After months of preparation we have finally arrived in our new city! Since I was accepted by one of the universities in this city for my dual masters degree we made the decision in April to move away from our home state and have a bit of a new adventure!
The morning we left started out very smoothly as we had all of our belongings ready to load once the moving trailer arrived at the house. We quickly and efficiently managed to get everything loaded in about an hour and a half. However, by the time we were at the end of the trailer we realized that we would have to choose to leave a few items behind. A vacuum, carpet cleaner, several paintings, laundry baskets, fan, and 4 pairs of my shoes were sacrificed for the cause. We made our final walk through the house, got gas, took out our snacks and headed out on our cross country drive. It was a smooth trip. The highlight for me was being passed on the highway by a group of about 9 Hell's Angel's motorcyclists. After reading about them in Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" when I was about 11 I guess I had assumed they weren't around anymore. Clearly my naivete got the better of me this time around.
Upon arriving in our new city after about a day and a half of driving we were welcomed with heavy rain... just what we didn't want to see for moving our furniture across the muddy lawn and into the freshly cleaned house. However, we figured out an efficient moving strategy to avoid tracking dirt around and were delighted around dusk to see fireflies!!! I did not realize that fireflies would be a component of our new home; I was expecting dinosaur sized mosquitoes! There is apparently a nice sized family of racoons living in the huge mulberry tree in our neighbors yard... a momma and her three or four babies. The raccoon poop I found under the tree yesterday afternoon was comparable to that of a Great Pyrenees.... That must be why my landlord left a large 'pooper-scooper' in the shed next to the gardening supplies.
After finally unpacking all of our boxes, putting everything in their proper places, and cleaning up our straggling cardboard nuggets which were left everywhere, we set out on an adventure throughout the city to find thrift stores with furniture for sale. We scored an awesome little table for our kitchen for only $45 but are still struggling to find a patio set for under $80 and a chair for a relatively similar price that is not in poor condition.... that is proving to be a bit onerous. Our landlord has been generous enough to let us borrow her couch as long as we need it but unfortunately it is quite used as well.
I have been toying with the idea of fashioning a slip cover for the couch and if it was to work out well I could potentially make a matching one for whatever nightmarish chair we could find for a good price but that would take a lot of sewing skill; something that as of now I do not possess. Honey Bear Lane has an awesome tutorial for such a task, so I'll see how it goes. First however we need to get the materials to sand down and paint our coffee table and side table and then find a solution for our kitchen table which is black. The chairs that go with it are a beautiful stained wood, very good quality and I would like if the table matched them but I'm not sure if we could find matching stain.
Tomorrow though we have to take the car to get checked and then drop off job applications. I don't start my job at the local bookstore until Friday so that gives me some time to start these projects, keep searching for cheap patio furniture, and look for a second job and/or scholarships. I can't wait to get started on the furniture projects. Once we get started I will be sure to post some photos!
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