I came, I moved, I conquered

The internet has yet to be returned to me, I'm borrowing some airtime from the home-nest right now so that I can make one small desperate attempt to contact the outside world. I have so much to say, and so little time, so little space!

I have moved! I have moved and I couldn't be more pleased with my spectacular new apartment! I have a home, a home! Praise God almighty, I have a home and I am living the dream, people. The dream!

A side note, I have never been more tired in my life. I. Am. So. Exhausted. I'm going to have to nominate moving as the most draining life experience. And to add to my fatigue, I have had to work five shifts in the time frame of moving, so it's like, movemovemove, go to work, workworkwork, come home, movemovemove, sleep. That's what my days have looked like for the past week, and I am going cray-azy.

But my apartment is all I remembered it and more.

New perks discovered!
1. The most character I've ever seen in a front door. It's light blue, with gold/yellow framing and different shades of blue in the centers. A gold doorknob, and a gold door knocker. Pretty quaint.
2. A really interesting security system! All we have to do is change our tv channel to a specified one, and we can see what's going on at the front door of the building. Whoa-hoa! Can you say high-tech? :S tehe
3. A garbage chute in the building! A real live garbage chute, just like on Friends! I can't wait to jam it, and call the "super" !
4. Parking space in the front of the building, for easier front door access and easier grocery carry-age. Aaah, oh blissful world.

I don't have the pictures I wish I had. I want to post a picture of my door, a picture of my new art room, a picture of my beautiful enclosed balcony. But, lo and behold, I have been moving. Quelle suprise'.

Let me take you through the adventure that has been moving, day by day. Each day had its stresses, but it seems through it all each day has also offered its own little beautiful relief. Little blessings from God to keep me sane through it all.

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Day 1
Up and at 'em at 7 in the morning. I, unfortunately have to work. The man drops me off at work, and picks up a large friend to come out to help him move some stuff from his mum's place. He moves all day, and the unbelievable 70 mph wind is not helpful in getting a tarp onto a trailor. He comes back to the city to pick me up from work. We pick up another large friend and the four of us head back to the old apartment to build up our strengths for the day to come. The real moving day. We spend the evening talking, and drinking coke, while reading from "The Book of If" which just so happens to be an excellent conversation starter.

Day 2
Up again at 8, showered and ready for the day. The man and I head over to the new apartment at 10 and inspect the apartment for damage. The building manager says, "Let me know what you find, and then I'll let you know what I've found." So now we're being tested on our apartment inspecting skills. We're especially thorough. We find nothing of note. Building Manager George shows us a yellow stain on the carpet in room #2, shows us that one of the stairs is broken, tells us that the smoke detector is broken, says the carpets haven't been shampooed. Do we want them to be shampooed? For free? Heck yes! "Hopefully we'll have them in here by tomorrow at 4." Great, but we now know we can't move any furniture onto any area that's carpeted. We're limited to kitchen, hallway, and entrance. Haha, good luck fitting it all there. We head back to the old apartment and pack up as much as we can, since we lacked the forethought to do any packing the week before. A load goes to the apartment. Another. Another. Matt's family comes and delivers the truckload from home. Gigantic furniture. I don't help much. Matt's mom comes in with much needed Pizza Hut pizzas. 12 of them. We eat 6. We have a spectacular time laughing and eating pizza together in the kitchen on the loveseat that really ought to be in the living room, we reflect on the day. We drop off everyone and its just the two of us again. We do a couple more loads. We toss a mattress on the floor in the middle of the living room and set up a tv and dvd player. We watch the first minute of a movie and fall asleep.

Day 3
Up early to haul some ass. We head over to the old apartment and do some more loads. We're really tired. We pack up as much as we can at the old place and bring it back to the new place. We can't unpack anything because we still can't put anything on the carpets. The man drops me off at work and I work until 10 while he chills at a buddy's place watching movies. Ahem. He picks me up and we do one more load. We do our best to get it all inside in one car-to-room trip and are absolutely unsuccessful, it takes us three. We fumble with the keys and the door, I drop my cellphone far too many times in the snow, we finally get inside and collapse on the carpet. The carpet. The unshampooed carpet. Hmm. "George, what's going on?" Hopefully they'll come tomorrow, they couldn't come today. Darn. Little angry, but too tired to maintain. Put the mattress down again in the living room, re-setup the tv and dvd player. Lay on the mattress facing the living room window and discover that the moon is framed perfectly in the right pane of the window. We bask in the silence, in the beautiful glowing moonlight, no other light spoiling our moment. The moonlight reflects us, one shining spot in the centre of an ocean of emptiness and black, us in the centre of the empty living room, blackness, emptiness, silence. Beautiful. "I wouldn't want anyone by my side right now but you." "I love you, too." Fast asleep.

Day 4
Rise and shine. Absolutely sick to death of leftover pizza, have no other food to eat in the house. We go out for breakfast, at Smitty's. Have a very affordable, relaxing breakfast. Our chocolate milks cost almost as much as our breakfast specials. Recieve a questionable look from a waitress and realize that I have yet to wash my hair. Yikes. Go shopping for food and buy as much instant food as we can, as well as toilet paper which we have somehow survived without until now (Kleenex.) Do another load (Yes! Another!) and spend some time at the new apartment until I have go to work. Again. I work until 10:30 and the man comes to pick me up again. Grab some more stuff from the old apartment and head back. Can't wait to move the furniture into the living room. Get home and they still aren't clean. "Be a man, make it happen!" "I'm sure he's trying his best..." Gah. I guess I'm going to have to phone. "Hopefully they'll be done tomorrow, they couldn't come today." Hopefully. Hopfully hopefully hopefully. I'm angry. Too tired to maintain. The man tells me I look beautiful when I'm angry, makes me angrier. Tells me I look beautiful all the time, redeems himself. I heat up a piece of pizza, eat half and collapse asleep once more.

Day 5
Ready for some miniature-boxed-cereal. Enjoy some while watching some episodes from a season of Degrassi with the man by my side. We set up his bedroom suite and unpack some of his clothes. We start setting up the kitchen around the ridiculous boxes, loveseat, coffee table... Too tired to do another load. We meander the day away, stop at London Drugs to look at a table and chairs, buy a Brita water pitcher. I have to head off to work at 3:30. I finish at 10 and the man gets me, we stop at the old apartment to pick up all of our food and remaining kitchen supplies. We get back to the apartment and do the same fumbling dance all the way to the door. I get inside and in my exhaustion I drop the wrong bag on the hard floor and hear a loud crack followed by a very steady stream of vinegarry aromatic pickle juice. I frantically lift the still-legless love seat to protect it from the imminent ocean heading toward it, don't save it in time and have pickled the love seat. Holler a little too loud at the man to get me a towel, he comes with a hand towel, unaware that we've got a real flood on our hands. Hurries back and grabs a full size bath towel and we somehow manage to absorb most of it, despite our unfortunate sofa. The entire apartment smells like pickles, as well as half my pants, and both of our hands. We do one more load and the apartment smells more like pickles than ever. We throw the towels in the shower and flee to a bedroom, shutting the door behind us, hoping that the scent hasn't reach there yet. We're safe. I head out to the bathroom and realize that the carpets have still not been shampooed. GEORGE! We head to bed, furious, and laughing at our pickling mishap.

Day 6
Up at 10 and staying in bed, darnit! Have another mini box of cereal straight out of the box and watch the first half of "The Bourne Identity." There's a knock at the door and the Hallelujah chorus rings true as the carpet cleaners have shown up, sing praises all ye people of the world! They take half an hour and are out. The carpets will take 6 hours to dry. Fine by me! We unpack some more of the kitchen. The man has to go to school for awhile so I unpack all of my clothes to the tune of CCR and greet him when he returns. He head out to pick up two large friends to help us move our furniture out of the kitchen and into the living room and bedroom #2. We stop at Taco Bell and have a very unhealthy meal with them. We go to Zellers to look at furniture, find none of what we need but buy a rug for our entrance. Head back to the new place and move furniture onto the almost-completely-dry carpets. Hang out for a while in our spectacular living room. Go to Wal Mart and buy a lot of much needed household supplies, as well as a beautiful hutch for our DVDs. Find a workbench for my art space for only $30, buy in a heartbeat. Somehow fit hutch, workbench, garbage can, shoe rack, and two big boys in back seat. Magic? Drop boys off and move all furniture into new apartment on our own. Begin assembling workbench at 1:00am, get banging on the wall from neighbours for being too loud, call it a night and crash.

Day 7
Up at 10 again, overjoyed at my stupendous nights sleep. The man has finished assembling my workbench while I slept and it looks beautiful. We move it into the art room. He takes the very difficult closet doors off in the room (which turn out to be very VERY difficult since they're sliding doors with a track on the top AND the bottom) and we move a dresser into the closet. The man begins assembling the hutch in the living room and there's a knock at the door. Someone's here to fix the broken step, hooray! I watch a movie with the background noise of a drill from the man and a hammer from the repairman. He finishes and the step is better than ever, he is very friendly and waves us goodbye as he heads out the door. The man finishes the hutch and I start putting DVD's into it, decide that my movies can go in front and his can go behind mine, he doesn't like that idea. I have to go to work once more, and after work we head out to the hometown for some much needed R&R!

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So that's the move! Very long, yes, but you must understand, I haven't been able to blog day by day so I've had to do it all at once. Apologies, pace yourself if you'd like! You don't have to read it all at once! I should have internet again by wednesday, so hopefully I'll be able to post as of then.

It really has been something else. And, the crazy thing is, is that we still have ONE MORE LOAD to do! We're still not completely moved out! I can not believe it. You know you've got too much stuff when you've got boxes labled "Things I never use."

But, at the end of the day, when we were getting ready to leave for the weekend, I realized something that I haven't felt for such a long time and its that I was actually going to miss it, miss our beautiful apartment, our beautiful home. And as I switched off the light I looked at the blessed space and whispered goodbye, knowing that I couldn't wait to return to this blissful haven, this magical wonderland, this home.

See you soon.