hello, house

we moved into our new digs last friday/saturday and we are still getting used to it.

i would show photos of the house in all of it's glory, but unfortunately i'm lacking in the furniture department.  and the internet department (i'm writing from work).  about 60% of my house sits empty and echo-y and what little furniture we do have is embarrassingly QUOTE "junky" (this from andy, who did not spend one dime on the furniture we already have). we finally got a piece of real furniture (my very first!) yesterday (a dining room table) and it is making me very happy just to think about all the future meals i will be serving/enjoying there.  i will take pictures and post them on here soon...i just have to buy some sort of wall art to put behind the table and the room will be complete. 

it's weird going from a one bedroom apartment to a three-story house.  there is no longer a three-step commute to the kitchen for a glass of water before bed; instead, you have to walk down a whole flight of stairs and all the way back up again.  you better be certain that you need that glass of water before making that big of a commitment.  also, the keeping the kitchen clean thing is hard to do when the kitchen is no longer the size of a shoe box.  so far i am keeping up with it for the most part, but it is going to take some getting used to.

and the sleep thing.  i think i'm going to blame this mostly on percy, who wakes up at about 4 am and just wants to let you know he's there.  he'll sit at my feet and mew (not to be confused with meow) for a few minutes until i say something to him like "percy, please stop" and then he will be quiet for an hour or so, at which point the whole routine starts and repeats on an hourly basis until i get out of bed.  in the old place we just never let him into the room with us and he very rarely woke us up.  i guess we're still giving him some time to adjust to the new place before we shut him out for the night.  i'm hopeful that one day i will have another uninterrupted night of sleep.

we've had two successful trash pick-ups and we're getting the hang of all the frickin' light switches.  something tells me that everything is going to be just fine.

goodbye, apartment

after three years living in our apartment in arlington, it looks like andy and i are finally about to make the plunge into the mythical world they call "home ownership".  that's right, if all goes well, we will be homeowners in about two days.

i have been busy around the old apartment, packing away our junk acquired over the past three years, and i can't help but feel some nostalgia as i move on to bigger and better things.  really, the apartment served us well.  it was our first dwelling, the first place we could call home, the first place we could make a home together.  it was the place where we brought home our first pet (well, i brought home our first pet against A's wishes).  i took a video of the apartment and went from room to room, showing the places where it was obvious that we had outgrown it.  i tried to remember all the crappy stuff about this place so that when i look back in 20 years and think "those were the days" i can bring myself back to reality with the always-out-of-commission elevators, the half-size washer/dryer, the smelly garbage disposal, the functional-but-a-pain-in-the-you-know-what-to-clean stove, the forever broken hot water faucet in the bathroom sink, and so on.

let's share some favorite memories of the avalon:

the civic reached an important milestone.

i got engaged.

the old tv died, and then came back to life. and then died again.

three fantasy football drafts and countless football games.

i brought home a kitten. andy was not pleased.

andy bonded with said kitten.

i'll do another post about the things that i won't miss about the avalon, but for now, since i'm still technically living in the apartment for another few days, i'm going to try to not go crazy with how much i hate living in the place.

vacation

i've been dreaming of pool-side umbrella drinks and jodi piccoult novels for months now, pretty much since the may 2009 cruise sunburn wore off.