it: whenever you move, you need to deal with the fact that the systems you had in your old place probably won't fit the space of your new place. Weekend after that, we assembled the furniture. Weekend after that, Kat and Rebecca (college friends of mine) came to visit! YAY! We had a wonderful time. Weekend after that (last weekend), daN and I went to DC to visit Matt and Kathy. Ahead of time, I got an extra prescription med for my allergies, and didn't get sick this time! YAY! My ploy worked. Sudafed works, too, but it also tends to increase my risk of tachycardia, which is bad. I'm not allowed to take it anymore. Anyway, we generally kicked back and went to the zoo, AND we went to see Stephen Colbert's portrait in the National Portrait Gallery. It's so gratuitous. It's awesome.
Yes, this is my first unchartered weekend in two months. It's been great. We went to Target on Friday night to buy toilet paper and then watched the second half of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Yesterday, we slept late, and I did some minor painting on some bureaus I put together a couple of weeks ago, (i'm going to put my office supplies in those), and today I think I'll do laundry and make hamentashen. Mmm. Purim was last weekend, but that's OK.
In other words, I think we're settling in!
I breathe a sigh of relief. Also, excitingly, I did get my tax return, so I spent it on two very exciting things: a wardrobe system from IKEA to actually house my clothing and jewelry in an organized fashion (yay I can find things in the morning!) and a new laptop. Woohoo! I did a lot of research this time, and though I am in the mood to own a Mac again for the first time in years, I ulimately decided against it. I really want a laptop with the 10-key number pad on the right of the letter portion of the keyboard, and Mac has yet to embrace that idea, even in its 17" models. So i went with a Dell Inspiron 1720, and this time I didn't cheap out. I went with top of the line everything (videocard, processing speed, memory, hard drive, etc) so that the new laptop will be able to handle whatever I throw at it for the next few years. See, the current laptop has been a real workhorse, which is a big part of why I have gone with another Dell. But I skimped out because I was really poor at the time, and I found myself in the position where, a year after I bought it, it couldn't handle what became of the internet. I bought this one four and a half years ago when the internet was still basically text in pretty colors. There was no such thing as Youtube or Myspace pages with music AND slideshows. So I had no idea I would want better sound, a faster processor, and a video card to be able to handle what are now considered basic internet functionalities. Here is a picture of what it will look like (note: sexy) -- it's a smaller model than the one I bought, but you'll get the idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dell_Inspiron_1420.jpg It arrives April 20th.
Anyway, I should get started on my day, but let me tell ya -- it's been nice having the time to sit down, drink my cup of coffee, and write for a while.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
We Moved.
i'm tired but relieved. we moved on friday. BIG thanks out there to patty and razz who helped us on the day of the actual move. daN and i woke up early on friday morning, did some more packing (you're never done) and then went to pick up the truck*, a 15-footer that i drove around all day. biggest truck i've ever handled, and it was quite an adventure. i have a new appreciation for those things, and a newfound desire to stay as far away from amateur truckers as possible when in a normal sized car. do them a favor: don't get anywhere near them.
patty and razz showed up in the realm of 10:30/11:00, and we just started in on loading things up. we kept going until around 12:30 when we paused for lunch (thai take-out and coffee/beverages from cafe rossini on highland ave). around 1:30, we started up again. we filled that 15-footer up, alright, much to the astonishment of dave (one of our old landlords), and set out for JP.
traffic was classic boston-gridlock-terrible. it took about an hour or more to get from somerville to JP, which was fine with me because it meant that i could move slowly in that fully loaded weapon of which i was at the helm. my trucking-in-boston experience was supplemented with four assholes who nearly fatally cut me off (would have been fatal to them if i hadn't managed to get the truck to stop in time), and the true icing on the cake was the guy in the car in front of me on 93 who actually fell asleep and stopped moving.
around 3:30 or 4:00, we started moving things upstairs to the new apartment in JP. getting everything upstairs tuckered us all out, but the real challenge was the couch, which EXACTLY fit upstairs, as long as we took the banister off. the boxspring? it's sitting outside for trash day right now. there was no way it was fitting up the stairs. we gave it the college try, but we knew there was no way. so we're sleeping on a mattress on the floor right now, which isn't so bad. we'll get a boxspring at some point and have someone deliver it with the knowledge that they'll have to hoist it up over the front porch. it's OK that we have to get a new one. this one is older than i am and has been broken since 1999. it's been held up by no fewer than six 2x4's for the last nine years. this move was the final sign that it's time to get a new one.
we finished unpacking the truck around 7pm and drove back to somerville. i stopped to fill up the gas tank and was very proud of myself for navigating in reverse at a gas station all by myself (daN was driving razz home). after returning the truck, daN and i grabbed a quick dinner at anna's taqueria in porter square in cambridge, and then came home to clean** for four hours.
sleeping: we slept in the old apartment in somerville one last night. the only things left there were the curtains to the living room (where we slept), the humidifier and some other overnight bag accoutrements, our cleaning stuff, and the futon mattress upon which we slept (well, and the bedding). we had to pack all that stuff up in our scion xB, which miraculously fit precisely. that took a little time, but that's OK. we bid our farewell to deirdre and dave and drove away... to get me some coffee at the diesel in davis square. man, i'm gonna miss that place (the diesel).
i will miss davis square. i will miss the sunny-ness of the living room in the old apartment. i will miss hearing deirdre greet their little dog pasha when she gets home. however, i love this new place. the kitchen already has me head over heals for it. in this apartment, there is not tons of direct sunlight, but it's better diffused throughout the place so that there aren't the same quantity of dark holes. the cute neighborhood and the fact that both of our commutes are much shorter are big pluses (indeed, the very impetuses for moving). and of course, the fact that this place was insulated last year and is located on the second floor and is thereby warmer without us having to do much about it is ALSO a big contributing factor in our decision to move here. i'm sure i'll come to love JP. but first i have to come to grips with saying farewell to the first place that felt like home since we moved down to boston in september of 2003.
unpacking and settling in: after days of effort, we're finally at that point where we can stop unpacking for a little while because we have unpacked just enough to make room for moving around and living. the things that are still in boxes are OK to remain there for another couple of weeks.
new furniture: we went to IKEA on sunday and spent about 5 hours there (i wish i were joking). the end result was spending close to $1200 for a lot of new things, but not a boxspring (we just got too tired). this list of new things included, but is not limited to, dining room table, stools for the breakfast bar, a stepstool, a couple of small bureaus for my office supplies, curtain rods, and a PAX KOMPLEMENT wardrobe system complete with a built-in jewelry box, a trouser rack, and a full length mirror (that one was the big expense). we were tired by the end of THAT day, too.
on that note, i'm going to bed. this was the first night where i didn't do anything productive at all (aside from make dinner and granola and help take out the trash). and let me tell ya -- it's been nice!
*word to the wise: if you can move during the winter, it's a lot easier to rent a truck.
** today, a colleaguexzsa of mine told me that her tenants have never cleaned the apartments when they moved out. i just wouldn't feel right about that. who wants to live in someone else's filth?
i'm tired but relieved. we moved on friday. BIG thanks out there to patty and razz who helped us on the day of the actual move. daN and i woke up early on friday morning, did some more packing (you're never done) and then went to pick up the truck*, a 15-footer that i drove around all day. biggest truck i've ever handled, and it was quite an adventure. i have a new appreciation for those things, and a newfound desire to stay as far away from amateur truckers as possible when in a normal sized car. do them a favor: don't get anywhere near them.
patty and razz showed up in the realm of 10:30/11:00, and we just started in on loading things up. we kept going until around 12:30 when we paused for lunch (thai take-out and coffee/beverages from cafe rossini on highland ave). around 1:30, we started up again. we filled that 15-footer up, alright, much to the astonishment of dave (one of our old landlords), and set out for JP.
traffic was classic boston-gridlock-terrible. it took about an hour or more to get from somerville to JP, which was fine with me because it meant that i could move slowly in that fully loaded weapon of which i was at the helm. my trucking-in-boston experience was supplemented with four assholes who nearly fatally cut me off (would have been fatal to them if i hadn't managed to get the truck to stop in time), and the true icing on the cake was the guy in the car in front of me on 93 who actually fell asleep and stopped moving.
around 3:30 or 4:00, we started moving things upstairs to the new apartment in JP. getting everything upstairs tuckered us all out, but the real challenge was the couch, which EXACTLY fit upstairs, as long as we took the banister off. the boxspring? it's sitting outside for trash day right now. there was no way it was fitting up the stairs. we gave it the college try, but we knew there was no way. so we're sleeping on a mattress on the floor right now, which isn't so bad. we'll get a boxspring at some point and have someone deliver it with the knowledge that they'll have to hoist it up over the front porch. it's OK that we have to get a new one. this one is older than i am and has been broken since 1999. it's been held up by no fewer than six 2x4's for the last nine years. this move was the final sign that it's time to get a new one.
we finished unpacking the truck around 7pm and drove back to somerville. i stopped to fill up the gas tank and was very proud of myself for navigating in reverse at a gas station all by myself (daN was driving razz home). after returning the truck, daN and i grabbed a quick dinner at anna's taqueria in porter square in cambridge, and then came home to clean** for four hours.
sleeping: we slept in the old apartment in somerville one last night. the only things left there were the curtains to the living room (where we slept), the humidifier and some other overnight bag accoutrements, our cleaning stuff, and the futon mattress upon which we slept (well, and the bedding). we had to pack all that stuff up in our scion xB, which miraculously fit precisely. that took a little time, but that's OK. we bid our farewell to deirdre and dave and drove away... to get me some coffee at the diesel in davis square. man, i'm gonna miss that place (the diesel).
i will miss davis square. i will miss the sunny-ness of the living room in the old apartment. i will miss hearing deirdre greet their little dog pasha when she gets home. however, i love this new place. the kitchen already has me head over heals for it. in this apartment, there is not tons of direct sunlight, but it's better diffused throughout the place so that there aren't the same quantity of dark holes. the cute neighborhood and the fact that both of our commutes are much shorter are big pluses (indeed, the very impetuses for moving). and of course, the fact that this place was insulated last year and is located on the second floor and is thereby warmer without us having to do much about it is ALSO a big contributing factor in our decision to move here. i'm sure i'll come to love JP. but first i have to come to grips with saying farewell to the first place that felt like home since we moved down to boston in september of 2003.
unpacking and settling in: after days of effort, we're finally at that point where we can stop unpacking for a little while because we have unpacked just enough to make room for moving around and living. the things that are still in boxes are OK to remain there for another couple of weeks.
new furniture: we went to IKEA on sunday and spent about 5 hours there (i wish i were joking). the end result was spending close to $1200 for a lot of new things, but not a boxspring (we just got too tired). this list of new things included, but is not limited to, dining room table, stools for the breakfast bar, a stepstool, a couple of small bureaus for my office supplies, curtain rods, and a PAX KOMPLEMENT wardrobe system complete with a built-in jewelry box, a trouser rack, and a full length mirror (that one was the big expense). we were tired by the end of THAT day, too.
on that note, i'm going to bed. this was the first night where i didn't do anything productive at all (aside from make dinner and granola and help take out the trash). and let me tell ya -- it's been nice!
*word to the wise: if you can move during the winter, it's a lot easier to rent a truck.
** today, a colleaguexzsa of mine told me that her tenants have never cleaned the apartments when they moved out. i just wouldn't feel right about that. who wants to live in someone else's filth?
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