The Big Move

Before we get into my weekend, I just have to mention that a lady sitting two rows in front of me has on a fur coat.  I am hoping it's fake fur (do they make real fur anymore??), but it still seems weird.  Who wears fur coats anymore, fake or real??  And to work??

So, we moved.  We are officially in our new apartment.  And it was definitely painful getting here!  I took Friday off to pack and get ready but I had Evan with me and he made it quite difficult.  Then he had a doctor's appointment at 1pm and we didn't get out of there until 3pm and then it was 3:30pm before we got home and half the afternoon was lost.  Luckily my friend Karin came over for a couple hours in the evening (before heading to a Christmas party!) to help pack up more of the kitchen and then she came over at 8am on moving day with her daughter to help pack up the pantry food.  

Moving day was the opposite of fun.  We have so much stuff!!  But in reality we don't...we only have enough stuff for a two bedroom apartment.  How can it seem like a lot??  It's not like we have a house full of stuff...thank goodness.  For some reason moving day was slow and long and overwhelming.  Ivan had a friend from work come help him move the heavy items and then Karin helped and my friend Allyson bought us lunch and helped clean the old apartment in the evening.  At one point though, Ivan's friend had left and my two friends had left for afternoon engagements and it was just Ivan and me (luckily my sister had offered to watch Evan and Dolce) and it was 4:10pm and the truck had to be back by 5pm.  We were at the new place and had an entire truck-load of stuff that had to be unloaded in 40 minutes. With just us two (and I hardly count because I am a wimp).  We did it in about 45 minutes...in the snow that turned to rain.  It snowed for a while but nothing stuck to the roads (but it did stick to our stuff), so at least it wasn't miserable driving the truck around.  But all our stuff got wet and we were soaked and it was freezing.  Good thing Allyson is a smarty and had told us to buy plastic to put on the carpet so we didn't track mud and snow/rain into the new place.  Good plan!!!

After returning the truck we had to pick up the kid and the dog and borrow my sister's car to make a few more trips.  While Ivan was making trips I was cleaning.  Karin and Allyson joined me again and we got to work scrubbing bathrooms, washing walls, vacuuming, mopping floors, cleaning kitchens, emptying fridge food, etc.  It took a while but we finished around 11pm.  And we were so exhausted. And tired of cleaning.  But since I'm nervous about getting my deposit money back I wanted it to be as clean as possible.

That was the dining room...I was trying to keep Evan entertained with wooden spoons and bowls.  Dolce just hung out.

Here's the living room.  Evan is still having a ball running around the empty space making soup.

I think the apartment is way cleaner than it was when we moved in!  I even steam cleaned the carpets!

And now our new place.  It's nice but there are boxes everywhere and Dolce had a hard time trying to find a place to sleep.  He decided to sleep next to our bed.  We made some progress yesterday though.  I unpacked the kitchen (or what I could of it, it's so tiny I need to buy a cabinet to put my food in because there is no pantry.  This took practically all day but I eventually found the stove to make dinner (eggs with ham).  I then moved on to the bedroom and got my clothes in the drawers and closets and then organized my bathroom.

Then I made lunches, washed dishes, and went to bed...because I have to work today.  

Things are looking good in some places, like the living room.

And some places need a lot more work, like the other side of the living room!

I hope you don't have to move soon and when you do, you don't do it in the middle of winter and you maybe hire movers.  And if you are lucky, you hire packers and movers!