Marshmallows

Our stuff arrived at around 5pm after a brief delay of the ABF truck driver having to figure out how to lug our cubes up the hill. We jumped up and down a little bit, then opened the cube doors, half expecting the worst. We did have several days to pack in Tampa to ensure a snug fit, but our stuff moved over 3,000 miles on a semi truck so we wouldn't be surprised if there was some shifting.

Cube #1. The only difference we can see is the palm tree in the corner of picture #1 and the pine tree in the corner of picture #2.


Cube #2. The only things displaced were the bright yellow frisbee and the mail crate. The fan moved a bit. Overall, not too bad, especially since this was our haphazard cube.


We spent all evening unloading the cube, bruising ourselves, breaking our backs, inadvertently letting in bugs, cats, and dogs. We had a couple of play breaks with the cats..this one is a kitten who is very frisky and liked our packing rope:


Later, as it was getting darker outside, we realized we needed to close our sliding glass door between loads because the bugs were attracted to our lights. We came in, shut the door, and a few minutes later one of the cats (who had apparently come inside at some point, unbeknownst to us) came darting around the corner, making a beeline for the sliding glass door. The poor little thing ran right smack into the glass. He seemed so shocked by the whole situation that he ran into the door about three more times for good measure before darting over into the corner. This all happened over the course of about 0.3 seconds. We let the poor little thing out, and of course as a resilient little kitten he was completely fine.

A lot of our boxes say things like, "Iron. Computer Chair arms. Fan." but some say things like, "Breadmaker and lots of random crap. This one will be fun to unpack!" We haven't even started to unpack the actual boxes. This is the general state of the house:


We did set up the most important thing, though. Our BED. A few years ago, when we both had "real people jobs" for the first time, we bought a big TV and a mattress. We went all out with this mattress, and we have not regretted this decision one second over the past three years. Our bed is basically made of fluffy, delicious marshmallows. We call it the marshmallow bed because it's kind of how you would envision a big marshmallow feeling if you could lay on it. The salesman who sold us our mattress threw in some awesome pillows, too, which are also made of marshmallows. I am now blogging from the bed, and I could not care less what the rest of the house looks like right now. Our bedroom is in the back of the apartment, which is up against a covered walkway (because it apparently rains here sometimes) next to our landlords' garage. In the middle of the day, it is nearly pitch black in our new bedroom, making it an awesome nap cave. It's pretty exciting.

If you have ever wondered how many loads of laundry it would take to wash every single item of clothing you own, stay tuned. We are on load #3. We used every item of clothing as some sort of weird wrapping or packing device. A vase? Let's wrap it in four of Jenny's sweaters! A glass bowl? Let's shove some of Robbie's socks in it! So all of our clothes smell kind of like vase or bowl or playstation now.

Anyway, it's time to sleep on marshmallow bed. Robbie's interview went well, and he has a 50/50 chance of landing the job. He is going back tomorrow (with one other candidate) to teach a lesson to some kids while being observed. Hopefully it goes well...that would be one more thing to check off our list toward getting settled as Oregonians.

Don't worry...we are still planning some kind of big finale post with pictures of our journey. Good night!