after the move

We survived our move, and have been in our new home for about a week and a half. Thus far, things are going well. J. can walk to work, so he gets home an hour earlier than he used to, and E. hasn't had any meltdowns about being in a new place.

Most of our stuff is unpacked; I still have the sewing things to sort out, and none of our wall decorations are up yet. There are a couple random boxes in mine and J.'s bedroom whose contents we're not sure about.

Moving provides an interesting opportunity to get rid of things. We got rid of a lot of stuff before we moved, and then once we got the truck packed up, J. declared that we had too much junk and needed to get rid of more things. I've already made a couple trips to the thrift store to drop stuff off. We've given other things away, too. De-cluttering and organizing everything anew is a good process.

It helps that our new place doesn't have a giant storage closet like our old one did. Initially I wasn't too thrilled about that, but it means that things can't get lost in a black hole anymore. Instead of two bedroom closets, a large linen closet/hallway closet, a storage closet, and a storage alcove lined with shelves, we have a smaller linen closet, the two bedroom closets, and two tiny hallway closets (one of which is weirdly shallow and is a good space for the vacuum and broom). Oh, and the shelf over the washer and dryer (where all the cleaning supplies go).

The place as a whole is bigger, but part of that extra square footage is taken up with hallway space. E.'s room is slightly bigger than what she had in our place, but our room is slightly smaller. The kitchen and dining area is a better size, though. No dishwasher, but we're finding we keep the kitchen tidier without a dishwasher to make us lazy about it. Overall, we're quite happy with our new home.

We've done some exploring of the area. There are some lovely parks and trails nearby, and we're right in the downtown area of the city, so we are close to the library, grocery stores, produce store, and several bakeries. There's also a great gelato place. It's strange to be in a new town, but also rather lovely, too.