Project Pretty Cabinets

As you may have gathered by now, our apartment has limited closets, storage, and space..... so the beautiful kitchen cabinets that the previous tenant used to display her lovely china, have been demoted to our pantry. These cabinets provide us with the perfect place in our kitchen to store food, however it screams CLUTTER!!
Exhibit A



That left me to do some crafting on how to keep our kitchen looking as simple and uncluttered as possible. Soooo, I took a homemade shower-curtain that I made (and by "I" I mean my wonderful mother-in-law Ruthie "helped" me sew shower curtains before we moved to Nashville - on my mom's 1980s sewing machine, yeah she is pretty great)- and threw it behind the cabinets to hide our makeshift pantry.

Tada!



Whew, mission de-clutter accomplished

The Big Reveal....

Because I know that you are all sitting at home hitting your refresh button, hoping to see pictures of our new place (I am kidding of course), I thought I would give you a little update. Our Boston home is days away from the big reveal, but we are not quite there yet..... Still putting up some pictures and waiting on a rug or two... but soon dear friends, very soon. So, that leaves a couple matters of business. How do you want to see our new place? Pictures, video, both? I have a little poll out to the side so feel free to vote on your interface of choice (yes I just said that). In the mean time let me just say that living in an old house comes with its quirks. Charm yes, functionality, maybe. Last night as I was making dinner (and by making dinner I mean microwaving sports themed off brand macaroni - don't judge, I said I would start cooking tomorrow), the power went out twice! The first time I looked next door and in the hallway to see if the entire building had lost power, but no, it was just us. Hudson went into the basement to flip the surge protector, I restart the microwave, and boom there goes the power again. So.... we ended up having to turn off all of the lights and electronics in our apartment in order to successfully use the microwave without blowing the power. Whew, you live, you learn, and then you get luvs.

Excited for Tomorrow

Yes, I am excited, because tomorrow I am going to be a real person again. For the past week my uniform has consisted of gym shorts, a t-shirt, sneakers, and a pony tail. But no longer my friends, the moving uniform is getting tossed for real clothes, and tomorrow I am going to actually get dressed. For the past week my diet has also consisted of goldfish and diet coke, but no longer. Tomorrow I will actually cook and eat fruit and vegetables. And exercise? What is that? Let's just say I am looking forward to tomorrow when my day isn't defined by locating and organizing our "stuff".

The View From Here

Moving In!

*This post was meant for yesterday but I had a little trouble with the internet, so here you go!


Confession: I am a homebody, an intro-vert, and a nest-er, and the lack of “nest” over the past couple of weeks has definitely ruffled my feathers. I am itching to create a home out of our little apartment, to have a place for all of our things and things for our place. Soooo…. I am very excited that today is TODAY!! Our nomad-vagabond-ness officially ends today! Our moving truck is supposed to arrive in the next few hours (Lord willing) with all of our belongings in tow and I. CAN’T. WAIT. They were supposed to get here on Wednesday, when we arrived, but after we had already begun our cross country adventure, we learned that they had been delayed….. until Sunday. Sooooo, that left Hudson, Bear, Paisley, and me rocking out with an aerobed, in an empty apartment, in a city we do not yet know. The past few days have been filled with lots of walking around Cambridge, getting to know the people and places that we will now call home. I have been pleasantly surprised at the kindness people have shown to us. They don’t welcome with the voice inflection and the inviting smile that is so familiar in the south, but they are genuinely kind and helpful. More on that later, for now stay tuned as our house becomes a home!

Below our some pictures to accompany the last post.


Ruthie and Tots came to graduation with bells and whistles on


My very supportive and beautiful parents


The man who got me to pinning!


Just throwing down a little sequence in our empty apartment before graduation- not sure why dad has sunglasses on?


Hudson's dad got some cookie cake to celebrate the festivities


Cousins and sibs! - Robert and Kim had us over for a delicious cookout!


Ruthie got this delicious and beautiful cake! Notice any similarities with the header?


Yum


Packing


De-Lish


Adrienne ordered sweet rolls for dinner, she was really hungry. Just kidding, they were for everyone :)


Hudson's love language = presents


My last pedicure for a while.... yellow, really?


Celebrating Hudson's birthday with my family, surprised with chocolate cake.



DB and Me, throwing down some BBQ

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!

Growing up

Hello there dear reader-friend! Today marks a milestone as I feel a little more grown up today. Yes, I know what you are thinking, "Annie, you are grown up! You have a poochon, a cockapoo, and live with a man!" Yes, I know dear friend, but nothing has really made me feel quite as grown up as purchasing my first rug, make that TWO rugs!

Since making our own little home two years ago, we have been graciously loaned beautiful furniture from family and friends. Pieces that we are SO thankful for! If we hadn't had these things we probably would have been watching tv on beanbags and sleeping on the ground. But now we have TWO grown-up rugs, that WE bought. Not borrowed, not handed-down, but brand new, being shipped to us, picked out for our home. College kids don't have nice new area rugs, non-grown-ups don't have area rugs...... we have two new area rugs and are now grown up.

I am anxious to show you these two beauties but I think I will wait for the big reveal when they are home in our new crib. Think warm, bright, cozy, and inviting. Stay tuned!