Busy, Busy, Busy

I can’t believe it has been nearly two months since I last posted anything here. I didn’t intend to neglect my blog but somehow today has been the first chance I’ve had since we moved house to actually sit down and write.

Life has been super busy these past two months. The move already seems like a distant memory. Since then I have been to see my friend in Birmingham for the weekend and had a nightmare eight-hour journey home, landed myself a new job, celebrated my partner’s birthday, went to Amsterdam for two nights and had a nightmare cold/flu/virus thing for two weeks which sucked all life and energy out of me. Oh, and I’ve spent a fortune on replacing broken appliances.

Nobody ever said moving house would be a breeze, but I think we have been somewhat jinxed. Four of our main appliances have broken either in transit or since we moved into the flat. First to go was the cooker – it smashed into a million pieces as we tried to move it from my dad’s house. The next thing was my partner’s PC monitor. He plugged it in and boom, it blew a fuse and refused to come on again. We then discovered that the TV wasn’t picking up any TV channels at all, not even with an indoor aerial. We tried a smaller TV we had brought from dad’s and were intending to sell and it picked up over one hundred channels. The main TV was obviously faulty. Finally, last weekend my tumble dryer started to make a hideous screeching noise and the drum stopped turning round. The wheel holding the belt in place had disintegrated. My poor bank balance is now looking rather sorry for itself.

Living it up in Amsterdam

Still, I love the flat. It is so nice to have a place of our own. At night, when the sun shines into our living room window the place is so light and airy that I do feel blessed to live here. I have, however, developed a slight obsession with throws and duvet covers. My partner now lives in dread of my pay-day because he knows I am going to utter the terrible words, “Let’s go to IKEA.”

With so much going on, two months has flown by. We are nearly half-way through the year already. There is still a lot coming up over the next week too. I have four days left in my current job before starting a new role. I am both nervous and excited and a little sad to be saying goodbye to my work friends. Next weekend we’re off to Glasgow to see Ed Sheeran in concert, something that has been on my bucket list for a while now. I have so much to write about but ironically I don’t seem to have the time to actually write. Hopefully after the next two weeks I will be able to sit down and properly write some posts.

Life is meant to be lived, so I hope you are all spending your weekend doing fun and happy things. I’m off now to pour over my Amsterdam photos. I somehow have acquired several picture collage frames which need filling…

Enjoy your Sunday everyone.

Moving House

Happy Easter everyone!

My family has never really celebrated Easter per se, but we always had Easter eggs and roast lamb for dinner. This year, Easter has been a bit of an afterthought. The reason is I’ve been too busy trying to box up the entire contents of my dad’s old house in preparation for my first ever home.

Yes, after years of dreaming about it, my partner and I have finally found a place of our own. From the moment we walked through the door we were sold and I am super excited about moving in. Truth be told, I’ve gone a bit mad, ordering a tonne of new things – curtains, blinds, carpets, sofa… My bank balance is probably never going to recover especially now I have to pay bills and rent.

Over the years I’ve moved house a few times, but I’ve never had to organise anything before. Mum and dad always took care of hiring the removal men, calling up energy companies to transfer address and take meter readings. This is the first time I’ve had to do all that on my own and let me tell you it’s scary. I keep dissolving into panic attacks wondering if we will be able to get power set up in time for the move and how I’m going to survive without internet for goodness knows how long. First world problems, I know.

One of the biggest challenges moving has presented so far is how to fit all my stuff into the new flat. Not only do I have all my worldly possessions, my partner has his and I have all my parents’ belongings. I’m moving from a two-double-bedroom, relatively roomy bungalow to a modern flat with an admittedly huge lounge but a tiny everything else. We can only just fit a double bed in the master bedroom and our second room will fit a single at a push. There is no storage except for one cupboard and I have a lot of stuff.

I’ve tried to be good, throwing out as much as I can, but things like old photographs and medals my parents won are too precious to part with. Trying to work out how I am going to squeeze it all into the flat is giving me nightmares. How do people downsize?

I know I’m moaning and I don’t mean to sound negative. We both really like the flat and can’t wait to move in. It’s the actual moving bit that sucks. Does anyone else feel like this when moving house or am I just being precious? Deep down I know that once we’ve moved in and unpacked all this stress and frantic cramming of things into boxes will all be worth it. In the meantime, I’ll just have to binge on chocolate to get through. Well, it is Easter after all. Those chocolate eggs are not going to eat themselves.