We're Moved!

Last weekend, we finally moved in to our new condo in Palo Alto. We were worried that we would like the place less when we replaced the realtors' designer furniture with our um, dirt-cheap Craigslist/K-Mart ensemble, but so far, we've been even more delighted with it than when we originally decided to make our offer. It's infectiously sunny and cheery.

The depressing part was when we realized how much stuff we accumulated since college. Freshman year, I had two suitcases and a computer. Last weekend, we filled an entire 17-foot U-Haul truck. (!!!)

Andrew, who flew out from Maryland to help us move, was in charge of putting stuff into the truck. He was determined to find the absolute optimal packing, and it was fun to watch him pack and un-pack the truck over and over. Maybe I should have mentioned that it's an NP-complete problem.

He did a very impressive job though! Here's what it looked like at the halfway point:

Meanwhile, Chris, Tommy, and his girlfriend Tiffany were tasked with carrying boxes from the apartment (which was on the third floor) to our staging area (parking space). When Tommy first walked into our apartment and saw that I was trying to sell off a lot of our furniture, he demanded to know "why don't you keep it?" Later, I'm sure he realized how great it was that I decided to let miscellaneous strangers walk off with the heaviest pieces of our stuff:

And what was my job? The "feeble injured one" was in charge of monetization. I sold a sofa, a loveseat, a TV stand, a big L-shaped corner desk, a cabinet, and a microwave -- all WITHOUT INTERNET, using my new Blackberry. (Comcast disconnected us early, boo.) Craigslist is awesome; I was impressed how quickly people took our stuff, and how they hardly even bargained (except for one guy who haggled me down from $20 to $15 for the microwave, haha). Total day-over-day revenue increase: $325.

Afterwards, we treated the crew to Olive Garden, which is walking distance from the condo. Here's us waiting very hungrily to be seated:

And here's the crew at our place after dinner. Thanks again crew! Note how there's a gallon full of pennies on the dining table. I remember someone being particularly incensed at having to lug our gallon of pennies up and down several flights of stairs, but in defense of the penny-jug, it did turn out to be a superior doorstop, even when pitted against heavy doors.


One Week Later

Behold the progress we've made!

Er, okay, not so much. It's actually gotten worse. But to be fair, we spent most of the day working on the upstairs bedroom and den, which are relatively tidy now.

We also moved the cats today, after a week of leaving them alone in our big empty apartment. I suppose it sounds kind of mean that we left them behind, but on the whole, it was probably less stressful to leave them to play in a big empty apartment than to have them constantly underfoot and shredding boxes while we unpacked. At least that's how we rationalize it to ourselves. Honey, with her laser green eyes in this picture, probably sees through our laziness. :-)

Today was the first time we felt sad to be leaving Avalon Parkside. Somehow, before we removed the cats, it still felt like our home, but now it's completely empty and ready for someone else to move in. We officially turn in our keys on Tuesday. Our home of three years...no longer. Of course, if Avalon Parkside decides to pocket a big chunk of our security deposit, most of this nostalgia will probably be erased. We'll see, heehee.

Now, back to watching scantily-clad men prancing around (i.e. the Olympics).

More (higher-quality) moving pictures here if you want them:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jenn.c.taylor/MovingToPaloAlto