Christmas Tree 2015

We're a bit later than usual this year, but we finally have our tree up! It's another winner from the Lowe's parking lot, and I decorated this evening. Nice and slender, quite dense at the bottom this year.

And here are our new additions to the ornament collection this year! First, from Taiwan, the famous Jade Cabbage in the National Museum:

Our second addition is a quetzal made from felt from Costa Rica. We were so excited that we glimpsed the majestic bird in the Cloud Rainforest that we got this cute bird in the gift shop. This is a compromise between Dave and me: he loves souvenir shopping, and I am opposed to accumulating useless knickknacks. But Christmas ornaments, on the other hand, have a real purpose! So we try to get souvenirs we can hang on the tree.

I always love decorating the Christmas tree; less so, taking down the ornaments after New Year's (thanks for doing that for the past 35 years, Dad...). This year, I feel especially grateful for the opportunities we had to travel this year. I still can't believe I got to go to Taiwan and meet Dave's family, and our time in Costa Rica was quite magical. I'm sure there will be times ahead when we won't be able to go so far afield in search of new experiences, so I want to appreciate these moments now!

Dining area

We've finished unpacking all of our boxes and have made most of the furniture decisions for our new place. The last step (which probably should have been the first) is to paint! Dave has taken on this task himself. With the help of Lowe's and the friendly former owners of our unit, he's been making steady progress. The first room that's ready to show is our eating area, which we painted a blue (with gray undertones). We replaced the wall sconces and the chandelier with more modern fixtures. And there's no rug under the table now – not suitable for our most frequent, but rather young guests!

Here's how it looked before:

homeowners!

Life has been quite chaotic in the past few weeks, as Dave and I have been preparing for the purchase of our first home together! It's a 2-bedroom, 2-bath unit in a co-operative building across the street from where we were renting. We closed last week, moved in over the weekend, and now are sorting through the carnage. The closing was more dramatic than I would have liked: the office was only a 15 minute drive away, but my car wouldn't start when it was time to leave home to get there! Good thing Grace was home and didn't need her car...I hopped on my bike in my skirt-suit, pedaled like mad up to Grace's house, and borrowed her car! When I walked in, everyone looked anxious and/or stony-faced. I was afraid that everyone was annoyed that I was 15 minutes late, but it turns out that the seller hadn't brought the proper, original paperwork, and he wasn't sure if he even had it! The closing was almost off, when the original paperwork arrived via his real estate agent, and we had a deal! Phew.

Celebratory Shake Shack after the closing

The Sandblaster being towed to the mechanic's shop the next day

So now we are in our new home. Our old apartment was brand-new, light and airy, and bigger than we needed. Our new home is older and smaller, and boy do we have a lot of junk! I can't believe how much stuff we just put in closets or left in the garage, and now that we no longer have that kind of storage, it's all sitting in the living room! The good news is that now we have to be disciplined about going through the old stuff and discarding the useless junk.

We had been planning to move in a few days after the closing, giving ourselves time to sort and donate, pack up and organize. But then we were told that we couldn't move in on the day we had planned, because it was a holiday, and instead we moved in two days after closing. We hired two guys to help us with the heavy stuff for a few hours (worth every penny! check out movinghelp.com, which is a Uhaul service), and then spent the next three days moving in the rest of our stuff ourselves. I had thought that I was in pretty decent shape, but it turns out that I was in approximately 5% shape for moving. I can't remember the last time I felt so physically exhausted...it must've been the last time I actually had to exert myself physically...

Nearly everything made it to the new apartment, except our COUCH! It wouldn't fit in the elevator or up the stairs. Here it is, forlorn, returned to our garage after our failed attempts to get it into the new building:

It has found a happy new home, though: Stephen and Grace's basement! So we can go slouch on it and watch TV there. =)

Finally, here are a few pictures of the nearly empty place. I've never really invested in a decorating a place before and customizing it to suit me. It'll be interesting to see how this goes. I'll be documenting our progress as it goes!