I don't understand Facebook

I use Facebook every day for work. I manage our social media outlets to the best of my ability in the face of all the other duties I try to juggle. Occasionally, I attend a webinar or read some articles about "new" strategies for social media (the same five strategies have been recycled for the past two years) to try to keep my skills sharp and offer my organization's followers what they're looking for and coming to expect from a nonprofit's Facebook Page or from a Page in general. So, I like to think I'm pretty good with Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and even Classmates.com.

But then a strange thing happened.

The Move: Part 3

Settling in


We've been here for a little over two weeks now, and it's feeling very much like home. We are still in awe of the increased square footage - occasionally, Mike comes into the living room and says something like "I'm sorry, did you say something? I couldn't hear you, I was in the other room." I didn't say anything. He just revels in the possibilities that arise from rooms, plural.

We have hidden away most of our superfluous junk in closets and storage spaces, and now we just have some white walls and empty floor space. We're getting excited about planning decorations - posters/artwork, curtains, plants. We have a particularly stellar poster of a rearing pony that will be residing in the bathroom when we the frame arrives in the mail. Everything else is a bit of a mystery. We have some posters and such from our former lives, but no firm plans of what to do.

Today we completed an act which I consider essential to feeling rooted in a home: we baked something. Not just anything - peppermint pirate cupcakes, 100% from scratch! I think I can say that I have not opened a box of cake mix or a tub of frosting since Mike and I got married. Check out Mike's blog for a picture. There's something awesome about filling your home with the familiar smells of favorite foods... and something to be said for getting the first messes out of the way. Eventually, you're going to spill a drink or something all over everywhere. The first mess is the most stressful because of those rose-colored shiny-new-apartment glasses you've been wearing, so why not take the plunge and make a chocolate cake, where you are guaranteed to get cocoa powder all over the table when you're measuring?

Today we also officially hosted our first guest since getting settled - my mom is in town again for work this week, and she stopped up for a few minutes before heading to her hotel. Tomorrow night we will cook her one of our favorite recipes - Boston Hill Chicken. It's to die for. If you come visit us, we might make you something just as tasty, and even let you sleep on our air mattress. You should think about it.

The Move: Part 2

The Big Day

After two agonizing weeks of anticipation, the day was finally upon us. Time to move all of our IKEA furniture and disassemble the "fortress made of boxes", as Mike termed it.

I woke up at 6am, determined to walk to my favorite corner bagel shop and get some sustenance and caffeine for our 7am appointment to sign paperwork. Apparently, I had invented the idea that the place opened at 5am and ended up going to the Plaid Pantry, which is an extremely poor man's Sheetz/7-11. I returned to our studio with mini donuts and machine-sputtered cappuccino, and we headed to meet our building manager.

At 10, we got the U-Haul, and Mike spent the next few hours being a champ at driving it.

So, it turns out I didn't really get any pictures of moving things, since my hands were pretty full the whole time. So instead, here's a picture from our lunch break:

And a picture of 2/3 of the moving team:

And this sighting of Mario:

We managed to get everything done in about 4 hours, including a lunch break. We only had to carry the boxspring and mattress up the six flights of stairs - the couch and TV stand magically fit in the tiny elevator, which was cause for celebration. We followed tradition and unpacked the TV and PS3 first so that we could take a movie break over pizza and cider. We finished moving out of the old place on Sunday and started the arduous task of unpacking...

TO BE CONTINUED

The Move: Part 1

Packing Up

If you've been reading Mike's blog, you already know that we have found a new apartment and are moving in next Saturday. That means that, in the meantime, we are packing. Vaguely related items are going into uniform white bankers' boxes, where they will be irretrievable until every last box is unpacked in the new place. Our tiny studio is slowly being overtaken by towers of these mislabeled boxes - they were lent to us by my boss, who just moved this summer and had been organized enough to label her boxes. We haven't bothered to scratch out her labels and try to categorize the mishmash of items in each box.

We have a growing pile of items to donate: things that have become redundant over the past seven months in our little studio or that won't have a place in our new apartment. One such thing was an old desk of Mike's, which he doesn't entirely need for his laptop and doesn't tend to use as a work surface. We have just returned from a failed attempt to donate this desk to the thrift store two blocks down the street. After a grueling 15 minutes of lugging the thing down the street, navigating the crowded terrain of Portland's absurdly narrow and unkempt sidewalks, this perfectly good desk was deemed too shabby by what is apparently the world's pickiest thrift store. So we lugged it back and placed it next to the dumpster in front of our apartment, hoping some needy soul will find it and give it a good home.

It's remarkable how much stuff we have. We didn't move out here with many things - Mike filled about 1/8 of a moving truck container (most of that space was due to the couch and bed), and I basically filled the trunk area of a minivan. But between wedding gifts and several trips to IKEA for much-needed furniture, we now need to rent a U-Haul and possibly make several trips with it. How do you fill a 300 square foot apartment with that much stuff?

Stay tuned for an update about Saturday and the move itself!