where i've been

Hi! I haven't yet disappeared from the face of the planet, but I apologize if it has seemed like I did. There have actually been blog-able things happening in the past few weeks, but I never seemed to find the time to sit down and write about them. Sigh. Rather than rehash the minute details of everything, I'll give you the highlights, or I'll end up being hopelessly behind forever.

Since my last post...

I helped Diego move from one apartment to another. Many boxes were lifted. Many pieces of furniture were moved. Many things were thrown out. Many muscles were made sore. But my lovely boyfriend bought me an hour massage as a thank you :)

Diego and I went to Michigan for the wedding of one of his close friends. The interesting thing about this was that it was a Muslim wedding. Having never been to one before, I was quite interested to see what they're like. They're quite different from Christian weddings and may warrant a separate post in the future. For now, you can see the pictures here.

Stephanie came to visit for a week. It was wonderful having her here :) We did some of the touristy things around DC (Smithsonian, monuments, the zoo, Georgetown, and old town Alexandria) and then headed to the H'burg area so she could see where I live. We shopped for bridesmaid dresses, went to the Shakespeare Theater, and saw Monticello. Pictures will be forthcoming.

And...

I went back to work on Tuesday. Sigh. Poor me. However will I survive! But seriously, I was very spoiled having 3 months off, but I knew at the beginning that it wasn't a permanent thing. Still... it's a bit sad having to work full-time again. I'm planning to ask my supervisor if I can work from home on Fridays so I can make faster progress on the book. I'll let you know if he OKs that.

phases, or, i am completely predictable

With each new place I live, my transition to life in that new place goes through a series of phases or attitude adjustments. They go something like this:

1. Excited to explore new surroundings
2. Miss my old life and friends, but still positive about new place
3. Irritation towards everything in/related to the new life
4. Remind self that it takes time to adjust
5. Start counting down until the next move
6. Remind self that it takes time to adjust
7. Freak out completely - absolutely hate new place and would hitchhike back to old place (any old place, just pick one, anywhere would be better than here)
8. Begin plotting escape from new place
9. Start to feel more settled in new place, but continue plotting escape
10. Realize that life is not that awful in new place - consider not associating new place with hell or purgatory
11. Remind self that it takes time to adjust
12. Make moves towards accepting new life
13. Wonder when new place became home instead of that place I live and keep my stuff
14. Realize that I will miss this place when I leave
15. Can't imagine life anywhere else

The whole process takes about 18 months to complete. Right now I'm somewhere between 8 and 9. Now think about what it would be like to repeat this as many times as I've moved, and you may understand why I'm more than tired of starting over in new places.

home sweet new home

Per request, I'll tell you about my new place. I was mentally composing a post while I was driving back from Virginia on Thursday, but that post obviously never made it to the web. This will have to do instead.

Anyone who has ever searched for a new home in an unfamiliar place can tell you that it's exciting and discouraging at the same time. It's exciting because there's always the hope that you'll discover "the place" that has everything you'd been hoping to find in your new home, but it's equally discouraging because most places that you look at don't even come close to the place you've imagined for yourself & most of them are over-priced, not as clean as you'd like them to be, and/or in a quasi-ghetto neighborhood. Because of this, determination and time are key ingredients to finding a new home.

After looking at multiple apartments & townhouses that had more of the characteristics that make home hunting discouraging than anything else, I was beginning to consider the possibility of settling for a short-term lease in a less-than-desirable townhouse to give myself more time to find "the place." But then, I found it.

It is an apartment rather than a townhouse like I was hoping to find, but I'm totally OK with that. It's in a nice residential neighborhood where lots of doctors & lawyers & police officers live. The apartment complex is actually rated the safest apartment complex in Harrisonburg by the local police, which isn't too surprising considering that most of the tenants are professionals & JMU professors & cute, little 80-year-old ladies who bake brownies for their neighbors. And the rent is less than the rent would be at any of the other places I looked at & way more energy efficient.

The apartment itself is a 2nd story apartment, but it's neat because it has a 1st floor entrance. The way the building is set up, all the entrances are on the 1st floor. So you would enter the apartment on the ground level, where there's a coat closet & an interior, private staircase that leads up to the apartment itself. It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment with good-sized closets and a washer & dryer in-unit. Yay, no more need for quarters just to do my laundry. The kitchen's a little small, but the huge pantry makes up for the lack of kitchen space.

So that's my new place. I don't have any pictures for you at the moment, & for those of you who didn't know, I'm still in Bloomington for the next week & a half or so. If any of you feel like using up some of your cell phone minutes in the next couple weeks, I have plenty of free time from now until I move. The move-in date is still TBA, but once I have that finalized, I'll e-mail out my new contact information.

!!!

I found a new home for me :)

happy home hunting

My car is all loaded up with 19 boxes. Hopefully, I'm bringing enough so that what's left will fit in my car when I actually move. I'm trying to avoid having anything shipped. We'll see how well I do with that.

So tomorrow I hit the road again. This time I'm heading to Virginia. I'll be out there for a few days hunting for a new place to live & signing paperwork at JMU. Pray that I'll find something nice at a reasonable price. The sooner I find a place to live, the sooner I can come back to Bloomington and deal with all the odds & ends that come with moving.

moving on

Well, it's official. My blog has moved. If you're here reading this, you obviously got that memo. I'd like to propose a moment of silence for Upsaid, whom I've been with since the Nevada Project. After 2 years and 9 months of service, 601 entries, and 2,134 comments, it's time to move on.

testing

Well, Upsaid is going to make me pay again in a few weeks, so I thought I'd get a blog up and running on a new server so I can transition easier. How thoughtful of me, eh? (I'm pretending to be Canadian too).