Brandon and I moved last weekend. It was definitely an exciting experience for me since this was the first legitimate time he and I moved somewhere together.
See, I'd moved to San Diego and back three times before we got married. After graduation, I scoured for apartments we could
probably afford (he was working part time and I was barely about to start working a temp job). We found one that wasn't in the most glamorous part of town but that fit our maybe-budget and Brandon moved in last July. His parents, some friends and I helped him move in. He lived there alone until September, when I rapidly shoved my things wherever I could. It was not fabulous.
To tell the truth, that apartment didn't feel like home. Something about not living there from the get-go made it feel like the place wasn't fully mine even after the wedding. Just to be clear, Brandon never once did anything to make me feel like that apartment wasn't mine, I'm just an odd bird who thinks about those kind of things. So you can imagine my delight at getting to be so invested in the packing and organization and directing and all the other hustle and bustle that comes with moving.
Until it came to actually packing. That is seriously the worst.
Anyway, I promised you all the story. So here it is.
FRIDAY
Brandon had his parents (who had
just come back from a vacation in Hawaii), his boss/friend and our friend come over to load up the trailer. I left work early, presumably to have time to finish packing, and came home to my kitchen and bedroom practically empty. All I had to pack away were my clothes hanging in my closet. And I used that Pinterest hack of just putting it all in trash bags, so that took almost no time. It was really trippy to see the place I'd lived in for eight months so empty.
Brandon and I had also been trying to get our nightmare Jetta sold and towed away for about a week. Friday was the day they were supposed to come pick it up. The pick up was supposed ot happen sometime between 8 am and noon, but by 4:30pm, we'd still heard nothing about a pick up. Of course, half an hour later, we got a call from the tow truck. Right as we were sitting down for a greasy delicious pizza dinner. Luckily, the towing guys were friendly enough and waited for us. Before I knew it, the demon car was gone.
We had some friends over to enjoy one last night in the apartment later on. We sat on the floor and caught up on our weeks and weekend, like always. One of my buds is graduating in two weeks with a freaking math degree! As someone who has known this guy since high school, it's been pretty cool to see his knowledge deepen and his ability to crush my math spirits grow.
SATURDAY
Cleaning day. I woke up around 6am and could not fall back asleep. But I was not about to start cleaning at 6am. That's just too much. So I did about an hour of yoga because it had been days since I'd had any time to think about something other than cleaning and packing and schedules. Plus in my brain, moving is always supposed to be a big dramatic, exciting but sad moment in your life like it is on TV. You have good times but then you move on. I don't know. I like to linger in those moments when life feels a little like a movie.
I cleaned that apartment basically by myself in something like five hours while the guys moved the last of the boxes. Who knows if we'll get the deposit back (I'm praying we do, we need it) but either way, I left that place in great condition.
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| weirdly empty |
Ready for that moment when things go horribly wrong for me? It's coming.
Things you need to know:
- I was solely responsible for watching my (parents') dogs while the family was at a cabin for the weekend
Saturday evening, Brandon and I headed out to Vacaville to celebrate an old (debate) teammate's birthday...after having some grilled tri-tip, chicken, corn and fruit salad as an extremely overdue lunch/early dinner. Of course I knew the food would be delicious at Josh's house, so summoned my rarely used hobbit tendencies and prepared for second dinner. Josh's family eats clean and local. His mom was completely into what is now-trendy food (seasonal, local, organic, natural) wayyy before us commoners had any clue that kale existed. Seriously! I tried kale for the first time at Josh's house. His mom had made some kale chips and I tried one to be polite. A year ago I didn't really like kale all that much, but something tells me I would feel super cool eating them now (pathetic, I know). Anyway, after the delicious dinner I got to try the national Australian dessert, pavlova (I forgot to mention, Josh's mom is Australian). It's a meringue "crust" covered in whipped cream and strawberries. I guess usually there's passion fruit drizzled over it, but Josh's mom said that the passion fruit at the market (or farm or wherever she sources her food) was overpriced. I don't know what passion fruit tastes like, anyway, so I didn't miss it. But good grief that pavlova was
so good. Even picky-eater-Brandon devoured it!
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Not the one we ate, but close!
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After lots of laughter and fabulous TV/movie/superhero conversation, it was time for Brandon and I to call it a night and go let my pups in from the backyard of my parent's house. I had had such a great day thus far and I was pretty excited to catch up on Game of Thrones since I was two weeks behind.
We got to my parents' house...and I couldn't find the house key.
I'd let Brandon borrow it the day before so he could wait for the Jetta to get picked up. He'd given it back to me and I'd been successful of keeping track of the lose key for a day and a half. I even had it when we left the house. I double checked my pocket. It was there.
Except now it wasn't. And my parents hadn't left a spare with anyone. Mine
is was an unofficial spare since I just kept my house key even after moving out. We were stuck. I called Josh to ask him to do a quick sweep of the ground for the key. Nothing. I even hopped the fence into the backyard to see if I could break in to the house. I couldn't. So we headed back to Brandon's parents' house to do our own sweep. Also nothing. The couch was lifted and we walked around outside with flashlights (it was after 10pm by this point), but all we found were two black widows.
I felt so embarrassed and stupid. I had ONE JOB and completely failed at it. Luckily, Brandon's old room is now the guest room and my parents were totally cool about the whole thing. They would be back the next morning, anyway. So really, the only people I harmed were my poor pups. It still makes me sad to think about it.
SUNDAY
Brandon and I were lucky enough to have several friends help us unload the trailer after church. It literally took less than an hour to get
everything we own into the new place. My moms and sister even helped unpack the kitchen! It was a humongous help and seriously the least stressful move I've ever experienced. I'd even say a little anti-climactic after the previous night's escapades.
MONDAY
I took the day off work to get a solid chunk of unpacking and organizing done. Brandon and I also spontaneously decided to host some friends for a post-dinner game night, which is probably the only reason we actually opened boxes and put things away. Without the pressure, we might still be living out of suitcases! We went to dinner at a place called Jack's Urban Eats, which is legit less than five minutes from our apartment and pretty good. I had chicken fingers because I was dying for some old school chicken fingers like the ones I used to order at Lyons on free kid meal Tuesday with my mom. They did not disappoint. Though next time, I'll make sure to try something I can't also get at Denny's. After some Yogurtland, we all came back to the new place and played a solid, awesome game of Cards Against Humanity. It was a pretty good unofficial housewarming thing.
It's been two days of commuting from Davis to Cordelia and so far I'm loving it. The traffic isn't half bad, but I do miss being able to go home over my lunch break. But hey, whatever. I'll take a quiet apartment where I haven't heard a siren yet to the constant traffic and sirens that would wake me up at the old place.
♥ A
