Hey, that's my house!

Yep, there it is!  And you can see it yourself on HOTPADS where it is currently up for rent.

There is something eerie about seeing a house that you re modeled, brought home your first child, bought for the first time, had holidays in, threw parties in, etc up for grabs on the internet with all the other houses.  No pictures could possibly reflect the pain that went into painting over wallpaper and the refreshing sense of pride I got every time I looked at the completed dining room.  You wouldn't know that my husband spent most of December tearing up and putting back in the bathroom floor while I desperately tried to make an old bathroom look as modern as possible.  No one can tell that I bought 47 different kitchen knobs in an effort to de-flower a kitchen that was covered in flowers.  Or how peaceful I was waking up knowing that I could walk to the ocean with my dog and be there in less than 10 minutes.  Or how safe I felt knowing the old couple across the street was keeping a protective watch on everything.

Anyway, I can't write more, or I'll cry on my keyboard.  I just hope we get some great people living there!

Sweet Hotel Living

Greetings from the Dirty South: Alabama!  I'm here for NINE WEEKS for an Air Force School, and while the temperatures outside might be enough to make you cry, the digs are pretty great.  Here's my new pad.

Itty Bitty Kitchen

This is the little kitchen that comes with all the dishes you need, plus a stovetop and a fridge.  I THINK there's a garbage disposal as well.  The downside is no oven, which I find I use a lot of as I learn to cook, but that's ok.  The single server coffee is pretty sweet.

Comfy-ish

My living room consist of this little love seat, desk, flat screen, and nice big window.

Bedroom with a nice cushy bed and...another tv!  Mr. Move-a-Lot will NOT let me put a TV in our room, for good reason.  I watched TV last night and stayed up way too late.  Lesson learned.  Well, probably not learned.  More like "Lesson realized."

Walk in closet?  Yes, please.

Here's some of my favorite (and not so favorite) design things already in the room.

I love this square lamp and the lines carved out of the base.  It reminds me of those stones in The Fifth Element.  I feel like saying "MULTIPASS" every time I look at it.  I am digging the rectangle lampshade that dares to be longer than it is tall.  There's a tall one in the living room and a small one in the bedroom

These curtains are nice and shimmery and have a slight blue/tan/brown palette that doesn't yell at you, but subtly suggests some color.

I love this brown blanket - sleek and shiny.

What am I NOT ok with?  All the pictures of jets.  I get it, it's the Air Force, but come on, I'm not even a pilot!  Planes planes everywhere.

I haven't put a lot of personal touches, because I'm still in a "neato it's a hotel!" phase.  Which, by the way, the BEST part is that I have a maid come and clean up after me.  FOR NINE WEEKS.  Heaven.  I did put some picture of the Move-a-Lot families out and about.

My only real personal touches as of yet.

So, any recommendations for making this place more homey over the next nine week?  I'm thinking of putting something OVER the pictures, like a gauzy scarf or something.....any more ideas?

A Yankee moves South

Since I've been in my new place for one month, I figure it's time to move-a-long.  Yes, this Move-a-lot is headed to the Dirty South for 9 weeks while I do some Air Force training at Maxwell Air Force Base.

So, what to take to make myself feel at home?  One the list:

• A plant
• lots of pictures of Mr. and Baby Move-a-Lot
• My own comforter and pillow
• My little bowl that holds my wedding ring because I'm terrified to wear it when I wash my hands or shower
• My laptop (of course!)

 What else should I take?  What would YOU take?

Moving Right Along

Our new townhouse!

The worst thing about being a Move-a-lot?  The actual moving.  Sure, the packing sucks, the cleaning sucks, and trying to renovate a 111-year old house at the last minute REALLY sucks.  But I also hate the driving, the physical act of moving me, a baby, two cats, a dog, and, oh yeah, a husband from one state through many more states to another state.  This trip didn’t fail to provide endless amounts of what is now entertainment, but at the time was not-so-funny.

The plan: leave Boston Wednesday morning, stay overnight in Philly, get to new townhouse nice and fresh early Thursday afternoon.

The reality: We left late Saturday afternoon, around 4, after throwing in a whirlwind of last minute DIY projects involving our house.  No worries, we’ll get to the other side of New York (a 4-hour trip) and just stop at a Motel 6 (pet-friendly!) for the night and make a longer journey the next day.  Easy breezy.

Except our 4-hour trip to New York found us, 7 hours later, driving through what I imagine is Spanish Harlem in a two car + UHaul caravan, completely lost.  I managed to stay in good spirits, however, as I decided it was an excellent opportunity to turn myself into an aggressive driver as I cut off taxis and yelled profanities along with the best of them.  Completely exhausted, we just wanted to get to our stopping point, so once we were out of there, we called the Motel 6 to find that they were all booked (holiday weekend) and that the only one available was even further away.  What can ya do?  We plodded on.

Then, we were driving along in our slow little train and an SUV gets between my husband and U-Haul and myself, apparently drafting off of my husband.  Sadly, I had used up my cell phone battery completely, so I had no way of communicating with Mr. Move-a-Lot.  I noticed that I was decreasing my speed, and figured that he was slowing down so this SUV would get tired of drafting and just go around.  Pretty soon we were going 40 in a 55 and SUV was happy to oblige our slower speed.  I couldn’t really see Mr. Move-a-Lot, but the SUV put on his blinker to exit, and just when I was saying “Thank Goodness”, I noticed Mr. Move-a-Lot was exiting as well.  In fact, the SUV followed my husband off the exit, turn right with him, and followed him onto a dark off-road next to a closed lumber factory of some sort.  Mr. M pulled into the factory and this SUV pulled off the road.  The driver got out and opened what appeared to be his trunk, hood, and doors and just stood next to his car staring at my husband and I (I pulled up behind Mr. M.).  Hubby gets out of his car and comes to my window with a map.  I immediately say “Who the F is this guy?” and Mr. M says he doesn’t know and tries to show me something on a map.  Well, I wasn’t so much in the mood to get murdered or held up, so I told him to put the stupid map away, get in his car and high tail it out of there, which he did.  For the next 20 minutes, I came up with various scenarios as to what was going on.  He was probably a sex trafficker and thought Jon had child prostitutes in his U-Haul and was waiting for a hand off.  I probably should have gotten his license plate and called him in and then I would be a big freakin’ hero.  But, I was tired, hungry, and had a baby and a zoo in my car, so we just drove on.  A bit disarming, though.

So, at 2:30 we rolled into the junkiest Motel 6 you’ve ever seen, but, hey, they take pets and we have them, so who cares?  Three trips into the dirty hotel room later, we are ready to completely pass out when Baby Move-a-Lot announces he’s quite well-rested and in need of food and entertainment.  No problem, a bottle of formula will zonk him out.  Oh wait, there’s no more formula in the diaper bag?  It’s packed somewhere in our U-Haul you say?  There’s no shutting this kid up without formula?  FANTASTIC.  At 4:30 in the morning, as Mr. M and I have passed the 22 hour mark for being awake, Baby M decides he’s ready to snooze.  How kind of the young prince.  We completely pass out amidst a set of freaked out dog and cats.

Thankfully the next day was uneventful.  It took some work to pull the cats out from under the Motel 6 bed (and who wants to go around digging under a Motel 6 bed?).  But, a few short hours later we pulled into the parking lot of our townhouse in Alexandria.  The smell of new carpet greeting us, not to mention the smell of 90 degree humid weather, as we happily carried in our things, all laid down on the floor, and took a nap.

What’s YOUR funnest (worst) moving experience?

Thinking Inside the Box

Moving = lots of empty boxes = temporary playpens.

Gearing up for the Capitol

Umm...is Washington, DC "capital" or "capitol"?  Too much Real Housewives and not enough CSPAN for me, I suppose.

EIGHT days until we roll out of Boston for good.  Time to stop living in denial and start getting excited for DC.  To make myself feel better, I started practicing using the letter "R" more and surfed around Etsy to find the cutest DC-related things I could.  It's important when you're a Move-a-lot to psych yourself up for your new town.

Enjoy!

Goodbye Boston "T", hello DC Metro!  $49.99 from qacreate on Etsy

I love vintage maps and posters! $30.00 from Imagerich on Etsy.

Does this scream "tourist!" $32.00 from VintageHotCake on Etsy.

Mmmm...cherry blossoms.  $5.50 from LippincotSoapCo. on Etsy

Are these metro stops?  So many new places to learn!  $119.00 from WestEggStudio on Etsy.

Our Life at the Moment

Sorry for such a pathetic lack of updates, but we've had movers and packers in our house all week.  Which means we have to divide things, supervise, make sure pets don't escape (had a close call once!), all while continuing our de-leading work.

Off for the weekend to go to a wedding, but more posts coming!