It's been almost a month since I was handed the keys to a second story beauty of an apartment with lofted ceilings, two bedrooms, plenty of windows, and a shaded balcony. In the midst of some sort of intense cold/flu/virus thing, I barely acknowledged the occasion before I was on my way to Colonial Beach to begin the process of moving....in this case, multiple trips up and down the 95 corridor dragging beds, boxes, and a cat to our new home. My parents are. Undeniably. Rockstars.The day we brought the first load up, a few friends met us in the parking lot to help unload. As we pulled out boxes, an older neighbor parked nearby and watched for a moment. Secretly terrified we had parked in her reserved spot, I walked over and asked if we had. She said no and pointed to her apartment across the way. She introduced herself as Dottie, and I gave my little elevator speech about moving to Reston to work with a new church. She looked me straight in the eye and said, "I've been praying about finding a new church."
Really???!?
We chatted a minute more about the neighborhood and location before I promised to visit her soon....everyone I have met here has been delightful, parking lot conversations are one of my new favs.
It was the next day that I tricked Mitch into the car and took him to a strange new land full of different noises, smells and MUCH much more space than the shed. He spent the first few days under the bed. Overwhelmed just a little?
This apartment is quickly becoming home. I've "lived" many places before, considering them temporary solutions to land me where I want to be. But this..... I want this place to be filled with laugher, friendship, community. And so we've already had overnight guests, dinner parties, cookie baking afternoons, and playdate mornings. The contractors have been out to fix the shower, clean up the broken fireplace door left shattered on the balcony and a new water heater has been installed. I found a dark gray ikea couch on craiglist that somehow mostly fit in my Rav4 and each day some small piece of the apartment is organized, sorted, unpacked or cleaned. Nana came for an overnight visit and we spent four hours wandering the beauty and magic of Ikea to pick out curtains and pillows and the various odds and ends to style and organize. I've raided my parents attic a few times over and am keeping my eye on the local yard sales and thrift stores.... I hope to share the stories as I settle in....like the friends that have been made over buying an end table.... OR like if I actually manage to grow any vegetables in the pile of pots I pulled from the dumpster.
And before you think this new adventure has been all daisies and roses, I must confess there was the afternoon that first week where I laid in the middle of the floor in tears because I couldn't find a working cable jack for the internet which meant a very expensive visit from the comcast people to which I yelled about how much I hated comcast and thought about how easy it would be to pack up Mitch and move back to the shed because THESE THINGS DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE SHED...... not my proudest moment. But then I found a working jack and all was well.
I can't even imagine the stories to come.... :o)