Yesterday Daniel and I didn’t mind waking up at 4am if it meant moving out of the drab apartment hotel for good! We made the 30 minute, trafficless commute to catch a pre-sun run on the trail by our new place. It was so dark that I even got to wear a reflecting belt. 🙂

Nine miles later … the moving truck arrived.

Surprise, surprise. We have too much stuff. If anyone wants a beat up tv stand, junky laptop, rolly desk chair, magic bullet, lamp-table thing, or anything else in this pile of crap, come on over.

There is some good news though. Aside from an extra sauce pan, and the aformentioned magic bullet, all of the most important stuff fits (i.e. the kitchen ware). It’s just a good thing I have mad spatial organization skills.

After three hours of ‘puzzle de pantry’ we have room to spare! Looks like I need to go grocery shopping.

And this, ladies and gents, is the best feature in the entire place.

I’m not the tallest girl on the block so the fact that I don’t have to store my spices and oils in a cabinet above my head is a HUGE help … and money saver. I mean how many times have you thought you were out of ground cumin, gone out to buy a new 2oz bottle for like twenty seven bucks, just to come home and find it hidden behind your pepper shaker?

On the bright side, I won’t need to buy chili powder for like 50 years. I’m not entirely sure if this is the proper use for the mystery drawer, but I’m adding it to my list of must-haves for our future home. Right up there after “more than 600sq ft.”

Since our things just de-trucked, we don’t have cable. This meant we had to take a moving-in day break to catch the second half of the Roll Tide Championship!! We went to a place called Breakers in the neighboring town (about two miles fr our house) and carb-loaded for rest of our unpacking job. Reuben specials all around.

Admittedly I made it about three bites before grease started oozing out of my eyeballs. Tasty though! After the game we walked from the restaurant to the store to get a Redbox flick and some Red Bull. We didn’t find any Red Bull, but we did find Spam flavored macadamia nuts. Yum?

How about something that is actually appetizing? Tonight we had our first meal in the new home: Ina Garten’s fresh tomato basil soup (which I learned how to make on the elliptical today) and a modest helping of homemade macoroni and cheese.

Haha, I just now found the soup recipe online so I could share it. Instead of looking it up earlier like normal person, I attempted from memory.

Here’s what I forgot:
1. The sugar (dangit, I remember her saying that was an important step!),
Here’s what I changed:
1. I don’t have any “homemade chicken broth” because, who does? I used low sodium Swanson, and
2. I substituted a can of fat free evaporated milk for the heavy cream.

Even without the sugar, it was good enough to suck down two massive bowls.

I think we’re going to settle in just fine.