It's Over

The title very neatly describes the events in my life recently that has culminated in a sigh of relief and a splitting headache.

My brother's visit ended Saturday, and to say I'm a little sad to see him go is understating it a bit. While I'm sure he felt the week was slightly underwhelming in the form of entertainment, it was more activity that either me or Jeremy are used to on school nights. Yes, we are old and boring, but hopefully we managed to not totally ruin his vacation. As Jeremy put it, his visit gave us another person to stare at. After we took him to the airport Saturday morning, Jeremy and I came home and absolutely crashed. I spent the better part of 2 days napping on the couch, trying fitfully to sleep through a migraine.

Another activity I am happy to say is at an end is unpacking. Yes, we are officially finished with the chaos that was box killing. Now, cleaning and laundry are unending tasks in my life, but at least, I no longer have to spend hours trying to find new places for things that seem to have homes in our old apartment. Which brings me to question that I've been pondering. Our apartment in Memphis was a 2BR apartment. Our current apartment is a 2BR. Somehow, we seem to have less room here even though the square footage here is larger. We had even gotten rid of a lot of furniture before we moved. I fully believe that there was a worm hole in one of our former closets that allowed for the storage and retrieval of little used items.

College basketball also ended this weekend, much to our dismay. We had hoped to travel to Detroit to watch the Final Four, but alas that was not meant to be. This leaves us fans also in limbo as to whether our coach will return next year. I hope that this current hoopla is his way of negotiating a better contract, but I am not holding out too much hope. Very disappointing.

Busy

My brother arrived safely, and we've been on the go since. After an exciting weekend of basketball, we have a full schedule of eating out and watching movies. It's nice to have someone visit, and it's unbelievably nice to have a clean apartment. We've actually done a really nice job keeping things organized on a day by day basis.

Life is Good

Our friends in Memphis just welcomed their new baby girl into the world today. Congrats to them! We can't wait to meet her, but she'll be almost a year old by the time we see her.

Last night, Jeremy and I officially finished cleaning our apartment. It was actually easier than I had imagined even though it seemed a daunting task. I guess the marathon cleaning that we'd embarked on all month paid off. A little vacuuming tonight will finish everything off. We can't wait until my brother gets here tomorrow. This will be the first visitor we've had since we officially moved in.

The weather here is beautiful, and Spring seems to be officially here even though it's going to be a little chilly this weekend. I really needed the sun to come out. It has been very uplifting.

Tigers play their first NCAA game today. I can't listen to it today because of a meeting, but I hope they play well. Go Tigers!

It's Been Awhile

I haven't posted anything for awhile because I'd been in a funk physically, emotionally, and professionally. It wasn't anything earth-shattering, but had I posted, it would have been one whiny post after another and nobody needs that. Not to say that nothing good had happened in the last few weeks because that's not entirely true. The bad would have overshadowed everything.

That being said, I'm ready to begin writing about my life again. My brother is visiting next week, so it's lit a fire under our butts to actually finish the little things that we've been putting off. After spending a chunk of money getting the last things for the apartment, we are just about done. It is a nice feeling to look around and see everything the way I want it. The down side of the manic cleaning this weekend is the muscle pain that comes with climbing up and down the stairs a million times. My legs haven't hurt like this in a long time.

One Step Forward

Last night we officially finished putting together the office. Now, our apartment isn't totally put back together, but I can say that I no longer have to stress about it. Overall though, we've accomplished a lot. We have to hang a few more things on the walls and there are a few more knick knacks to find a place for, but overall, it's more maintenance now than unpacking. It's a relief. I know that we've been here for almost six months now, but we were in a catch-22 of sorts for the first four months. We couldn't unpack until we bought some furniture that we decided to leave in Memphis. We couldn't buy furniture until Jeremy found a job, but once he found a job, he wasn't at home with plenty of time to help unpack.

The apartment is finally starting to feel somewhat like home though. We're not the neatest people in the world, so it still seems kinda cluttered, but we're slowly getting to a point where we don't need to come home and worry about chores. I am looking forward to the day when we can come home, eat dinner and relax on the couch.

Sloth

Sometimes I have so much stuff to do at home that nothing ever gets done. That was kind of this weekend in terms of chores. Jeremy and I fully enjoyed our Valentines Day festivities. We didn't end up going ice skating because we spent 2 hours at dinner. It was very yummy and it wasn't as expensive as I was expecting. We didn't drink though, so that probably cut down on the cost quite a bit.

Sunday though, I spent being lazy on the couch. I caught up on all of the shows we'd recorded in the past week, but the bed in the office wasn't put together. I just didn't have the motivation to do it. Jeremy said that he'd help me with it this week though, so maybe we'll get it done before the weekend. It should be very straight forward.

While I was being lazy, Jeremy had a very productive weekend. He cleaned up the living room and even vacuumed. I really appreciated that since it was entirely his own idea and I had nothing to do with it.

Future

This weekend is going to be a busy one, with lots of fun and lots of work. Tomorrow, we have an action packed day. I've been looking forward to every minute of it all week. We're headed off to Ikea again to finally purchase the bed for the office/guest room. We've finally gotten the room cleared out enough to actually get the last piece of furniture. There are still little bits and pieces of things that I haven't figured out where to put, but overall, the room is done.

We've been working really hard on finishing the room because we're hoping to have various guests come over in the coming months. My brother who was going to visit in February will likely come visit us for a week in March. That is provided he doesn't get the job he wants. Either way, he'll probably be applying for grad school at CMU, so he may be spending some time with us before it's all said and done.

Jeremy's mom and stepdad may also come and visit us in the spring, so it'll be nice not to have to rush and clean for them. After this weekend, if they were to just drop by, I won't have a heart attack/panic attack.

After Ikea, we'll come home and watch the Tigers basketball game. They're in Hattiesburg this weekend, and the game should be fun and loud. It'll be a good Valentines Day activity. After the game, we'll go eat dinner and then go ice skating. I'm looking forward to the entire event.

Sunday should be a nice, relaxing day with nothing much to do. Regular chores like laundry and finishing the office are all that's on the list. It'll be a nice change of pace.

Drained

The apartment is almost put back together. I hate that when you clean and organize you have to pull everything out just so everything can be put in their place. Hopefully we'll be able to organize the rest after work, but if not, we'll definitely be able to finish everything by the end of the weekend. I cannot wait to get everything done.

Exhausted

Finished killing boxes today but it looks like the boxes got their revenge. They threw up their contents before they died. Hopefully next weekend will see the apartment totally clean.

Cleaning

My goal today was to finish organizing and cleaning the office. While I made good progress, I noticed something that makes no sense. Why is it that when you clean, you always make a bigger mess than when you started? Since I'm watching a basketball game now, I probably won't get a bunch more done tonight. Hopefully though, I will manage to get everything done by the end of the weekend. I cannot wait until everything is where it should be and I don't have to worry about cleaning after work.

Time in a Day

There doesn't seem to be enough hours in a day. By the time I get home, I probably have a good two hours of actual productivity before I'm completely wiped out. I never get a chance to get everything I want done finished. I did manage to make dinner last night for both yesterday and today, so at least that's one less thing I have to worry about tonight. Now, I just have to put away a mountain of clean laundry. I really miss having someone come and clean the apartment. I know Jeremy and I have discussed hiring a cleaning service again, but we have to get the place somewhat organized before then. This weekend, Jeremy has an event he wants to attend that I am completely uninterested in, so he'll be out of the house for several hours. Plus, my presentation for work is this week, so I no longer have to worry about working on that. I think I'll take the weekend off from work and finally finish the projects around the house. Well, at least that will be the goal.

Holiday Season

The holiday season is almost upon us, and I feel like there is still so much to do before I'm ready. There are still things that need unpacking at home, and I feel like I'm running low on storage space. We still need to finish unpacking the office, but until Jeremy gets a job, there are a lot of things that we cannot unpack. There are other things that I would ideally take to work with me, but since our lab is just temporary, I don't want to bring them here and then move it all again.

The dining room is especially problematic. There isn't as much storage in the kitchen as we had before, so we have a bunch of things that ideally would go in the kitchen, but don't fit. The cabinets in the kitchen are also unusually skinny, so nothing fits in the cabinets except glasses and mugs. Until we get a buffet or something, we really have no place for our dishes because the one large cabinet we have is for pots and pans. So, we've still got things packed up in boxes scattered around the dining room.

We want to get a Christmas tree, but the current disarray of our dining room makes that prohibitive. I suppose I could dedicate this weekend to cleaning the apartment, but I don't really feel up to that right now. The mood could strike suddenly though as it did a few weeks ago when I finished unpacking and cleaning our bedroom/closet/bathroom.

Falling in Place

While our lives are still crazy and in a state of flux, what with Jeremy's job hunt and all, the little things in life have really fallen into place. On Friday, I was hit with an urge to finish unpacking the apartment. I was tired of looking at the boxes that were everywhere. With the weather finally turning cold, we had all our summer clothes laying around the room waiting to be put up. After relaxing and going out Friday night, we attacked our list of chores Saturday and Sunday with gusto. As I said in my post yesterday, we finished a lot, and our apartment no longer looks like a disaster area.

With the boxes cleared and the rooms cleaned, we have room now for dining room furniture. We were just holding off on purchasing any until after Jeremy got a job. We figured we wouldn't be having people over, so there was no real hurry. Last night, we went on the Ikea site to check out a new couch we were considering in the future. Amazingly, the dining room table and chairs set we were looking to buy was listed as going on sale tomorrow for Veteran's Day at over 50% off. While there will probably be crowds and Jeremy does have an interview tomorrow, he will be braving traffic to go to Ikea to purchase said dining room set. It is too good of a deal to pass up, and it was the set we were wanting anyways. I guess it was a very good thing we decided to finish cleaning and unpacking.

Finally Settled

After about 6 weeks in Pittsburgh, we are finally settled into our apartment. We still have a few boxes of things that belong in the dining room, we can't unpack them until we actually purchase some dining room furniture. That we won't get until close to Christmas or when Jeremy gets a job. For the most part though, we're completely unpacked.

Jeremy, being the wonderful person that he is, once again humored me and moved the entertainment center to where I had wanted it originally. I really like it a lot better where it is now because it makes our living room/dining room area a lot more spacious. He's not sure he likes it where it is now, but he's willing to give it a week to see. I hope he likes it because I think when we get the dining room furniture, it will look better on that side of the room.

It is definitely nice to have things finally in the places they go. Now, we can finally settle into an every day routine. We won't have to worry daily about what else we need to do or which boxes we need to unpack.

Oh, and the Tigers beat SMU yesterday!

Football Weekend

The Tigers won yesterday in a spectacular fashion. It was a nail-biter until the end, but we managed to win. I was less than optimistic at the beginning of the game seeing as how we were down to our 3rd and 4th string quarterbacks, but they played great. It's a good thing we get a bye week next week seeing as how now we're down to just our 3rd string and maybe a few receivers turned quarterbacks. The direct snap to the running back seemed to work well so maybe he'll play a couple of snaps as QB as well. Thank goodness the rest of our schedule will be relatively easy, and we may pull out a winning season yet.

I'm not as invested in the NFL this year. Last year I would watch the Patriots games, but I'm less interested this year. They did manage to beat the Rams though. We would watch the Panthers games since DeAngelo is playing great this year, but that game is always preempted by a "regional" game.

Other than football, we did manage to get some things done around the apartment. We realized that the pot rack won't hang where we had wanted it, so it's back to the drawing board. I am determined to move the entertainment center again, although Jeremy might just kill me. We did get all our winter clothes unpacked though which I think is a huge accomplishment although I still have to pack up all the summer clothes. Oh well, I'm taking things a little at a time.

Rearrangements

We are planning on rearranging our living room yet again. We have been in our new place a month, and we've moved our living room furniture around twice already. We can't seem to find an arrangement that we like. Ideally, the best place for it would've been where we had it before, but there just isn't enough room for the couch without blocking either the way to the stairs or the way out the front door. Where we have it now on the other side of the room works okay, but we have about 3 feet between us and the tv. It's a little close.

I really didn't want to arrange the living room this way because I want to be able to utilize the bar better, but this will give us more room between the couch and the tv. It will also allow for tv watching from the kitchen.

I've also managed to rearrange a lot of the kitchen so that cooking is a lot easier. I'm not completely finished nor completely happy, but without more room, it'll be hard to get it exactly the way I want it. It's actually not too bad in that my prep area will be right by the sink and the trash can so it makes chopping and stuff more convenient. I can't wait until we get our pot rack though so I can clear out the cabinet and put more prep type items in there.