We've been spending most of our time trying to get unpacked and set up, but we've done little in the kitchen. You'd think a foodie such as myself would want to get the kitchen/pantry in order FIRST, but alas, it was not to be. I've been able to cobble together a couple of dinners already - Mike brought a ton of dried pasta and rice with him from his old apartment, and I brought a few things from mine as well - but I fear we are nearing the end of what we can do with what we've got on hand. It's time to shop. The list so far:

* canned tomatoes: diced (no salt added) and crushed
* canned beans: black, white and kidney
* pearl barley or quinoa
* arborio rice
* whole-grain bread and rolls
* McCann’s instant oatmeal (for workday mornings)
* jarred roasted red peppers
* nonpareil capers
* Kalamata olives
* salsa
* pine nuts
* walnuts
* canned chipotle peppers in adobo
* fresh and dried mushrooms
* prepared mushroom or beef stock
* fresh produce: mesclun, tomatoes, zucchini, string beans, carrots, celery, red and Spanish onions, garlic, shallots, lemons, limes, Granny Smith apples, seedless red grapes
* frozen produce: petite peas, corn, chopped spinach, brussels sprouts
* organic free-range chicken: skinless boneless breasts and a roaster
* organic sausages: andouille and chicken apple
* fresh and dried herbs and spices
* cheese: pecorino, fresh buffalo mozzarella, aged farmhouse cheddar, and goat

It amuses me that between the two of us, we had 4 bottles of hot sauce.

I've got a few more photos up... start at the end of page 2.

Okay. So we're moved in. We'll probably be living out of boxes for a while, but we're moved in. At last.

The move itself wasn't great, but are they ever? We could not have done it without the help of Kira, Christopher and Pat, and in particular David, who offered to help us even though we only knew him through our online forums!

We started out early on Saturday; I met Mike over at the truck rental place on Smith Street, and we discovered that though we had reserved a cargo van, they didn't have any available... we were given a 10 ft. truck instead, which ended up being a blessing. But more on that later. From there we went to Mike's place, grabbed a quick bite to eat, then got underway. We were lucky in that we started early enough to grab a parking spot right out front. Mike, Christopher and Pat started ferrying down boxes, David joined us shortly after we started, and I manned the truck, feeding the meter, arranging the stacks inside, and basically making sure none of our stuff walked off. We actually did pretty well, getting the majority of stuff on the truck in just a couple of hours... but the problem was, we filled that 10 ft. truck with Mike's things, and there was no room left for any of my stuff!

We had arranged for movers to meet us at our new place at 4 to unload, so I suggested that we drive the truck there on the way to my place and unload at least some of the contents from the back of the truck; I had much less stuff than Mike (thanks to the Great Purge of 6 months ago), so I figured it would all fit with no problem and we could get back to the new place in time for our movers. Things did not work quite according to plan, of course.

We unloaded stuff at the new place in record time, then headed over to my place to gather up the kitties and load up my stuff. Kira met us over there, and things went fairly quickly... but the cats were pretty upset with all of the commotion, which freaked me out, and we had to re-pack some of my things to condense them enough to get on the truck... it was just a lot to deal with. And of course, as luck would have it, we weren't quite able to fit everything on the truck... but we had to get over to the new place in a hurry. Adding to the craziness was the fact that my housemate had planned to paint her living room that day, so we couldn't leave anything in my old room - she didn't want us to be tracking back and forth through the living room while she was painting. Now, if you've ever seen the townhouses in that area, you know that there's usually a little area just down from the street level where there's a separate entrance to the downstairs. So we ended up putting all of the stuff we couldn't fit on the truck down there, and praying that our good weather held up (and that my TV, computer, etc. didn't walk off!).