Internetless weekend of moving and other things

Despite being internetless all weekend (we won't get hooked up at our new place till Wednesday), I surprisingly haven't undergone too many withdrawal symptoms. I was too busy this past weekend enjoying the new place and reading quietly.

Ah yes, the new place. Saturday morning the movers arrived to haul the furniture and other heavy stuff from our old apartment (including the computer) to the new one. We spent the rest of the day arranging it and putting other little stuff away. And we got to spend our very first night in our new place!

First observation: it gets COLD in there. Whereas our old apartment usually stayed at a comfortable 78 degrees and never dipped below 70 unless you left the windows wide open all night on a winter night, this new place barely got *above* 70... during the day. When we woke up on Sunday morning, it was a shivering 61 degrees, and every window and door had been shut tight all day! The good news is that come summer, it'll be nice and cool. Unfortunately, Santa Barbara gets more cold days than it does scorching hot days, so our gas bill is certainly going up :-/

As I said, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I didn't really miss not being able to get online. I was either too busy to worry about it, or found myself enjoying being able to relax on a real couch (not a futon!) for the first time since Allan and I have been together, and just reading quietly while Allan watched DVDs on his laptop in the other room. Bliss!

Sunday was a lost day, as we were in church in the morning and then off to a baby shower in the afternoon. 3 of the couples in our small group are expecting babies within a month of each other, starting in January. Today was the first baby shower. Having just had Todd over 5 years ago, I knew that practical items would be the most useful when the baby actually arrives. So our presents were the most boring, unglamorous of them all: packages of onesies, a pack of diapers, and a basket of bath items. More than that, I remember the one thing I really appreciated about my sister-in-law's baby gifts: she had thought ahead and gotten us *bigger* clothes. Figuring that the expecting couple would be lavished with all sorts of newborn outfits, I made sure the onesies and the diapers were larger, so they'd have something onhand when the baby outgrew them.

Of course, with my usual unimaginative self, I got all 3 couples the exact same thing. Now that the first shower is done with, I guess the next two couples won't be surprised when they see my present :-/

It's funny how people react when they learn that your friends and peers are having babies. This led to a lot of queries to the other couples in our small group who do not yet have children: When are you going to have kids? One of them even received a box of his old children's books from his mother-- a hint? ;-) And although Allan and I already have a kid, we aren't spared from the questioning, either. It's just that the question is slightly modified: When are you having a *second* kid? ;-)

Back to the grind. We still have stuff to move out of our old apartment-- mostly bathroom stuff, kitchen stuff, and miscellany stuffed into the closet throughout the year. Then there is the cleaning of the place-- gotta make sure it's in tip-top shape before we turn over the keys by Friday! I can't wait for next weekend-- we can sleep in and do NOTHING, now that we don't have to worry about hauling stuff and cleaning :-) That's the kind of weekend I like!