Settling In

Okay, so it's been a couple weeks since moving into the new apartment, and it's about 90% unpacked. The rest of it is waiting on a few new pieces of furniture that will have to wait until jobs are found, like a dresser in my closet, a desk in Lindsay's room, an end table by the couch, etc. I'm thinking tomorrow might be a good time to go comb the pricier neighborhoods in the area for garage sales or even just discarded furniture. After all, that's how I found the table and chairs I had on my back porch in CoMo.

A few notable things about the new apartment, or townhouse as it's called in the lease:

1. The kitchen is SO MUCH NICER. It's big, it's open, there's a massive amount of storage, and there's even a pantry. AND it came with a wall-mounted microwave. And brand new appliances. And lots of happy things.

2. Storage everywhere! I have a walk-in closet! Yes, there did happen to be a ginormous cockroach that crawled on the closet door the other day, but that seems to have been a fluke - wondering if it hitched a ride inside, or if it was inadvertently brought along from CoMo.

3. No brown recluses! There is not much more to say to this than YAY.

4. Internet is great and super-fast and super-cheap. Time Warner = awesome. Cable TV will come soon. Again, needs to wait until a job is found.

As for jobs, I've applied for a few, so now I just have to find more that are appealing and play the waiting game on the ones I've already submitted applications for. Would love to work for a publishing company or textbook company in the area. None of the schools are hiring right now, and a few people have been really discouraging about the chances of getting teaching jobs in the current economy with alternative certification instead of a Bachelor's in Education. Oh well. I'll figure things out. If the teaching doesn't work, then something else will. More on the jobs later. Right now, it's bed time.

Unloading the truck

Just a quick post to point out that unloading the U-Haul took about a fourth of the time it took to load the truck. Seriously.

Another plus is that nothing was damaged! Probably thanks to Maggie's amazing packing skills. :) And a big yay to Ed, the new landlord, for saying we could move in today, even though rent for us this month doesn't start until Saturday the 5th. Score for friendly people!

Anyway, truck is unloaded and heading back to one of the local U-Haul places this morning. We dubbed Lindsay's mom--whose real name is Janet--to be "Earlene the Trucker." It's a sad day to see Earlene's truck going back to the yard.

The Drive

The drive, to be honest, wasn't too bad. It was long, but divided up fairly evenly between two days: just about eight hours the first day, eight hours the second day. Because my roommate Lindsay had her car, I had my car, and we had the moving truck (which Lindsay's mom drove), we had a caravan. Lindsay led the way, I followed in the middle, and her mom brought up the rear. Pippin rode in my car in the passenger seat and was very well behaved the whole way - I was proud of him. :) No meowing fits, no freak-outs. He just sat there and watched me and dozed.

And, because of our impeccable timing, we only hit one city during rush hour: Tulsa. Not too bad. I was worried we'd get stuck in Oklahoma City during rush hour.. or Fort Worth or Austin. But nope!

Also, my car gets amazing highway mileage. YAY MAGNUS.

Here are a few pics from the drive:

My view for the duration of the drive. You have no idea how many times I sang the letters of Lindsay's license plate to the cat. PC2-XOW!!!

Speaking of the cat, here he is looking a little peeved to be in the car. :)