On Friday, we picked up most of the huge order of IKEA stuff we put together before we moved into the new apartment. The order was mostly dressers and shelves, so quite a bit of our unpacking has been strewn about in boxes and bags waiting for it to arrive. A few things were sold out (apparently, the 'Walnut' finish is the colour de jour), but we got our MALM, ORGEL, SKUBB and small BILLY. Yesterday morning, K went out to run some errands, so I put on Season 1 of The L Word and got to work. I decided to tackle the MALM six-drawer dressers first (we bought two, because we can't share) and figured I could bang those together in an hour or two, tops. No problem, right? Gong. I started at about noon...and finished just before 6:00 p.m. During that time, I'd taken, cumulatively, one half hour break. It was a nightmare. The dressers went together beautifully...they just had a lot of extra steps and they are actually kind of huge, which made putting them together alone a bit of a challenge. Anyways, we got them moved into the bedroom and (finally!) emptied our suitcases out and filled the drawers, had a friend over for dinner and went to bed early.

When I woke up this morning, I felt as though I'd been hit by a truck. My back and legs were killing me and my arms felt like I'd been toting around a huge watermelon or a heavy child for hours. Turns out, assembling MALM on your own is harder work than I thought. It was a workout. But the results were worth it, because I woke up this morning and dressed without having to dig through suitcases...an amazing feeling after 4 weeks of living like gypsies. Gypsies with Samsonite.

The house is really coming together. The cookbooks are shelved (thanks, BILLY), our BBQ is in place and had it's debut last night, and in about two weeks, the last of our furniture should arrive from New Jersey.

I was looking around last night and realized that this apartment is definitely the nicest place that we have lived together so far. Our house was great, but this place just suits us. Maybe it's the fact that the front patio always smells like rosemary, or that the apartment is so quiet when a car does creep by on the crescent, it's noticeable. Unlike the old apartment, where quiet periods on the road would have us looking at each other like "what's going on? Where is everyone?" It's lovely. I had a two hour nap in the middle of the day with my sleep mask and it was heaven.

Love, love, love. I'm going to take some photos this week and update the Facebook album, now that we're moved in and it's looking more like ours.