Monday, Monday...

You'd think I was going out of business!  Or moving.

We moved the sofa to make the room look like it was still full - but I think the sofa is lonely for the loveseat, chair and ottoman.  Oh well, it'll just have to get over it.  Moving on Saturday was an adventure - I had the best help!  Heather, Richard, Long, Tom and Allen worked their butts off!  Tom and Allen moved furniture stuff from the office in their truck - three trips - because vandals shot the radiator out of Long's big van.  That poor guy has no luck these days!  The rest of us (mainly them - I loaded boxes and bins with stuff) moved stuff from the old place to the new one.  I hadn't even been in the new apartment yet, since I picked up the keys on Friday afternoon and so I went in the first time when we brought the first load of stuff from the office.  It looked HUGE!  But then, most anything would look huge next to the old place.  Then I went to pack up stuff while the guys moved stuff in for me.  By the time I went back over to the new apartment with Aggie, the frenzied, barking cairn terrier, it didn't look so huge anymore.  But it's so much bigger and more open than where I was.  And quiet!  I can't hear anyone else, thank you, Lord!  We put Aggie in a crate while we were packing and moving and she was not too bad when I was with her, but as soon as I went over the new place to direct traffic and start putting stuff away, you could actually hear her barking her head off.  Heather loaded the crate into the lawn cart and wheeled her over to be with Mom.  Smart move - she quieted right down.  We started about 10:30 and we were finished by 1:30!  Amazing - I am so blessed to have friends that are willing to help me out.  I can't lift much and I am worthless at carrying anything that requires two hands, so they were all a godsend.  I think I'm going to make a big turkey dinner in a week or so and have a party.  I think turkey is something they can all agree on.  And maybe I can get Long's lovely wife Thao to make egg rolls.  Hmmm...  An international thank-you dinner party.

I spent until about midnight Saturday putting the kitchen stuff away.  Decisions, decisions...  So much more cupboard space and counter top room!  I even have my prized set of Mary Engelbreit dishes from storage all washed and in their own cupboard.  My shoulder is killing me from reaching and dragging and trying to arrange the top cupboards and pantry, but it's worth it actually having adequate space again.  I should have gotten the bigger apartment when I first moved, but I foolishly believed it was just a stop-over on the way to our new home in Pennsylvania.  Oh well - live and learn, I guess.  A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, which I know I have said before.  Yesterday, I worked all day on getting the pile of stuff out of the dining room and getting that room in order.  It's coming along - but I need to do some re-arranging in the living room.  Alas, not every gay guy is a decorating guru like the gang on Queer Eye.  I was sitting in the living room last night looking at the straight row of brown furniture along one wall.  Definite man- arrangement, which surprised me because Richard and Long had nothing to do with that - Tom and Allen moved the furniture.  See, I shouldn't stereotype people.  My final frontier is the bedroom, which I am going to finish as soon as I get home.  Heather cleaned the old apartment this morning - by 8:00 am! - so I just have to return the keys by this afternoon.  Then she and her crew came and cleaned the office - which is why it looks to spotless in the photographs above.  Spotless and empty...