today was the worst day to move, ever.

i couldn’t start until around 12:30 because i worked all morning. it poured down rain — we were soaked to the bone and i kept slipping out of my flipflops. we had to cover all of our stuff in garbage bags, and a lot of it got damp regardless (it’ll be a miracle if the TV still works, and if we don’t catch the house on fire the first time we plug in the microwave). oh, and we didn’t even start moving stuff until around 4:30 because the walls and cupboards in the house were so gross that we scrubbed them out for two hours. and amelia mopped and organized everything and pounded tons of nails into walls and closets to make ingenious hangers for stuff.

but — we did it. nick took time out of an already hectic day to tote our TV and fridge around, and fetched us ben’s van from the southside to haul two loads of stuff. kendra shot out of her apartment across the street to bid us welcome — it’ll be fun living next to duquesners! and the kitchen is adorable, despite the fact that we don’t yet have a kitchen table. what we do have is a sparkling clean floor, potted plants in the windows, fruit magnets and a magnetic notepad on the fridge, food in the cupboards, and shiny red fry-pans and cooking utensils hung above the stove. and for our first house dinner, we sat on pillows in the middle of the kitchen floor around a box full of (we discovered afterward) amelia’s shoes and coats, and ate penne pasta, tomato basil sauce, green salads, and raspberry crystal light with frank sinatra playing in the background. we even have leftovers!

it’s so grown-up and exciting and inspiring to have a house.

(p.s. my room — unless my guilt gets the better of me and i offer it to amy boots, because i think it really is the nicer of them — looks out on a veritable jungle of leaves and vines through two very tall windows and i’ve put the desk i found in our basement against one of them and it smells of trees and that alone is enough.)