Our new digs

Here is a front and back picture of our new apartment in Tampa. It's pretty nice! It has been a crazy 4 days!!!! Let me chronicle this day by exhausting day:
Tuesday:
Anthony and I drove down to Tampa to sign our lease, get our keys, and move a few little things. We got there around 12PM and started going through the paperwork. The leasing agent didn't calculate the pet fee for our dogs in the email she sent us with the final amount due and you should have seen our faces when she said that it would be $300 for each dog!! She felt bad for us, so she got her manager to agree to let us pay for just one dog since they are both so small. Whew! Around 2 o'clock, we had everything and we found our way to the apartment (we'd only seen a model before this). I opened the door to find that the apartment was gutted!!!!! There was no flooring in most of the place, and where there was carpet it was filthy. The kitchen had no appliances and stuff was hanging from the ceiling. So, back to the office we went and the leasing agent apologetically told us that she made a mistake and put us in a unit that is being renovated. We got a new address and apartment number, new keys and we left to hopefully find our real apartment, promising to come back to sign paperwork with the corrected address. When we came back, we had to wait 30 minutes to sign the paperwork and then we finally started home to finish packing.

We got home around 5PM and started packing. Since I am so speedy, I did most of the packing while Anthony did trash duty and broke down all of the electrics with the maze of wiring. We finished around midnight, but I couldn't sleep, so I stayed up for an hour changing our addresses on things online.

Wednesday:
Moving, moving, and more moving!! After today I had bruises and sore muscles in places I didn't know could get hurt (like the bruises I have on my hip bones from jutting them out so I can balance boxes I am carrying). It took us about 4 hours to pack up the u-haul and my mom's van and we left for Tampa around 3:30. When we got to the apartment, it was just me, Ant, and my brother Daniel to do all of the unpacking. It went surprisingly fast and we got done in about 1 1/2 hours. We were all sweating like pigs, and Daniel made Anthony carry things downwind because of his manly odor :) We went to 3 different u-haul places to finally find one that was open so we could drop off the drop. As a side note, I had no idea that u-haul favored kwikie marts and discount clothing/cell phone stores to run their operation. Huh.
Being as sweaty and stinky as we were, we decided that a trip to a restaurant was in order. After that, Ant and Daniel dropped me off at the new apartment while they went back to Gainesville to get Ant's aquarium. I couldn't sleep in such a messy, disorganized, new place so I stayed up to 3am unpacking and arranging furniture.

Thursday:
Woke up promptly at 9am to LOUD construction workers. Apparently we are the only unit in our building not under renovation. Nice. Decided I might as well unpack as long as I was up. Anthony spent the entire day in Gainesville breaking down his aquarium and loading it in the car. He got home around 10:30pm and I had pretty much finished all of the unpacking and arranging (what a perfect ploy to get out of unpacking!!). We finally dragged ourselves to bed around midnight

Friday:
Finally a day of sanity! We got internet hooked up today, which makes life in a new place SOO much more bearable and getting things accomplished SOOO much easier :) Ant's still working on setting up his tank, but I think it is starting to settle in for both of us that we live in a different place. Here is what my living room looks like courtesy of Ant's hobby:

And just so you know, I plan on never moving again. I am going to live and die in this 2bedroom/1bathroom apartment. Either that, or if we ever do move again it is going to be for the wealthiest job imaginable so that I can just get rid of everything and buy all new stuff there. For real.