AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARG!

'nuff said.

the leaves are finally falling

fall's come to d.c. at last.
temperatures have fallen, and i am officially in sweater weather.
i absolutely adore sweater weather. a warm fuzzy turtleneck sweater, comfy pants, a cup of hot cocoa... it's simply a divine experience.

so funny!

found this on john's blog:

a big update

well, the craziness is finally settling down.
the week before the move was madness: paul's graduation party, a couple of last-minute trips into d.c. in a span of three days, packing, cleaning, goodbyes, and all those annoying administrative crap you have to cover before you permanently leave an area.

thanks to help from family, our moving truck is finally unloaded into our new apartment in rockville, md. it's a cute one-bedroom in an immaculate apartment community. as far as square footage is concerned, this new apartment is as big as our old one in ithaca. i think the layout is much better, and it gives us all the amenities we wished for: a dishwasher, washer and dryer, and a fireplace. i'm super excited to live in a real grown-up place with grown-up things. we rushed out and bought a new couch, and now we're making room for all of our wedding china and some of the other wedding presents we'd left behind at paul's parents' place.
we're also in the market for old gems at auctions and flea markets. paul's dad loves to go collect old things, so he's already on the lookout for a few things for us.

paul's already started his job at the NIH. he says this new job gives him the freedom of an academic postdoc without any money concerns. i guess that's the beauty of working for the government. he's met a graduate student in our age group, and i can't wait to meet him and his wife. we already have a handful of friends in the area, but i'm hoping we'll meet a new group of friends as well. i have to admit, i'm going to miss the built-in social circle my old job provided me. but the nice thing about this area is that there is a TON to do, all for free (yay government!). i'm hoping paul will be free enough to take advantage of them. maybe then we won't feel the void of having so many of our friends far away from us.

as for me, i'm taking a week or so off from the job search to get settled into the new apartment. i figure i should take advantage of time while i have it. i know that once i start working, all the boxes will stay packed.

anyway, i'll post pics of the apartment once things are unpacked and put in their right place.

hello maryland

i'm connected back to the internet, and i am now the proud owner of a maryland address.

hello new life.

you know you're almost done packing when...

i convinced my brother to take 3 boxes of canned and dry goods out of my pantry.
i have no plates and flatware, except for the disposable kind in my kitchen.
the xbox is disconnected and packed up.
the kitchenaid, the cuisinart, the crock pot, and the blender are in boxes.
but most importantly, ALL the wine and liquor are packed up, taped, and stacked with the other boxes.

holy cow.
i'm moving!

my stress level is indirectly proportional to my nail length

my beautifully groomed manicured nails are now little tiny stubs at the ends of my fingers... which means we're definitely in the final stretch before our big move!

i'm down to the last two weeks before our move away from ithaca, but i'm booked up so solid with obligations that i only have 3 full days of packing left before the truck arrives.
lucky for me, we're packing the truck and driving it down to maryland ourselves (yes - we'll be living on the maryland side), so i think if it comes down to a crunch, i'll have an additional half day.
when we initially discussed moving options, i had campaigned pretty hard core for movers. when i saw that a truck rental would cost me about 1/6 of the price of movers, i threw in the towel. can't really argue with that when working on a budget, i guess.

oh well.
maybe next time.

now we won't be homeless bums

we found an apartment!
yay!

oh yeah.
and paul's a doctor!
double yay!