Adventures in Homeowning

I will start by apologizing for what is no doubt going to be a wordy post. But it's been awhile and I don't have many pictures. I'll try to make it worth your while.

A week ago, started living in our new house! Last Tuesday, we were surprised by a knock on our townhouse door and Kyle's bestest buddy, Dan, had driven to Philadelphia from Baltimore to help us move! It was just about the sweetest thing anyone (who isn't related to us and therefore obligated in some way) had ever done for us. He had taken off the whole week to help us move. So he helped us finish our packing, load the truck on Wednesday, go to settlement and move in on Thursday, and cut the grass on Friday!

I could go on about how awesome that was, but like I said, I'm trying to not be TOO wordy. He was a life saver! He was a better truck organizer than I would have been, and he and Kyle communicated better moving stuff up and down stairs. So remarkably, he also made the whole process more peaceful, because I would not have wanted to make the days even worse by bickering with Kyle.

So since then, we've just been slowly moving in. Kitchen was first, and it felt really really good organizing a nice kitchen, especially with all the new wedding gifts that we didn't allow ourselves to open at the townhouse because we would have just had to pack them right back up.

I already burned my first dinner! It was just frozen pizza; I've cooked with natural gas all my life, and now we have an electric oven and stove... in my defense, it's a really really good oven and it cooked the pizza a lot faster than I expected! So I set the smoke detector off within the first few days of moving in!

Anyway, back to moving, I was really discouraged for awhile:

But we're already powering through and so there's only a few miscellaneous boxes left. Also burdensom has been the amount of trash, broken boxes, and allllll that packing paper for fragile things. But enough about that, on Wednesday, we had FiOS installed (yay!! we've wanted it for years but it wasn't available in the city) and today I'm waiting for lots of furniture to be delivered!

New bed, bed frame, nightstands, dresser, chest of drawers, and sofa, loveseat, coffee table, and end table for the living room. Whew. That's why I haven't taken any pictures of the house yet, it doesn't seem to have any stuff in it!

My mom came to visit over the weekend; no one from my family had seen the house in person yet, so I was really happy she could come, and we just hung out for awhile and got Five Guys. Thanks, Mama!

Kyle and I also spent more time than we'd like to admit watching our new front-loading washing machine going around in circles... it's super exciting. Tonight, Kyle's mom is coming to visit and bring our puppy to her new home. I might be more excited for her than for us, she's been forced to do her business in a very small, overgrown yard for her whole life.

Other than that, the new house is kinda' paradise; we have pretty butterflies and birds in the morning, bunnies in the afternoon, and bats at night (don't knock 'em! I haven't been bit by a mosquito yet!). My commute to work is awful now, but since I'm almost done, I don't have to make the drive too many more times. I've also started playing with some new toys:

Say hello to my little friend! I got a Ninja!! These little things are badass! Go get one. I had berries frozen in the freezer, vanilla greek yogurt, and some chocolate syrup, and the Ninja made short work of it.

MMMMMMmmmmmmmm!! Healthy, and awesome. I'm not a huge fan of the gigantic seeds, but it was so good and so quick and easy to make, I overlooked them as I scarfed this down. Oh, and look forward to strawberry recipes; we're going strawberry picking this weekend!! Yay!!! I love strawberries!! I love strawberry picking!!! I'M SO EXCITED!!

So, the furniture guys should be here soon, and I've gone on long enough anyway. With thesis writing and home making, I'll be sporadic, but I promise I won't abandon you!!