Kid n Kitties

We are about 87% moved. The remaining items at #604 are as follows: some of my clothes, most of my shoes, my desk, some kitchen stuff, some toiletries, and our art. I plan to complete the migration by EOD tomorrow. I’ll take the weekend off to spend time with the in-laws while they’re in town and then clean the empty apartment on Monday.

The new place looks absolutely fabulous (before and after photos will be posted soon). I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love this new apartment. We already feel so at home here despite the controlled chaos of the move. With Mitch’s folks in town, we have 5 people occupying this apartment and it still feels so spacious. Mitch thinks it’s a bit decadent. I disagree. At 1,000 square feet, I believe it is an appropriate size for our small family.

Murky adjusted to the move easily. She has always had command of the public hallway in our building since back in the day when she used to take daily walks with Joey. She loved running between apartments during each round of moving stuff over. We never had to worry about her getting lost while she was out and about. If she got spooked by a sound or an unexpected neighbor, she would just run into one apartment or the other.

Kirby, on the other hand, did not handle to move well at all. Once we deposited him in #600, he would dash out the front door and run back to #604 and hide in a closet. He also doesn’t know the layout of the entire building as well as Murky, so if he got spooked for some reason, he might end up in the basement. I was also a bit worried about him getting lost again. He was lost last month for a couple of hours and it sucked trying to find him because he can’t hear us when we call him on account of him being deaf. This is our third night in #600 and Kirby finally seems to be mellowing out somewhat.

One of my favorite things about moving is the purging that goes on. Usually I leave unwanted but usable items on the street for someone to discover or I drop them off at Goodwill. The problem with leaving things on the street it that bags of stuff get rummaged through and leave a mess on the sidewalk. I don’t really like to send stuff to Goodwill either. I am not convinced that my stuff won’t end up in landfill somewhere. For this round of purging, I’m using Freecycle, and it is awesome!

Freecycle is a network that lets local people offer up stuff they no longer want to people who want it. I’ve been reviewing the list and this is truly a situation where one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. So far I’ve gotten rid of a handful of diapers that Izzy outgrew and some Ketostix that I had to use while I was diabetic. Tomorrow, someone wants to come by and pick up the old shower curtain hooks that were left behind by the previous tenant. I’m also going to try to get rid of my father in law’s digital camera that no longer works. Well, it still works; it’s just not predictable with the images it captures. I think an arty person could have a lot of fun with the camera and take some intriguing photos with the camera. I’m half inclined to keep it myself, but alas, I am in purge mode.

July 19th is the big day. The place looks gorgeous. The walls are painted a nice creamy white with a bright white trim. The hardwood floors were refinished. I am a little disappointed with the kitchen. The flooring is very institutional and is kind of a grey color. It looks dirty already. Oh, and don’t even get me started on the teal Formica counter top and the original railroad tile they left as a back splash. Normally, I love the railroad tile, but this stuff is damaged and ugly. The two things I am excited about in the kitchen is that they left the old Wedgewood stove and I am going to get a full sized refrigerator (haven’t seen it yet). There is a vanity in the bathroom now, which is great for additional storage.

Our plan for moving is to empty the closets first and move our stuff over. Next, we’ll move the kitchen. We’ll leave the big furniture items in the living room and bedroom for last.

I hope this process works out okay. When I moved in with Mitch seven years ago, I brought my stuff to his apartment a little bit at a time over the course of a month. It was an absolute nightmare and I never thought I was going to finish. I vowed I would hire movers the next time and have everything packed for me and moved at once. With that said, I had a good experience when Doug and I were roommates. We moved from our  original apartment to the one next door. We moved closet by closet and room by room. I think we completed it in one weekend. We both had much less stuff back then.

We have some cross over time with our apartments, so we’ll have two weeks to move out of and clean #604. I’m so excited to finally be able to nest. I’m also glad I’ll have a full month in the new place before I go back to work and during a time where Isadora is sleeping for longer and longer periods through the night.

Wish us luck!