The Dreaded Downsize*

(Ignore the alcohol box… we are not boozers! I swear!)

Anyone want to come and unpack my apartment for me? Anyone? Anyone?

One of the worst aspects of this whole moving thing is that not every apartment is the same layout. Our last apartment was very open-concept. One huge living room, one huge bedroom and a decent size bathroom and kitchen.

All of the furniture we have fit well into this open-concept space. A lot of it is quite big (the hutch, shelves, wardrobe, etc) so finding spaces for it in our new place has been… interesting. It’s like a tetris game.

“Well, this piece will fit here if I move this one like that…”

It has forced us to do what I dread: downsize. We are now reevaluating almost everything because even though we gained an extra bedroom, we somehow have no space. haha! I even did what I didn’t think was possible before… I threw out I two bags of shoes. Two bags. (stifles inward sob) While I love that our new bedroom has His & Her closets, I realized too late that this meant that I could no longer steal over onto his side to fit things that didn’t fit on mine, namely my shoe collection. With the Hubster’s moral support, I carefully selected shoes that I knew I hadn’t worn in ages and lovingly put them into bags to give away.

*sigh*

I also put together an entire green garbage bag of clothing that I’m Freecycling. Oh, to downsize… how I hate it. Mind you, I’m sure I’ll love it when we next move and have less stuff, but right now I choose to wallow in sorrow over my poor shoes.

(Secretly I hope that I can now just buy NEW better ones! I am getting Birks for my birthday–I do a lot of walking and needed something with more support than $5 flip flops–and I need some new black leather pumps and flats for teaching. WOO WOO!)

Anyway, I like organizing, but I’m ready for this whole unpacking bit to be finished now. haha!

But these are the things I LOVE about our new place:

1. There is a window in EVERY room. We get SO much natural light. Fabulous!
2. We have awesome hardwood floors that are actually in pretty good shape.
3. It came with blinds. (If you have never moved you don’t understand how much it SUCKS to have to fit every window for new blinds and hang them. Ugh.)
4. We now have an office, which means that the Hubster’s desk no longer has to be in our bedroom, and my desk no longer has to be in the living room. HOO HAH! It also means that he will be forced to spend even MORE time with me. Muahaha.
5. My piano now has a real space and is no longer crowded in a corner with all my other crap. It’s so much more relaxing to play when you don’t feel all confined.
6. The dining room table now sits in front of a huge window over looking a quiet little street.
7. While the kitchen has less cupboard space, it is much longer and can now accommodate more than one person in it at one time.
8. There are TREES outside our windows! We have woken up to hear birds singing every morning. I loooooove this.
9. We no longer require an elevator or many flights of stairs to get into our apartment.
10. We now have everything we could possibly need within a short walking distance… including a BAKERY. Can I just tell you how much I LOVE being able to buy fresh bread? AMAZING.

So, despite the need to downsize a bit and all the dreaded unpacking, I’m really enjoying our new place so far. Now I need a job. *sigh*

Wanna hire me?

Shop Girl*

P.s. I’m not sure if you knew, but I gave up on my Shopgirrl twitter account a while back. It still exists because there is a bug in the account that prevents me from logging in to shut it down. ANYWAY, I’ve converted to http://twitter.com/iheartmyshoes so please follow me there! :)