Actually, this is what you’d see if you walked into my apartment after dark. Those are black out windows, but they aren’t that good at blacking out the sunlight. They’re saving me money, though blocking out the bright sunlight and heat when I’m not here!

Continuing to walk into the dining room…

See my house plant! And the wall opposite the window:

You may have noticed a theme…first “Kindness” above, and then “Goodness” and “Patience” here. I have all 9 fruits of the Spirit somewhere in my apartment. I love how they’re a reminder of the work that God is working in me.

And then continuing into the kitchen. I don’t know why this picture looks like this, though perhaps it’s the light. I don’t like florescent lights, and this one is extra annoying as it has a bit of a strobe effect.

Through that door is the balcony and my garden, (appropriately labelled!). Both front and back doors have storm doors, and the back door even has a screen on it, so when it gets cool enough, I can open all the windows wide and have good air flow through the apartment.

Walking back into the living room, you see my new couch and my favorite pillows!

Then turning to the right, heading to the bedroom. You see this from the couch:

The stand fan is great, as there is no ceiling fan in the living room. I keep the apartment warm but it doesn’t feel too bad with the fans.

Behind those privacy doors is the bathroom to the left. I had thought I would just reuse my bathroom set from a few years ago, but when I pulled it out of the box, I realized that it wasn’t in as good a condition as I remembered. The rugs were two different shades, and the towels and shower curtain had bleach spots. Every time I glanced at the bathroom, I cringed. So I allowed myself to get this set that I had my eye on:

I didn’t put any of the fruits of the Spirit in the bathroom, because I felt that would put an unwelcome connotation to them. “Patience” and “goodness” take on a different meaning when put over a toilet…

If you go right instead of left after the privacy doors, you’ll enter my bedroom. But before entering the bedroom proper, you pass this vanity on the left and my huge walk-in closet on the right (it’s at least 8 feet deep).

And finally, into my bedroom. In the top left corner, notice you see a little hook (or you just see a dot, but that is a hook). That’s one of the two permanent hooks in the wall for my temporary clothesline. The line attaches with carabiners, and I can put it up just when I need it. I don’t have laundry hookups within the apartment, and I’m not about to pay to dry my laundry! Even when I had free laundry facilities, I considered coming up with an alternative option for drying my clothes. For less than $5, I put together this clothesline.

“Gentleness” was not my first choice for over the bed, but I thought “patience” might have been a little too obvious when put over my single bed…

I plan on making a headboard for my bed. I’ve never had one before, and I think it’ll add needed interest to my bedroom. Not that I spend much time in my bedroom other than sleeping anymore, as I read in my living room!

I absolutely love my apartment. At 660 square feet, it’s more than enough space for me, and actually feels spacious. I look forward to spending more time here and having others over!

But this was probably the quickest and smoothest move of all.

Thursday evening: I sealed the last of my boxes. That’s just me: getting everything done 36 hours before the move. But I also had a big to-do list for Friday, so I was making my life easier.

Friday morning: I headed out to the apartment complex. When I walked in and told them I was ready to move in, I got blank looks.

Never good.

It took her a couple of moments, but the rental manager finally remembered that I was to move in that day, and she just wasn’t quite ready for me. Fifteen minutes later, I had signed my lease and received the 50-page handbook the keys to my very own place.

As I put the key in my door and opened it for the first time, this is what I saw:

See that? I have built-in bookcases!

I had been in an apartment with the same layout as mine, but it didn’t have those bookcases, but an archway leading into the dining room instead. This is much more open, plus provides me a cute place to stash my DVDs and some of my books.

After checking to make sure that I could fit all my plants on my balcony (a point over which I had been spending way too much time worrying!), I headed out to shop. And shop. And shop.

I ended up going to two different Targets, Lowe’s twice, and to Walmart 3 times. And I didn’t even have time to go to Aldi like I planned!  The rest of Friday was spent hanging curtains and trying to put as much of my shopping away as possible.

Saturday morning: The official move started at 9. Since I didn’t have any large furniture, I didn’t worry about renting a truck. We loaded everything in a few of my friends’ vehicles, and were on our way to the new place before 10 AM. By 10:30, everything was inside my apartment. That’s what I call a fast move!

Once everything was inside, the ladies took no time to rest, but immediately started unpacking my kitchen, linens, and books. Thanks to their help, I had the living room and kitchen completely put together by the end of Saturday and only had 4 boxes left to unpack.

Sunday: After church, I borrowed a friend’s son and another friend’s husband and pickup to make the big haul: my garden. If my plants still looked like this, it wouldn’t be so bad. But two months of water, sun, and Miracle Gro have made a big difference. Thankfully the guys were wonderful and took to the task, only losing a few of the 50 or so green tomatoes I currently had on the vine. So here is my garden in its new home:

We leaned the tomatoes against the apartment as they’re so top heavy, and I put the cucumbers in the front. They all look a bit pathetic in this picture, as I did not water them until after moving them. You can’t see my dying cilantro (I’m trying to coax it back into the land of the living) or the lettuce, as I recently cut it all, since it went to seed. Not sure when I’m going to try to plant some more…it’s really hot right now!

So that’s where I am in my move. I have 3 boxes left to put away, which won’t take much work. I have several projects that I want to do around the place, but I’ll take pictures and show you guys around before I get everything done, as that might be a while!

The *official* move isn’t until tomorrow, so I still have 1 more night in the house. But today I get the keys to the new place, and get to do a ton of shopping.

I’ve found a few things here or there that I’ve already gotten, but mostly I saved up the shopping for today. In part because I didn’t want to bring the stuff into the old place just to move it to the new, and in part because I’m taking advantage of extra savings. I have a Target debit card, which gives me 5% off everything, but I also earned an extra 5% off of one day’s shopping. Score!

I’ve spent a lot of time really figuring out what I want to spend my limited budget on and where I’m willing to scrimp so I can get what I really want somewhere else. I want to make this as homey, yet minimalist as possible.

I’m really excited to show you all the finished project! It might take a few weeks to get there, but I will.

But somehow, in the cleaning out, I once again made it all about the “stuff.” I was spending WAY too much time thinking about what I could live without, even when I wasn’t at home to do something about it. Ironically, I was also obsessed with thinking about what all I could get for my new place.

This whole process of moving has been unnecessarily consuming for me. I’ve allowed it to be. I can’t think of a better word for it than “consuming”…my mind was going and going so much, that I’ve had trouble sleeping, something I’ve never struggled with before.

So I’ve had to refocus my attention. Because it’s not about the stuff. It’s not about the move.

It’s not about me.

Photo by Skrewtape

packing.

Yes, I love to pack. Something about seeing your things in boxes or cleaning out things, I don’t know. But I like it. Other than the physically moving possessions, I actually rather enjoy moving.

When I first started looking at moving last week, I knew I may moving as early as the weekend of the 4th. Because of all the traveling I’m doing, that would have basically given me 4 evenings to pack before the vacations, and 4 evenings afterwards.

And I’m someone who usually starts packing 6 weeks out.

Once I realized that I’d have an extra 2 weeks, I wasn’t so pressed. But I still started working right away, because that’s who I am.

I currently have 3 cheap bookcases from Walmart or Target. I would love to get rid of them, but real bookshelves are expensive. I was able to buy a *real* bookshelf off a friend, but I knew that I’d have to get rid of a shelf’s worth of books in order to get rid of one of the cheapo cases. So as I started packing my books, that was my goal.

But the more I found books that I no longer needed, the more I enjoyed it. I might be a book lover, but there is still something therapeutic about decluttering books. I’ve enjoyed many of these books, but that doesn’t mean I have to hold on to them forever!

I also got rid of many books and notebooks I thought I’d refer to after seminary. Nope. So those went, too. All in all, I got rid of 4 1/2 shelves’ worth (I started out with 15 shelves’ worth)

I pared down my DVD collection (cutting it in half), so now I only have my 3 favorite trilogies (Ocean’s, Pirates, and Bourne…oh, and 2 episodes of Star Wars), Disney movies, and literary-inspired movies (Jane Austen and Shakespeare, mostly).

I went through my closet as well, cleaning out things I’ve been keeping move after move by default: belts (I don’t ever wear them), purses (the last couple of years, I just wear the same purse for a year and then replace it, and scrapbooking supplies (that I haven’t used since 2005).

All in all, I’ve already found 6 overflowing boxes of stuff to get rid of, and I still haven’t gotten to my desk, what’s under the bed, or my filing cabinet (that’s going away). 6 boxes is easily 10% or more of what I own. And this isn’t stuff I’ve accumulated since the last move (there’s been very little of that), but stuff I’ve moved at least once already.

The more I thought about it, I realized that everything in the apartment would be mine. Why would I want to put up with clutter?

I want to live a simpler life. I don’t need much “stuff.”

The bonus of clearing out stuff? On a whim, I posted pictures of it all on Facebook. By the time I left for Texas, I had already sold $90 worth of it…yay! There’s still a good bit there, so even if you aren’t local, you might some books or DVDs you can’t live without that I can ship for cheap. Check it out.

• I love that the word “moving” can mean many different things.
• Six vehicles and six adults make for quick work – everything was moved in an hour and a half (especially when you add in two capable boys).  Love that my church family loves me (and I love them!).
• Most of that work was not done by me or my roommate (and yes, she’d readily admit that).
• I was so tired Sunday (after having a bad night of sleep before the move and then all of the moving/unpacking) that I tried putting on a shirt that was still on the hanger.
• The highlight of my weekend was learning that my reading chair in fact does fit comfortably in my bedroom (as illustrated below).
• I LOVE my pretty blue room!

The move in pictures (okay, just my new  bedroom and bathroom):

The view as you enter my room:

Those our blackout curtains behind the fluffy pretty ones:

My reading chair!:

The rest of my flower pictures:

And my bathroom (which my roommate decorated, but I really like!).  I love how it downplays that yellow…the same yellow that was in my bedroom before we agreed to paint it the pretty blue: