A Very Valiente Household Discovery

Moving to New York is an adventure. We knew it would be. We anticipated an adjustment as we figured out the subway and the people, as well as the idea of having EVERYTHING delivered (which we very rarely do). There are a few things that aren't necessarily NY-specific, but most definitely aren't found commonly in the south.

Our building is like the ones you see in the movies- you come into a very small doorway and buzz the apartment of the person you're visiting. For some reason, I felt very shy about using the speaker. We ordered lunch and I asked The Yankee to answer it.


Confession: not once have I ever lived without central air- unless I was a baby and that doesn't count. It kind of hurt my heart to think that I'd have to BUY and air conditioner and install it myself. My inner princess doesn't care to buy items to compensate for a deficiency in a building that I don't own- hey, I SAID it was my inner princess!

So each room but the bathroom has one of these. There is no thermostat. If it's anything like our shower, our home will go from Igloo to Inferno status within about 3 seconds of turning this on. And while we're talking about air temperature, why isn't there a heater in the bathroom? You know what I predict? I'll be shaving in December, get out of the warm hot scalding shower and immediatley get goose bumps, thus negating the shaving efforts. Poor Yankee...


MEASUREMENT FAIL.
I have been pestering the Yankee about curtains since we got married, but we never really needed them, since we had blinds (the Yankee has an inner princess too, apparently). So when we selected out apartment, we decided to buy curtains before we moved so we I could enjoy a naked house as soon as we moved in. See my last post for a list of reasons this was a bad idea.

So naturally we forgot to bring a measuring tape while we were apartment shopping. Since I grew up military, I decided to improvise and use body parts to measure. So the windows were the distance from my fingertips to my breastbone. The window in the picture was two of those lengths, plus a small divider in the middle the was about the size of my hand. Well... you can see the value of a measuring tape in this story, can't you?

So there are a few other things that have been surprising, and I'll be sure to record them as they come along. Subway highlights include having to change lines completely as the police investigated a suspicious package and broken water mane that doused several lines at lunchtime on Monday. The lines weren't repaired until way after lunchtime. Thankfully I work from home- the Yankee was not so lucky, unfortunately.

A Very Valiente Crap Alert

We are here in New York! This is an exciting place to be. Currently I am sitting at my desk, looking out across a park, and feeling a breeze that is gettng colder and colder and as cold front moves across the Tri-State Area.

So the move went pretty well. Sort of. Actually no, the moving part itself was pretty much crap. It rained, we took too much stuff on the plane, some of our items got destroyed by the movers- it was a rough couple of days. In my next few posts, I will relay some of our adventures and lessons.

I always overestimate the amount of allowable space and have and under estimate the weight of items. I cut wrapping paper too small, I grab a hand basket at the grocery store and end up struggling under the weight of 25 items when I should gotten a cart. We knew we could both check 2 50-pound bags and carry on one small bag at Southwest. We also knew our items would take awhile to get there, so we had a pile mountain of stuff that we were taking with us. I didn't want to pay to ship a box, but as we started packing our stuicases, we realized it was inevitable.

We had planned to take blankets, sheets, towels, and air mattress, and clothes for a few weeks with us. We had an apartment and didn't want to stay in a hotel, so we were trying to bring "essentials." By essentials I mean 25 hangers, a coffee press, every.single.piece of clothing we own, and a few other things for fun.

We bought some space bags so we could fit everything into four bags. We bought a 4 piece luggage set. We made stacks. FAIL. Everything DID fit, but zippers broke and when we plunked the items on the scale at the airport. three of our bags were overweight. This left me doing a scramble to re-allocate items into bags and left the Yankee and I carrying a LOT of crap onto the plane.

We landed in NYC to a lot of rain and an hour-long line to get a cab. The Yankee waited with out TEN BAGS while I waited in line. We finally got a cab, got home, and were in bed by 3 am. We borrowed an air mattress from my parents, and it turns out we took the twin mattress, not the queen.

Because I'm somewhat of a Crazy Girl sometimes, I scheduled an interview at 10 am the next day. That interview led to a referral to another agency and a trip down to Wall Street. Stay tuned: this referral paid off BIG TIME.

So that's adventure number one. We now have to PAY to send two suitcases and an air mattress back to my parents. Stay tuned for the story of the Arrow Mayflower movers and why you should never ever use them.