“The Big Move”… I am so overly, unnecessarily dramatic 😉 But, in all actuality, it was a pretty big move for me. Even though I am very independent and am not one of those people to always need someone around to go shopping with, watch TV with, workout with, etc. etc., I have never lived alone (although for the past year or so, I’ve wanted to! No offense, Danielle or Amy, but at 28 it was just time to have my own place and no roommates), so this was a big step!

I started my search in May or June (I think), and found my new apartment basically right away. My landlord is awesome and we got along great right from the start, so it just felt right to sign the papers, not to mention it was a super affordable 1-bedroom apartment!

This pretty much sealed the deal that I made the right choice! I can be won over by wine.

So, Saturday morning, Sue and Al (aka mom and dad) packed up the truck with my couch and other various things I needed from home and came down to help me move.

It didn’t take Danielle long to figure out what she was going to do to help us

assume position and start barking orders. Just kidding! She was actually very helpful for the entire day and in no time at all, we had the first load ready

I breathed a huge sigh of relief when my parents immediately started gushing at my new place. My only issue with the apartment is that it is basement level and although the ground is at a slant and my bedroom has 2 full size windows, I was just having a hard time accepting the fact that I was on ground level. Walking in with my parents and sister and having them all talk about how it didn’t seem like it was basement level, made me feel great (even if they were saying it just to make me feel better).

Kitchen and living room

Bedroom- see? It’s bright!

I put mom to work with getting my kitchen in order while I finished bringing in load after load after load of my stuff. Once everything was in from the first load, it was time to pop the bubbly!

What I really love about my place is the back patio! I can’t wait to have little BBQ’s and little gatherings out there. It didn’t take dad long to break the patio in!

We finally got lunch around 2 or 3 and I didn’t take a picture because I was way too hungry. Between teaching cardio kickboxing in the morning and doing heavy lifting/moving for another 3+ hours, I needed food in a bad way. Once we finished eating, my sister left to go to a friend’s house and mom, dad and I went to Home Depot and Target.

 

Once we got the vast majority of things on my list (at the time… my list seems to continuously grow as the days go on. yikes!), we dropped dad off at my old apartment and mom and I went back to my new apartment to unload some more things. I was obsessed with getting my bathroom set up- weird, right?! I also put together shelves and mom unpacked and set up other random things.

By 7:15, we were absolutely beat and decided to head back to Somerville for the night (it was easier to stay there since there was more room)… but not without picking up Chinese food for dinner. Yes, you read that correctly: we had Chinese take-out on Saturday night. I haven’t had Chinese food in probably 3 years!! Totally worth it, though… I was famished and it absolutely hit the spot.

I crashed pretty hard on Saturday night and before I knew it, it was time to get up and start all over again on Sunday! While mom was at church, Dad and I packed up the rest of the things in my apartment: bed, bureau and all my clothes/shoes/food/etc. Gosh, I was dripping in sweat within minutes! Moving is seriously NO JOKE. Great workout!

It was definitely bittersweet leaving my old apartment knowing that I had everything packed up (ok, almost everything- I realized later that I forgot all of my jackets in the coat closet there, but no biggie since the girls are staying there this year!). But that feeling went away as soon as I had everything in my new apartment and started making it feel more like home.

We broke around 1 to go have a birthday lunch for my parents at Joe’s American Bar and Grill in the North End. The purpose for going there was to have brunch on the water, but long story short, we ended up inside. I’ve always enjoyed the food there even though it’s a chain restaurant, but this past experience was horrible!!! From the food to the service, everything was awful! Well, except for this drink

Now THAT was good!

After lunch, I was feeling like it was time for some “Monique alone time”, so I sent my parents and my sister off so I could be in my apartment alone to putter and try to organize my life! I washed things that didn’t need to be washed and moved things from one place to the next and then back to the original place. I finally decided it was time to get out and grocery shop and pick up a few more things at TJ Maxx and Target.

My trip to Market Basket was rather large, but I think I spent half what I would’ve spent had I gone elsewhere! I love that store 🙂

I also bought myself flowers because, well, sometimes you just need flowers 🙂

Again, I didn’t stop until about 10pm on Sunday, but it was nice knowing that I’d be working from home on Monday (Comcast was coming so I wanted to be around for that!). Besides work on Monday, I was able to get some things done around my apartment, go to BodyPump after work (holy moly… I lifted heavy and was rather sore on Tuesday!! I secretly loved it 😉 ) and then hit up the Christmas Tree Shop for a few things. I also made my first “dinner” at my new place. Nothing fancy, but I’m loving my new pots and pans!

I made my first commute to work on Tuesday from my new apartment and was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was!! My old commute was a short walk to the bus, a bus ride to the T, taking the T 4 or 5 stops into the city and then walking about 15 minutes to the office. Phew! My new commute is an 8 minute walk to the T, 2 stops into the city and a 12 minute walk to work- amazing!! 🙂

When I got home, I went for a 3.5 mile run around my new neighborhood. There is a REALLY nice park with all sorts of paved trails a half mile from my house which I see myself taking advantage of during my time here!

By the time I got home from work last night, I was utterly exhausted! I ended up subbing the class before mine and I found myself having no energy to teach which never happens. I took that as a sign and did the low-impact version of the workouts. Thankfully I had leftovers for dinner, otherwise my dinner likely would’ve looked like this:

My friend, Tim, texted me that and I thought it was perfect timing! Mom, he thought you’d get a kick out of it, too.

Even though I’m not completely settled in, I feel like I’m getting there, bit by bit! Luckily I don’t have any big plans this weekend so I’ll have time to finish up even more!

Questions for you: When is the last time you moved? What’s the first thing you like to set up in your new apartment? How long is your commute to work?