Completely Unpacked!

It didn't happen as soon as I would have hoped, but I'm happy to report that it's now official.

The last remaining box, despite its best efforts to blend in with the surroundings, has been taken down. The scene was pretty gruesome with plastic bags and packing paper scattered everywhere. As usual, my timing was spot on, as I had made the mess minutes before the first visitor to our humble abode (not counting the weekend we moved) announced his arrival. Time to clean-up properly was nowhere to be found. He was kind enough not to mention it.

All has now been properly picked up and stowed away, so I guess it's safe to say that we're as fully settled into our apartment as we're going to be.

Hooray for a big check-mark off the list!

Another Day, Another Box

We've made significant progress regarding our relocation to AZ, not the least of which included making it here in one piece. The 17 hour drive was more beautiful than I'd expected, replacing recollections of the 8 hours of misery experienced driving down to Albuquerque a few years back. I suspect traveling in blackness with heavy rain lashing at the windshield didn't help, although I didn't remember that crucial bit of information until my husband mentioned it.

Way better than Kansas. Red rocks and smoke stacks featured in programs my brother watches beat dusty nothingness any day.

Many thanks to the one and only C of J for his help, both in the unloading of the U-Haul and the astute discovery of the option to hire movers to unload your U-Haul for you. Something worth checking out next time as our belongings, now officially in three places across the country, will no doubt multiply.

The apartment affords more storage than we've ever had (besides parental abodes), and after living in a bread box overseas, it's accommodations are positively HUGE. It's our hope that we'll be completely unpacked by the time Monday dawns... and classes begin.

We're students again! And this time, we're not compelled to take those general education courses that typically round out an undergraduate degree but hold little interest beyond keeping the GPA up. I've even gone and secured my first override of the year.

Here's looking forward to 2008.

First Meal

Last Thursday heralded the triumphant return of yours truly to the kitchen to prepare a meal that delights the senses and makes use of that fabulous appliance known as the oven, which just barely beats out the Kitchen Aid for the title of "most missed cooking implement".

Tried a few new things, including using fresh tomatoes that pushed prep time to new heights thanks to the diminutive size of the fruits of the garden and peeling the skins off (oddly satisfying in its own way), getting more than a little splattered on the light blue shirt I was so intelligently wearing without any protection while simmering the sauce, and whipping up something unusual to dress the salad with.

Many things remained the same, due to the core recipe graciously shared by my mother-in-law being so dang delicious in and of itself, and the undeniable truth that homemade lasagna is, quite simply, fabulous.

Warm fuzzy feelings were had watching everything disappear quite rapidly, seeing the bliss on my husband's face, and knowing that my brother had made a special point of coming home from his college apartment just to partake of my cooking.

Best of all was the glow of certainty that I'm not so bad at this whole cooking thing and that it can actually be fun, something almost forgotten amid the frustrations of few implements and non-existent workspace in a land far, far away.