Thing the First: Moving

I have three things I've been meaning to blog about.  (There are actually a few more than that, but these are three more noteworthy recent events that have been on deck for a while.)  So, thing the first is moving.  We moved!  For those who haven't seen already, The Wife blogged yesterday about this as well, including a very amusing animated photo tour (seriously, go look at it, it's hilARious!), but I wanted to document the process a little too.

(Just now I wrote a couple of nice long paragraphs detailing our moving history for the last two years, when I realized I just blogged about that a few weeks ago.  Good thing I noticed, that would have been an embarrassing repeat.)

So yes, last you heard we were about to move.  And then we did!  And I learned a few things:

• Having assistance from friends and family makes a HUGE difference, even if you're only moving half a mile away.  The first night we were working, it was just me and The Wife boxing things up and loading up our lil' car and taking stuff over one carload at a time.  This was VERY slowgoing.  Once Julie's visiting teacher and my parents showed up, it was a completely different experience.  We were almost completely finished packing and moving within a couple of hours.  Thanks, Mom and Dad and Mary!  This has inspired me to be a good helper whenever possible when friends and family are moving.

• Having a family member with a truck is ALSO a huge help.  It spared us the trouble of relocating our couches by hand (again).  Thanks, Jonny!  This has inspired me to have a truck someday so that I can be a Godsend for someone in a similar fashion.

• Sometimes, no matter what precautions you take to prevent a lapse in service (especially since your livelihood depends on being connected to the technological world), there just might be some complications in transferring your internet or TV or electricity or gas service (and issues there were with all of those listed).  There were some serious headaches, but I only had to go to the library to work once or twice.  This has inspired me to take even more precautions in the future, and try not to be too bothered if even those added measures turn out not to make the transition perfectly smooth.

• Cleaning checks are rotten, and even if you spend hours getting your old apartment in far better condition than it was when you moved in, the inspectorlady may nonchalantly wander about and point out things that you spent considerable time cleaning and say it's not clean enough.  Then she'll come back to recheck it after you have another chance to fix it up some more, and probably charge you for the recheck (but she probably won't tell you there will be an extra charge until she takes it out of your deposit).  This has inspired me to be picky about cleaning checks like I was when I was a student, and also to be annoyed by that lady.

• There are a few differences between renting from a big company with lots of properties and from a family that owns just a few.  There are pros and cons to each, but for now we're looking forward to the latter situation.  This has inspired me to try to find out in the future if we were charged extra fees before it's been two years and it's pretty much too late to do anything about them.

• In Provo, moving half a mile away means not only a new ward, but also a new stake.  This has inspired me to, um, keep going to church?  Yes, that.

And those are some of the things I learned throughout the process this time.  And now I'm going to show some of my favorite amenities!  Like I said, The Wife already posted a great tour, so I won't post a lot of pictures, except of my favorite things about living here.

• THIS:

 

I heard someone say once that you should be careful what chores you pick up during the first few weeks of marriage, because then you'll basically be doing those chores for the rest of forevermore, and it seemed perfectly fair that I should handle dishwashing anyway, especially since Julie usually makes (delicious) dinner.  Nevertheless, after almost three years of washing dishes by hand, and discovering some weird and annoying dryness and sensitivity of my hands due to prolonged exposure to water or something, I was just getting kind of vexed with the process, so I was SO ready for this little baby.  I don't know how we ever functioned without it.  I love so much loading it up and turning it on and walking away.  May I never take it for granted.  My hands are already so much happier.

• THIS:

Our old place had coin-operated laundry, but that's annoying and can get expensive, so we mostly spent the last few years loading up our dirty clothing and taking them to Mom and Dad's house.  This was a pretty good arrangement for a while because 1) It gave us a good reason to visit Mom and Dad at least once a week, 2) It was free (less the travel expense, which balanced out, again because it doubled as a visit to the folks, but also because of...), 3) Mom and Dad usually made dinner for us, so we scored some foods out of the deal too.  Still, after a few years of this, planning for the commute and the subsequent wait started to wear on our schedule.  It seems like such a huge luxury to be able to just throw laundry in whenever and then go about your business right there at home.  And it's not in a hallway or bathroom, like so many of the other apartments we looked at!  It's in its own room, a fact with gives The Wife (and me) much glee.

• THIS:

Anyone who knows me well knows of my aversion to summer (or, more accurately, summer heat).  I just hate feeling sweaty and hot and unable to cool down.  Our old place had a very small and fairly ineffective wall unit in the living room.  It actually worked pretty well, as long as you were standing RIGHT in front of it.  Step away in the kitchen and it's basically a big oven, and don't even think about the bedroom or bathroom.  (We discovered during cleaning that a virtual wall of dust might have had something to do with its ineffectiveness, but...  oh well.  It might work better for the new kids who moved in there.)  A standing, rotating fan helped on summer nights, but mostly I felt nasty and sweaty every night.  Once I started working at home, I knew that something HAD to be done, I simply could not survive the long summer months sitting at that kitchen table all day.  This was one of the amenities that we turned down a lot of nice apartments for, and it was the right decision.  I love to hear that AC rumble as it turns on.  Luckily, it's also been a pretty mild summer (some days we don't even need to turn it on, it's been so nice), but still, there have been a few days that were pretty gross, and I don't have to deal with it!  XD  (Until I get in the car to go somewhere, then I still have plenty of opportunities to gripe, ha.)

• The second bedroom is also really nice.  At the moment it's the office, and it's great to be able to shut the door on work at the end of the workday and not be confronted by it and reminded by it at every turn, but in the future this room has the possibility of being multipurpose.

So there you go!  We love our new townhouse place (it has stairs!  We've never had stairs before!  That means no downstairs neighbors!).  We've already had a few visitors for a few nights, and it was great to have space to put them and not have to apologize for how hot they were going to get during the night.  So, friends and family, if you are coming to town and need a place to stay, hit us up!  We're glad to give you a tour and pull out the new air mattress.