Oh, Comcast cable guy, how I love thee...

Well, first post from the new apartment, guys! The cable guy just left, so I now have internet and TV! Whee! I know you all missed me, and are dying to know everything about the move and the new apartment, so here goes.

My father, apparently intent on injuring himself so as to be able to call out sick on Tuesday, insisted on moving everything without help. Seriously, I had friends from F&M lined up, I had cousins and uncles willing to help, we were even gonna pay a guy from my dad's work to come over and help load up the truck. Oh no, my friends, we must do it ourselves, because Daddy is a strong manly man, and I... well... my arms and legs have never been so sore.

So we loaded everything into the truck on Friday night (except for the stuff that would get damaged if frozen) and then the Brigandi wagon train left for Harrisburg Saturday morning. We carpooled, my dad driving the truck, me in my car, and my mom driving her car (so my parents would have some way to get home again, since we did a one-way rental). Aside from my mother doing a Jeff Gordon impersonation somewhere between Reading and Lancaster, that was uneventful.

The moving-in was actually pretty good... everything looks nice in the new apartment, and everything fits, so my parents didn't have to take any furniture home with them in the back of the Kia. (That was the great fear... we kept saying things like, "Well, we'll take it and if there's no place to put it, we'll just take it home again in the Kia." And then we realized that if we kept doing that, Mom would have to take the train home because there'd be no room for her in the Kia.) I took pretty much my whole bedroom set from home, and the kitchen table set I got from Aunt Linda. I currently have no living room furniture except a coffeetable and an entertainment center... and two fold-up director's chairs which are decidedly temporary.

After I was all moved in, we went sofa-shopping... and did that pretty much all day Sunday and Monday, too - you wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a sofa bed in a neutral color that's in stock and can be delivered within a week within our price range. Okay, maybe we were being too specific. But we saw a lot of sofas that sort of almost matched our critera (I think my mother was rooting for the $500 blue sofa... but - blue!). We actually drove all the way to Lebanon because we ran out of stores in the Harrisburg area... we didn't get a sofa in Lebanon, but I did get an adorable wicker table for my bedroom (to put my TV on) and an awesome little cart thing for the kitchen, so it wasn't a totally wasted trip. (That cart thing, btw, was one of those build-it-yourself things... my dad said he felt like he was building a house!)

So then we ended up ordering a sofa from a place in Mechanicsburg that will take 30 days to be delivered. But I got the sofa of my dreams, so I don't mind sitting on the floor for a month. Just... if you come to visit, bring a sleeping bag.

My new sofa, when it arrives, will be camel-colored, in that microfiber fabric that's really smooth and soft and makes you wanna rub it b/c it changes colors when it goes in a different direction.... yeah. Anyway, and the pillows are "jelly bean" - which caused Kelly some concern, but are really quite cute. They're mulberry and teal and sea green and beige, all in these oval-shaped patterns (hence the jelly bean) - it's kind of busy, which is why I picked it for the pillows and not the whole sofa. But it will give me lots of colors to match for curtains and chairs and things. Over all, very exciting.

My mother took lovely pictures of the apartment, which I will post as soon as she emails me (and as soon as I figure out how to post pictures). Or, if you can't wait, you can come visit me and see it for yourself!

So I've just been biding my time until my job starts... which was supposed to be Monday, but may get pushed back because the bureaucratic state workers can't get my paperwork processed in time. But I'm sure it will be much more entertaining now that I have cable and internet. I haven't gotten a wireless router yet, so I'm somewhat chained to my bedroom with the computer (but the room's not that big, so I can sit at my desk or on my bed)... but of course, there's always "vroommmmmmm" and his wireless signal that I've been filching intermittently since I got here. *shhhhhh!*