So once again, the IM chatter between me and B turned to updating whirlygirl-- the design, the marketability, but most importantly the automation and archives. This site is coded so old-school and my skills are so unfathomably rusty, that I need something spoonfedingly easy to keep it going. I have oodles of thoughts, but when I actually find the time to type, format, save, proof, revise, save, copy/paste, copy/paste, copy/paste, save, save, save, proof, revise, save, save, save, upload--ummm wait, what was I talking about?

You get the picture. Except nine times out of ten you DON'T get the picture because it never survives this painful process.

So B is helping me get my ideas in order. We're starting with layout wants and wishes and then I'll let him find my perfect font and color palette. He'll CSStitize the site until he's blue in the face and we'll spend the next 27 months archiving my nearly 7 years of posts.

It all makes scrapping wallpaper and painting walls sound like cozy little vacation.

Todd sent me this link the other day, which got lost both literally and figuratively among the moving bits. Back in my 'TECH days, Todd and I made a HAL 9000 screen saver out of subprimitive tools like Paint and PowerPoint, but it doesn't even come close to the one I downloaded from here.

At some point between our offer and our closing, B said in a dramatic voice, "They shared a cube. Now they'll share a street." It was definitely the tagline for the next phase of my friendship with Todd-- aka, the "sequel".

This morning Todd called from his home office to give me the minute-to-minute update on the curb-side removal of Mount CarPEto and inform me that no matter what kind of deal we brokered to get this muck hauled away, we paid too much money compared to the level of effort that went into its removal. It was like getting a call from MEDITECH on a day that I called in, cough, sick-- with the full report of Dean's mustard-o-thon lunch and the exact timing of Bob's nail clipping extravaganza. "Holy Carpet Scraps! I gotta get into the waste removal industry."

Right after we finally went to see our house for the first time with our relator-- the house that practically went on sale before our very eyes; the house Hayley had been mentioning for weeks and weeks and weeks; the house we stalked together on a sunny November afternoon-- I called Hayley to tell her about our visit and about how much we loved the house. As Erika, B, and I talked about the possibilities over a Baker's Best brunch, I started to get all carts and horses and B said that I had already bought the house. And Erika replied, "If you think Kristen has already bought that house, then you KNOW that Hayley not only has you living in that house but she's busy planning after school programs for your kids." When we all went out to brunch at Union a few weeks later, Hayley was hard-selling the arts and crafts house around the corner from us to Erika. "What is it going to take to get you in that house today?" No one's HIRED relator is working this hard.

The welcome wagon is out in full force-- with wallpaper removal tools, homemade lasagna, and picking up necessities at Target and Home Depot. And it feels both new and nostalgic all at the same time. Neighbors. How cool is that?

We're Home!

After five days of blood, sweat, but NO tears, we are 100% out of our old apartment and into our new home. Of course all of our furniture and boxes are in the basement right now-- also the all-important sofa and television-- so our new house pretty much feels just like my last 10 years of basement dwelling apartment living. B's big idea is to just continue living in the basement and rent out the entire top floor to a ballet company-- you know, because of the...

...hardwood floors-- which have been Priority Number One. We closed by noon on Friday (absolutely painless and not nearly as much signing as we were led to believe), snagged our keys, and by 12:30pm Brandon had pulled up half of the carpet in the living room. The floors are hard and wood and in (thankfully) good condition. Throughout the last five days we've been able to pull up about 80% of the carpet, tack strips, nails, and staples on the first floor (we're leaving the basement carpet for now, which is in great condition and sitting on top of cold concrete.) We moved the MOUNDS of carpet and padding to the most remote bedroom in the house-- wedging its awkward mass down the narrow hallway-- which was definitely Mistake Number One, as now we're going to have to either wedge it back through the hallway to the front door by Monday at 7am for the bulk trash pickup we've already pre-paid, or live with Mount CarPEto for the rest of our lives.

We managed the entire move in B's Toyota Tacoma rather than renting a truck-- and did about 95% of the heavy lifting ourselves, supplemented by Todd's assistance with the television, sofa, and guest mattress and box spring (what a NEIGHBOR!). Speaking of our wonderful new neighbors, Todd and Hayley cooked us a fantastic dinner on Saturday night (Chicken a la Todd, stuffed with figs and pecorino cheese)-- such a welcome treat after a week of take-out and pizza and other dietary abuses. And they didn't even raise a fuss when we practically fell into our mashed potatoes from pure exhaustion.

Our cable is in, our TiVo is recording, and we're wirelessly connected to the internet. Over the past 5 days we've made about 32 4.83 mile round trips between the house and the apartment, eaten 4 orders of Morn's Pad Thai, 8 Dunkin Donuts, and 6 Casey's cheeseburgers, and wrestled about 172,392 carpet nails and padding staples to their death. We pulled down 2 rooms of wallpaper (releasing important hidden messages like "I LOVE JEFF" and "FLOWER POWER SUMMER OF '67" from the depths) and scored (or as B likes to say, Mr. Miyagi-ed) the 4 walls in our bedroom in prep for some DIF wallpaper surgery. We've tested the washer, dryer, refrigerator, microwave, and oven-- all to tolerable results. And we set off the security system by closing the circuit of emergency switch wires that were hanging out of the wall in the master bedroom (lockdown, indeed!) We patched and repainted the apartment walls and scrubbed every last inch in order to get our security deposit back.

And now-- as everyone tells us-- the real fun begins.