Home Sweet Apartment

Going from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom apartment was quite the transition. We packed up a TON of stuff to store in my mom's basement and still moved quite a bit of junk. Well, here we are 1 week and 1 day as residents of California and I think we are finally all unpacked. We still have some shelves to hang up, but I think we're all settled. It doesn't quite feel like home to me yet. I'm stuck in some middle ground between home and a hotel. All of our stuff is here, but it still doesn't feel quite like ours.

There are a few features of our apartment that we prefer over what we had in our house. First, we have a bathroom that is adjoined to our bedroom. In our house we had to go out into the hall. Second, the living room is very large and open. There is a really nice flow from the kitchen to the eating area to the living room. There is also a long wall that fits our furniture nicely. Third, it's kinda nice to not have to worry about a lawn. Don't get me wrong, I love outdoor spaces and flowers and what not, but it's one less thing to have to worry about and spend money on.

Then of course there are few things that aren't quite as nice. The first major one is that our washer/dryer is in a closet...in the living room!! Yep, right there in the middle of the room is a damn closet that screwed up my whole furniture plan. Next, the dishwasher is not only kinda small, but is the loudest damn thing I have ever heard. We can't even hear each other talk while that thing is on. And since it's smaller, we have to do more loads, ugh. And lastly, the shower head was meant for really short people. We both have to kinda of bend down or squat just to wash our hair. It's a little ridiculous.

Ok, enough of the descriptions, here are the pictures I promised:

Here are some closets we have in the hallway:

One wall of the office:

Another wall of office that was apparently the magnet for ALL of our stuff:


Our bedroom as seen from the far corner:

Our bedroom from the door:

The second 1/2 bathroom:

Hallway from living room to bedrooms:

Living Room:

Living Room:

The dining area/front door as seen from the living room:

The kitchen:

The Kitchen take 2:

First Post From the Great State of California

So, first let me say, pictures to come, so hold your horses. :) Here are some things to know about CA...

The apartment is great. There is lots of room and one extra bedroom that is currently designated as the storage closet. Basically, if there was a box we didn't quite know what to do with went in that room. Apparently, we had a ton of boxes that we weren't quite sure what to do with...oy. Also, just about ALL of the electric, phone and cable outlets (outlet, singular, in the phone and cable instances) are in the most inconvenient places. We have cables going every which way just to be hooked up - it's ridiculous.

Ah yes...the parking spaces. Only 1 designated parking "space" came with a 2 bedroom apartment. Luckily, there was another "space" that we could rent not too far away. Ok, so these "spaces" are under the building and all have poles separating each space. Our 2 spaces are also right next to walls. These "spaces" are just barely large enough to fit a standard sedan. We have to pull in, back out, turn, and pull in again just to get in each space.

We are right next to a grocery store so that's really convenient. We even walked over to get our groceries. The grocery store is VONS which is just a fancy California word for Safeway. They have all the safeway products and my safeway card even works there.

Everyone, except for the drivers who think that lanes are arbitrary, is strangely nice here. Very talkative and friendly folk everywhere, so that's nice.

Half of our channels are spanish. Seriously. Also, everything is on an hour later and it's really hard to stay up late to watch our good shows. Then, everything on in morning is infomercials - like on 15 channels. Any product you could ever want to buy is being hocked on nearly every channel in LA on Saturday mornings.

2 Days and Counting

Well, here we are, 2 days away from the big move. The moving company came on Saturday and hauled all of our stuff away. Movers are definitely the way to go! 2 guys moved all of our stuff in about 3 hours and we didn't have to do anything but sit there and watch them. It was amazing to see how fast they carted all of our extremely heavy boxes away in a flash. So now I sit on the floor typing in a big empty house. There are a few things here and there that still need to be packed up and put in our cars, but really the move has begun. We leave Wednesday and will get into CA on Thursday. Then, hopefully, our stuff will arrive on Friday.

Ugh, I've been such a mess lately. I'm stressed, worried, sad, and stressed again. I should be excited, but I don't think I will be until we are there. Right now, I feel as though I'm just going through the motions of moving, but my head really isn't in the game yet. Tomorrow we will make the rounds of saying good-bye to family, and I really don't want to. I hate saying good-bye. Especially when there are 2 little kids that we will miss so much. It's really hard to grasp the fact that we will miss portions of them growing up. That will be the hardest part. I'm trying to think positively about the whole thing, but it's kinda difficult. Luckily, we can keep up with everyone through the internet so we will never feel far away. Oy, so long, Colorado!

Oops, forgot I had a blog.

So it's been about a month since my last post. It's weird, I've had a ton of free time, but still wasn't able to write anything. So here it is, my re-cap post.

October 1st: Last day of work! Woohoo! A little sad, but mostly woohoo.
October 2nd: Emma's wedding! What a beautiful wedding! And it was really nice to see some old high school friends again.
October 7th-9th: Trip to California to find an apartment. And guess what? We found one!
October 10th: Helped my dad move out of the apartment he had lived in for 16 years into a house literally 2 streets away from our house.
October 11th: Went to the Bronco's game with my sister-in-law, Megan. FINALLY broke my streak of attending Broncos games where the weather has be shitty and the broncos lost. It's been 3 years and we finally beat the Patriots during this game. Yes!
October 17th: Went to a work event of Evan's at the Old Spaghetti Factory - my favorite restaurant! YUM! Then went to a housewarming party at Kim and Ben's new place.
October 18th: Helped paint my brother's new house. Oy, I hate painting.
October 20th: Ate lunch with a former co-worker and discovered that nothing at work has changed.at.all.

And here we are at October 23rd. Coming up we have dinner with friends, moving my brother into his new house, a big family dinner, LOTS of packing and then.....bum bum BUM...MOVING TO CALIFORNIA!! Holy cow! I can't believe I only have 1 more full week in CO and then it's off to follow that big fat dream. I'm ready to get there already. Enough of this planning and stressing over details, I just want to be there. And soon enough I will and I know it will be a great adventure.

Last Days of Work

As I approach my final day of work, I can't help but wonder what's next and reflect on what has past. 2 days from now, I will be unemployed - let go from a company of which I have 5 years of service. I started here when I was an intern and now my career here has run its course. I have a little countdown ticker on my computer that has been counting down the days for the past year or so. I never thought that it would make it to the end, but here it is only displaying 2 days left.

I can remember my first day as an intern in the credit department. This was my first big corporate job and I was excited to learn that I had a cubicle! My own wonderful cubicle! I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing and since I was still in college, my first day was only 4 hours long. I'm pretty sure all I did was learn how to log in to my computer and then sit and look through the office supply catalog that day. The next day was a full day and I was so excited to start training and meet new people.

There were about 6 other interns and admins who were all pretty tight with each other. It was lunch time and although I had brought food, I was secretly hoping that they would ask me to go to lunch with them. I waited and waited and I was starving, but finally as they were about to walk out the door, I was asked to join them. Yes! I was included! I interned for almost 2 years all the way through college. The group changed over the years, but there are still a few girls who I consider very good friends to this day. We all try to get together for lunch every now and again even though our schedules never seem to all work out. In fact, I'm having lunch with one of those intern girls on my last day of work...the same girl who asked me to go to lunch on one of my first days with the company.

I can also remember my first day with the catalog department. I was going to be working with a girl who I had worked with previously in the credit department. Having a little familiarity made my transition to this new team so easy. Also, I was going to be learning all new fun and creative stuff. It was awesome. It was the first time that I could say that I really loved my job. Unfortunately, the climate changed a bit a year or so later and the work I was doing was kind of killed. So I had to transition into more of a catalog role vs. flyers and smaller promotional pieces. I am so thankful for all that I have learned in this position. I am also so grateful to have made new relationships with coworkers. I have never seen and doubt I will ever see another group of people work as hard as the catalog team. Great people with lots of great abilities.

My job also provided me with lots of awesome perks. I only had an 8 mile commute to work, I had great benefits and it seemed that every time I turned around, I was getting a raise or a promotion. Sometimes the work kicked my ass and I hated working all those long hours, but I got through it and I am better for it. I know what I can accomplish and now I'm poised to go even further in my next career. And, like I've said in previous posts, I am so overwhelmingly thankful to have been given the opportunity to pursue my real dream. Layoffs can often be absolutely life shattering to some, but for me it was, is and will be incredibly freeing and a sign that I needed to take my life in a new direction.

My cube is all packed up except for a small Cranium desk calendar and a few office product odds and ends. Soon I will take my box of stuff and walk out the doors at 1 Environmental Way for the last time and take the first steps into my new life.

Wow, that was deep, wasn't it? Yeah, I'm pretty cool like that. :)

Dental work, illness, cleaning, packing = Vacation?

I took 3 days off this past week. Originally, the plan was to use those 3 days meticulously cleaning the house and packing up lots of stuff and generally being very productive. Well, I quickly learned that while I could clean some things, most things (like kitchen and bathrooms) would have to be touched up before we had a showing anyway, so no need to go crazy now. Then I realized that we had packed up the majority of the stuff we were going to store and at this point it's better to have stuff out and organized than stuffed into multiple boxes. So, needless to say, there wasn't a lot of packing and cleaning that I could do.

Since my benefits expire on my last day of work (Oct. 1st), I have about $1600 to use up before that date. I have a few teeth that need crowns, so I figure I might as well get that work done before I lose that money. So, what do I do? I schedule a crown appointment on one of my days off in addition to a regular cleaning on a different day. (I only got one crown because I'm not crazy.) Dental work is never fun, but for some reason I thought it would be a great thing to do in my time off. Oh yeah, BTW, that dang crown cost me about $500! GRR! Why on earth is dental work so damn expensive?! I submitted a form to get reimbursed out of that $1600, but I am extremely pessimistic about actually getting any money from the insurance company.

And then, the pièce de resistance, I get a cold. The day before my time off. So all three days (plus the weekend), I am coughing and blowing my nose like crazy. Not the worst cold I've had, admittedly, but still not very pleasant. So even if I had some cleaning and packing to do, I didn't have the energy to get any of it done. Oy.

However, some highlights of my week were:
-My sister and niece visiting me one morning
-Having a few lunches with my husband
-Moving a ton of boxes to storage
-Watching my nephew overnight
-watching the Broncos kick but against Cleveland!

Mission Gnocchi: Success!!

My sister and I have this thing where we get together and cook dinner every few weeks. The rule is the meals have to be something we've never made before and we switch back and forth between houses each time. So far, we've been pretty successful with only a few minor misses. Well, when my sister told me she wanted to try to make gnocchi (basically italian potato dumplings), I was very intimidated. However, she had a recipe and the confidence that the 2 of us could figure it out. So this past Labor Day, we decided to try it out. Usually our cooking nights are pretty casual and it's only the 4.5 of us, but this time we decided to invite the whole family = even more intimidated. Since we were all off for the holiday, we got started early. We arrived at my sister's house at 3pm and started cooking. Here was our process:

1. Got huge pot of water boiling
2. Made apple crisp dessert waiting for water to boil
3. Started to boil 9 whole, unpeeled potatoes
4. While potatoes were cooking, we made a pesto sauce (delish!)
5. Also whipped together and baked a carrot cake
6. Cleaned up and cooked some fresh green beans
7. After about 50 minutes, the potatoes were done, so they were drained and cooled.
8. We peeled the potatoes and mashed them with flour, eggs, parmesan cheese and nutmeg
9. Kneaded it until we had a dough
10. Then 3 of us took out portions of the dough, made long ropes, then cut 1 inch pieces and rolled them along the tines of a fork for texture of the gnocchi. (this process took awhile since we had tripled the recipe!)
11. Then in small batches we boiled the gnocchi until they floated.
12. Then we fried the batches in some butter.
13. Repeated several times until all the gnocchi was done.
14. Then we made a gorgonzola cream sauce (YUMMMMM!)
15. I assembled a salad of baby spinach, mixed greens, bacon, pears, gorgonzola crumbles and pine nuts in a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.
16. We also baked up some store bought garlic bread.
17. We tossed part of the gnocchi with the pesto, part of it with the cheese sauce and left a few plain.
18. Then, FINALLY at a little after 6pm (yes, 3 hours later!) we ate!!

AND IT WAS FRIGGIN' DELICIOUS!!!!!!! Whew!