Moving In

The movers finally arrived in Florida with our belongings on December 14, eleven days after they took our things out of our apartment in Hoboken. That was a long time to be without our own stuff, let me tell you.

The monstrous truck arrived in the morning, and Eric took charge of taking inventory of everything as it was unloaded. I stayed inside the house and directed traffic while keeping the baby as happy as possible. Achilles was in charge of licking the sliding glass door.

Giant truck in the culdesac

Eric keeping track of things as they come in

Huge inventory of all our stuff

Moving our stuff in to the living room

Keeping herself occupied on the other side of the house

I have no explanation for this.

Everything went pretty well. It was kind of a long morning, but that's to be expected. As far as we could tell, everything was accounted for and my organizational system seemed to work pretty nicely. You see, we're living with my dad during our time in St. Petersburg, which meant much of our stuff needed to be stored in his garage rather than unpacked in the house due to space constraints. That meant packing to move had to be a very thoughtful process. For each box, we had to decide whether it would be an "unpack in St. Pete" box or a "store for Jacksonville" box. I labeled all the "unpack" boxes with pink packing tape, so we could easily see those should be brought inside the house. Other boxes were labeled with blue tape, and these were boxes that should not be fully unpacked, but should remain accessible in storage so we could get at them as needed (this includes things such as my craft supplies, sporting equipment, etc. - things that we may want, but don't need to have immediate, ready access to). Any non-colorful boxes could be buried in the garage, not to be unpacked until we get to Jacksonville. I think, for the most part, this plan worked really well. Our biggest problem was boxes packed by our movers. They packed up all electronics, pictures, shelves, etc., but their boxes were not colorfully taped (nor well labeled). So, when we arrived in Florida we had to do quite a bit of digging for those things and some have yet to be found. Ah well. For the most part, it went so well, so we can't complain.

My dad has really done his best to make us feel at home here, and to make it as much like our own home as possible. First, we had this greeting waiting for us upon our arrival:

Happy welcome signage in the front window

In addition, our setup in his house has really been as ideal as we could have asked for. The house is essentially two "wings": at the front of the house is the living room (right when you walk in the front door) and then a small hallway to the left where there are two bedrooms and a bathroom. The kitchen is at the center of the house, and then at the back of the house is the master bedroom/bath and family room. The furniture was almost all cleared out of the front living room, so we were able to set up our own living room furniture there. Eric and I are sleeping in my old bedroom, and Ellie is sleeping in my sister's old bedroom (now my dad's office) across the hall. So we essentially have the front of the house to ourselves to make our own with our own things, which has been nice. It was especially nice being able to put up our own Christmas tree for the holidays.

Allow me to show you around our "wing" a little bit!

First, the living room:

In this picture, I am standing at the entrance to the living room from the kitchen looking back towards the front of the house. The front door is to the right of the grandfather clock. Obviously, the piano is a piece of my dad's furniture that has stayed put, as is that clock. Other than that, almost everything is our own. Our couch fits nicely in the front window, and we traded in our Pointy-Edged Coffee Table of Death for a padded bench for a while, for the sake of the wobbly little one who loves to pull herself up on things.

Here is another view, from the far side of the room. The picture above the piano is a new family photo canvas we just ordered. I like it!

This the view from the corner where the TV is, looking back towards the front door. Also, there's Achilles. He is a fan of the big front window.

One last look, at the wall opposite the couch. We have our desk (not pictured, but it is now sporting a brand new iMac, HIP HIP HOORAY), Ellie's Jumperoo (soon to be packed away, which I can hardly stand) and our TV with Ellie's toys stored beneath it. It works.

Our room is largely similar to how my dad had it before we took over his house:

We kept most of his furniture in there, and only added the two of our own pieces: the dresser in the corner and the cabinet in front of the big window. Everything else stayed put.

I think that's my sister's really old TV from when she lived in this room a couple years ago. We haven't used it yet. The closet on the left there is where I used to hang my Leonardo DiCaprio posters back in my days in this room.

This is the wall opposite the large window, right by the door (the door is just to the right, out of the picture). We have Achilles' corner on the left, oh-so-beautifully lined with boxes in an attempt to protect the walls from his craziness. The bookshelf is being used for miscellaneous storage, and the desk is something I am desperately trying to keep from being a huge mess of a dumping ground.

As for Ellie, her space is probably the most personalized:

This is what you see as you walk into the room. She has the back half of the room for all her stuff, and I couldn't help but hang her new You Are My Sunshine art at the entrance to the room.

A better look from inside the room: her changing table is on the left, a bookshelf for her ever-growing library, her crib and the glider.

This isn't the greatest picture, and someday I'll probably share something better, but this is the new artwork we bought from an artist in Union Square for Ellie's room. Each painting is a New York City landmark (Chrysler Building, Statue of Liberty, Brooklyn Bridge) peeking through the clouds, with whimsical kids floating by on umbrellas or balloons or what have you. We just fell in love with them, and I think they are a perfect whimsical reminder of the Big Apple in her nursery. (If you're interested, the artist is Edie Art and she can be found on Etsy.)

This is the far side of Ellie's room, with her dresser/changing table, various storage bins, and her bookshelf.

A better look at Ellie's library and diaper changing station. It's all very organized!

Moving Ellie to "her own room" was a big thing for me. I still miss having her sleeping in our room sometimes, although I know Eric and I (at least) are sleeping better now that we don't have to worry so much about waking her up every time we breathe too loudly or roll over with too much gusto.

However, even though Ellie is no longer in our room, the room isn't quite fully hers - it still doubles as my dad's office.

So far, at least as far as I can tell, that has worked out pretty well and hasn't been much of a problem at all. Someday, though, I want Ellie to have a room that is just hers!

As for the rest of the stuff, take a little peek into my dad's garage:

It's a jungle out there, but hey, everything fits!

So that's our home for the next few months. Not bad, right? It really has been working out well so far, although I do miss having some of our own stuff to use. It will be nice to settle into our own place in Jacksonville this summer, but for now, this will do nicely. We have our own rooms, we can sit on our own couch, and Ellie and Achilles have far more room to roam here than they did in Hoboken. I think it's good.

And now that we're all unpacked and settled in, we can start anticipating packing it all back up and doing this dance all over again in a few months! Hooray!