Moving

We moved into our apartment on Wednesday morning and have been unpacking late into the night since then. It's hard to move apartments when I can barely move my body, so I should really say that RJ is doing the moving and I am doing the unpacking. It's a team effort.

I was going to post pictures of our apartment pre-stuff, and then during the move, and finish off with pictures of everything in its place...but I changed my mind. I really enjoyed doing that with our last move, but this time it just made me twitchy. So you'll all have to wait to see the final product.

We're almost completely moved into our living room and kitchen, and the baby's room is coming along nicely. We haven't actually put any baby things up, but I have been spending my time getting all the extras out of there and in there proper places, and organizing the closet. Baby will have to split the closet with our coats, my sewing stuff, and our sports equipment. Luckily our good friends pawned their dresser onto us to clear up some space in their closet, so Baby won't even really need the closet to hang clothes. I haven't even touched the bathroom yet, besides cleaning it the first day, and our room is halfway there. All of the boxes have been broken down, though, so really we're just working on finding a space for everything.

This apartment already feels more like home than our last place. I haven't really been able to put my finger on it yet, but I just feel better here. Maybe it's because we have all of our own stuff, or maybe it's because I was so sick of our last place, I'm not sure. Whatever the reason, though, I like it and I'll take it! Lola seems to like it more, too. She loves the carpet, and we have a big window in the living room that she just stares out of all day. She's still adjusting to the sounds of other people, but it's been good for everyone so far.

We did have some troubles moving in, though. We were supposed to get up here Tuesday around noon, but we had to stay in Salt Lake to help one of RJ's brothers and didn't end up getting into Rexburg until 10 pm. RJ's parents paid for a hotel room for us since he was helping family, and because we couldn't sign our lease that night. It felt weird to be in a hotel in Rexburg, but it was nice. Almost like a mini-vacation...almost. Our friend Joey was supposed to help us move on Tuesday, but Wednesday was the first day of classes and also his longest day, so he couldn't help us. RJ and I went to the storage unit in between his classes to load up the U-Haul, and when we got to our apartment he had to unload it himself. One of our new neighbors, thankfully, offered to help him, which was super amazing of him.

When we got into our apartment, though, I was horrified. The place was FILTHY. Seriously, it was awful and I felt gross being in it. I won't even go into details, let alone show the pictures RJ took. It was gross. The carpets were freshly cleaned and the walls repainted, but that was it. At this point it was about 3 pm, and I called the front office and told them what was wrong. They apologized and said the problem was because we were switched apartments at the last minute, and the one we moved into had been vacant for about 2 months so they hadn't sent someone to make sure it was clean. They promised that they would send someone over, so I waited, and I waited, and I waited. I couldn't unpack anything without it being cleaned, and I was NOT about to deep clean this new place when I spent so long cleaning our last rental. Finally at 5:30 I gave up waiting and started cleaning. I had to borrow a sponge from our neighbor because ours were packed somewhere in the abyss, and I broke out my duster, 409, and Fabuloso and got to work. I was even more disgusted with the previous tenants when I started cleaning, and my disgust got worse as I found out they had 2 kids living with them. Sick. I couldn't ever imagine living like that. At 6:30 someone from the office called, apologized, and asked if he could still come over to look at the place. I felt better when I saw the shock on his face as I pointed things out to him. He apologized again, but said that since the office was closed he couldn't come until 8 am the next morning. I was mad on the inside, but accepted it gracefully...because I didn't want to be the one to dig out the mold from the window sills.

But of course, I couldn't let it sit over night. No way. I felt disgusting being there, and I needed to take a shower. I filled up the tub with bleach, let it sit for 2 hours, and I attacked the kitchen. I will swear by the tropical scent of Fabuloso. It got up so much dirt and grime. Just to clue you in on how bad it was, I had to dump out a bucket of hot water because it was BLACK from cleaning one cabinet, a drawer, and the face of the oven. So gross. After cleaning the rest of the cabinets, washing out the tub, and vacuuming the floors, we were finally able to at least set up our bed and unpack a few small things. We had to take a break in between all this, though, because Whitney and Joey invited us over for dinner since they knew I was in no position to cook. It was fantastic.

By the time the manager came the next morning, all that was left to clean were the windows. RJ told me I should have left more for them, but I couldn't handle sleeping in the apartment like that. Even worse, I didn't want to wake up to the apartment like that.

Really though, I would have still followed the person cleaning with my own cleaning products, because I wouldn't have thought they did a good enough job anyway. Oh well.

Things have gotten better from there, though, and I'm still excited about being here. I'll make sure to post pictures when they're ready.