Update and We are Here!

The past couple days, well shall I say weeks have been somewhat of a whirlwind, but I can finally say that our cross country trek has come to an end and we are HERE, in Cambridge! I want to go ahead and apologize if this post is somewhat of a conglomeration of all of my thoughts and our doings over the past few days. I want to remember all of our wonderful fairwells that we had in the days approaching our departure, and it was Hudson’s birthday on August 2nd, what what?! Oh and did I mention that I am writing this post in a starbucks FOUR doors down from our apartment, yes please slash this could be dangerous.

Whew where do I start. Hudson’s 24th birthday was August 2nd, which (poor planning on our part), was the day before the movers came…… so it was pretty anticlimactic. In the midst of crazy packing (which I have found, and Hudson can vouch, is one of my weaknesses) I grabbed a cookie cake to remind us what a special day it was. Besides some oh-so-delicious Great American Cookie, not much celebration happened….. until we went home to family and we had FOUR more cakes!!! (Thanks for making Hudson’s birthday so great!)

Things I want to remember about our last week in the South:
* On my last day of class Hudson was still back home with family while I was in Nashville, and my sweet sweet friends Emily and Mark picked me up, took me and treated me to some delicious Thai food, vacuumed and dusted my apartment (seriously who are these people?) and then treated me to Bobbie’s Dairy Dip (If you live in Nashville – go there now). I don’t think I can say how loved I felt watching friends vacuum our nasty empty apartment.
*Shout out to our families for watching the pups while we packed, literally would not have been possible if they had been there.
*Farewell breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with sweet friends.
* Going to target to buy twinkle lights with Julia in the four hours that she was home between college and camp, and hearing all about her summer adventures and hopes for the coming year.
*Getting my nails done with mom – not sure why but I chose yellow?
*The multiple dinners with Hudson’s family and my family – I dearly love and miss these people already! Get yourselves here A to the SAP, you know who you are!

Things I want to remember from our roadtrip
* Disclaimer, I in no way want this blog to be a trophy shelf but I do need to throw a big shout out to the hubs, who is hot, wonderful, great, amazing and also…. Drove 20 hours!
*New Jersey – I hate to indulge the stereotype but this state was ridiculous. Granted I am sure there are beautiful lovely parts, but if you ever drive through it, make sure you do your bathroom stop in Delaware, because there are about 2 interstate exits in New Jersey and they are horrible. Okay stopping there.
*Hunger Games on audiobook was amazing, go read it now.


Things I want to remember about our first 24 hours in Cambridge
*All of our furniture is still in transit and won’t be here until Sunday, so our first night in Cambridge included Hudson becoming a member of the public library and us checking out Rainman to watch on my laptop on the aerobed.
*The library yard across the street is an undercover dog park, which is where I met two other dog owners at 6 am this morning- in my pajamas
*I took the dogs on a walk around Harvard’s campus this morning – where do we live?
*Us driving for the first time through the city was terrifying, we got honked at 3 times, and almost hit twice. (I don’t think our Tennessee tag helped)
*Did you know that carrying pepper spray here is considered carrying a weapon – so I have to go get a permit to carry my pepper spray – there is no way am I getting rid of that stuff (I wonder if they will be okay that mine has tear gas in it)

My apologies for the lack of photos..... I didn't bring my camera with me to the Starbucks but will add some soon!

Small Spaces

Well hello there dear friend! Several days of fast pace school and a computer-less family vacay have made for one very sad and neglected blog! So sorry about that.

Our first years of marriage have been spoiled with a spacious apartment and tons of closets. Fast forward two months from now and we will be working with half the amount of square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms, so some space saving interventions need to happen!!




These are some places I am looking for organizational ideas:
Containerstore.com
Organizedliving.com
Organize.com
Realsimple.com

What tricks of the trade do you have to share?

HBS Admitted Students Welcome

Well our time at the admitted students welcome was certainly just that...... welcoming. The students we met, classes we saw, and professors we talked to affirmed everything we had hoped to find at HBS. Some of the admitted students we met were still deciding if they were going to attend, but for the most part we met several of Hudson's future classmates. The school did a wonderful job of making all of the HBS partners (such as me) feel extremely welcomed and included. You honestly couldn't tell who was a student and who was a partner. As a partner I will have complete access to all of the facilities, clubs, and services that the school has to offer, pretty sweet!



Getting prepped for Admitted Students Welcome..... doesn't he look cute!


Quiche Lorraine, yes please


Hydrating, everything is smaller here ....... including the cups


Paper man in the coffee shop where we had lunch


View of the Charles River from Cambridge. Across the river is HBS and this is the foot bridge.

We found an apartment!!

After meeting with multiple brokers and touring various apartments, we finally stumbled on our new home, and we love it. Our main requirements in our apartment was that it would:

1. Be in walking distance of Harvard Business School
2. Pet friendly

We had many other amenities in mind but knew that these two requirements would greatly restrict our search. It is nearly impossible to find a pet friendly apartment in Cambridge. What we found met all of our expectations and more! It will be about a 15 minute walk to HBS and the landlord is a dog lover, so we lucked out :) The unit includes a parking spot, a storage unit, heat (which with older buildings and windows can really rack up), and snow removal. The pictures included the current tenants belongings but you can still get a pretty good feel for the place. It's located across from a park and library which you can see in one of the photos. There is not much grass between buildings so this space will be perfect for the pups. The pictures don't do the place justice, but it's dripping in charm, charm, charm. We will be in the middle of the three major squares or villages within Cambridge, and you can see a photo of Inman Square.

Quick Update

Well the past 48 hours have been filled with signing leases, meeting new friends, eating good food, exploring our new home, walking way too much, and learning what Hudson’s next two years of school will look like. Needless to say, we are PUMPED and exhausted!! We will be revisiting the apartment that we are going to lease tomorrow so be looking for an apartment post and some pictures coming soon :)

Visiting Boston: Day 1 Part 1

These boots were made for walking!

It's only noon and we have logged four miles of walking on our apartment tour. Not much to tell yet so I will give you a few pictures that pretty much capture our morning :)


Enjoying a continental breakfast

Waiting on the realtor......

We navigated on Hudson's Xoom, no shame

Walking down a typical residential street in Cambridge.

"Backpacking" from Cambridge to Boston over the Charles River

Visiting

Looks like it's time for a visit! In spring of 2009, Hudson, Tots, Ruthie, and I traveled up to Boston for Hudson to interview for graduate school. In our short 72 hour trip, we walked the Freedom Trail twice, bought long underwear, stayed in a jungle themed hotel, caught pneumonia (Ruth), and wondered about living in this far far away land.


(I told you it was jungle themed)



Well after lots of waiting, a few pictures and a cookie cake later, it looked like we were Boston bound!



We haven't been back since then, and believe me, trying to find a place to live when you aren't actually there is quite the challenge. Let's just say google maps and I have become best of friends. We will be making our way to Beantown in a couple days to hopefully find an apartment and attend a new students event. Wish us luck!