62. July 6th, 2011 Picture.

Now that our apartment is somewhat set up, let's take a little tour, shall we?

This is our coffee corner.  We love our coffee.

Kitchenaid Mixer is finally out of the box!  YES!

The first and only piece of artwork hanging on our wall.  I've talked about this picture at length, which you can read about here.

Our bed, complete with our amazing brick wall, which is pretty much the only decoration you need!

And finally, the ONE closet that both Ratty and I share.  One.  Just one.  This should be interesting...

62. July 5th, 2011 Picture.

Check out my plants I snagged at the farmers market!  We've got Thyme, Rosemary and Mint.  We have really wide window ledges, so I plan on making one into a little apartment garden.  Let's hope I don't kill them!

Full disclosure: I do.

62. July 4th, 2011 Picture.

Since we were moving over the 4th of July weekend, we had pretty much written off the holiday.  We figured we'd still be getting settled into our new place, and really didn't want to over schedule ourselves during an already insane weekend.  But, when all was said and done, we still wanted to do something nice for the 4th, and since the weather was absolutely spectacular, we decided that drinks by the water were completely necessary.  We hopped in the car and drove down to Marina Bay [which is perfectly acceptable during the day, at night it's a totally different story!]  We got a seat at the outdoor bar on the dock at Captain Fishbones and had a few frozen drinks to keep ourselves cool.  

After enjoying some frozen mudslides [but seriously I am RUINED by the ones at The Gazebo on Nantucket] we walked around the pier to The Water Club, not to be confused with the other restaurant/bar called The Ocean Club, and grabbed some lobstahhh rolls.

It was a really nice afternoon, filled with sun, drinks and yummy food - just what summer should be!  

We headed back to the South End and decided to walk one block over to Peter's Park to see if we'd be able to see the fireworks out over the Charles.  We thought we might be able to see them over the Boston skyline from our neighborhood - and we were right!  They were pretty spectacular, even with the Hancock building in our way!

I'll leave out the part about how I was worried about getting shot.  I told Ratty that the best time to shoot someone would be on the 4th, during the fireworks specifically, because no one would hear you, or would mistake the gunshot for a firework.  Seriously, this is the way my brain works.  It wasn't because our neighborhood is unsafe in anyway, it's because I'm insane.

62. July 3rd, 2011 Picture.

Our first Sunday in our apartment means our first SoWa Open Market!  I know I've shared a few shopping trips on the blog before, and I am super excited to now live, LITERALLY, right above the market.  I know the first picture isn't the finest quality, but I wanted to show just how CLOSE we are to the market - this is the view from our living room window!

I was actually pretty surprised at how quiet the set up was - some vendors arrive as early as 6am to start putting their tent together, so I was ready for lots of clanging around and maybe even some yelling.  I was pleasantly surprised at how quiet they were, Ratty even uttered the phrase 'quiet as a church mouse' at some point.  Fast forward a few weeks and we won't feel the same way, they started bringing speakers and playing music - that gets old REAL QUICK.

Anywho, it was really awesome to just pop downstairs, grab some lunch off a food truck, walk around to the other side of the building and grab fresh veggies from the farmers market and do some window shopping.  I love our new place!

62. July 2nd, 2011 Picture.

After our world wind couple of days, we decided to take it pretty easy on our first official day as South End residents, I mean, we deserved a little break, RIGHT?  We walked through the neighborhood, grabbed lunch on the patio at Pops, complete with raspberry mimosas, and spent some quality time at the dog park [with our invisible french bulldog, Cisco] soaking up all the adorable little puppy faces.

 

Then, after spending some quality time immersing ourselves in our new neighborhood.  We went home and continued to unpack.  So.many.boxes.  Pretty sure the unpacking will never end.

62. July 1st, 2011 Picture.

MOVING!  Day 2.  Here we go.

Our awesomely fabulous movers met us bright and early at our new apartment to help us unload all our stuff/junk into our new, spacious, gleaming South End .  I make this sound so much easier than it was, we ended up moving in around noontime, as we had to wait for the painters and cleaners to finish sprucing up our place.  Honestly, after all the nasty apartments I've moved into and bedrooms I've had to paint on my own, I was more than happy to wait for our new place to sparkle.  I picked up our 'keys', I say this because they are actually fobs, which are keyless tokens that we keep on our keychain.  We just swipe to get in our front door - we don't own real keys!  Welcome to the swanky South End!

Moving in was SO MUCH easier than moving out.  I felt like the process was a breeze and our stellar movers got us completely in our apartment in less than an hour.  AN HOUR!  They had a dolly which was amazing, plus the fact that we had an elevator made everyone super happy.  YAY!  I'd say we loved moving, but we all know that is a straight up lie.  I'm just all caught up in this recap.

So!  Take these photos with a grain of salt, I snapped them right after we finished bringing in the last load of boxes, I couldn't wait to document our new place!

Our bedroom:

Ugh, don't you just LOVE the brick wall?!

View from our bedroom door into the living room:

[Warning: we have A LOT of stuff!]

Our awesome new kitchen that is totally going to ruin us when we start shopping around for houses:

I've since learned that our awesome cabinets are IKEA, so I might not be totally ruined.

My mom painted this fab armoire for extra storage [our new digs only have ONE closet, le sigh].  My only request was that it be painted the same color as the Sparkling Lemon candle from Yankee Candle.  Those of you who know me know that I am not joking in the slightest.

SO!  What's the first thing you do when you've finally completed your 2 day move?  

GO TO IKEA!

Our completely logical rationale for this was the fact that we needed to buy a couch.  We had a nice blue Ektorp sofa all picked out and the only way it was making it from the IKEA warehouse to our apartment was in the UHaul.  I drive a 2 door Civic, which means that I can never transport something larger than a medium sized overnight bag, so we figured that while we still had our massive moving truck, we should use it to pick up all the big ticket items at IKEA.  See!  There is rhyme to our reason.

We loaded up on all the apartment necessities, like a pillow top, mattress pad and bedskirt for our bed.  Can you imagine that Ratty never had any of these things?!  Men.

But the biggest, BESTEST purchase from our IKEA outing was our couch!

Wait!  I know what you're thinking, you're thinking 'Amy said they were getting a BLUE couch?!'  And you're right, I did say that.  We had gone in with the intention of getting a nice navy couch to compliment our nautical themed life [seriously, who doesn't love a good nautical theme], but when we saw the cover in person I was underwhelmed.  It was more of a denim blue that I compared to a sun faded couch on a frat guys porch.  Yes, I went there.

Ratty still liked the blue couch, but I wasn't feeling it.  I dragged my feet through the rest of IKEA, internally feeling all blah about our lack luster couch.  Earlier in the week I had floated the idea of a red couch to Ratty [I seriously love red anything], but he didn't like it.  With our yellow armoire, gray kitchen and dark floors, he was having a hard time picturing a bright red couch, but in my head, I could see that it would look awesome.

I tried unsuccessfully to convince Ratty to forgo the blue, but he just really couldn't wrap his head around the red.  I own a white slip cover for this couch, so I just assumed that we could swap out the blue when we got sick of it AKA immediately.

Fast forward to us in the warehouse picking up the couch & slipcover and boom, the blue bin is empty.  NO BLUE SLIPCOVERS.  I told Ratty that I would run to the information desk, telling him I'd find a blue one but secretly hoping I couldn't.  I chatted with the rep and he told me that the blue slipcovers were completely out of stock - SOLD OUT!  I asked him which colors they did have and wouldn't ya know, THEY HAD ONE RED.  If this isn't a sign from God that I was meant to own a red couch then I don't know what is.  I merrily skipped back to Ratty, failing to hide my excitement, when I gave him a run down of what was going on.  He thought I was lying.  He thought I was just saying they didn't have any blues just so I could get my red couch.  It was obviously not a ploy to get my way rather the most spectacular turn of random events that just happened to work in my favor.

THANK YOU UNIVERSE!

FYI, now he loves the couch.

Now that the UHaul had been returned, IKEA items unloaded & set up and a space cleared for our candles, wine and cheese, we spent the rest of the night enjoying our new place!  Without TV though, Comcasts' first available appointment was July 5th.....yay.

62. June 30th, 2011 Picture.

MOVING!  Day 1.  The thought of typing up all the details of our move is giving me slight anxiety, I don't think I'll ever be able to see a U-Haul ever again and not break out in hives.  There is no reason that I need to pour over the inane details of our move, and also I think that if I have to relive it again in such detail I might die right here on the spot.  So!  That being said, I will just give you the highlights!

Stop numero uno.  Sidewalk.  This is a Southie institution, famous for their coffee, and I needed to close out my 5 years as a Southie resident with a large snickerdoodle iced.  Seriously, you'd think I was dying.  I am moving LESS THAN A MILE.

Good bye Sidewalk!  So long, farewell...

Off to my next stop, the North End to pick up Ratty and then subsequently Somerville to get our U-Haul and then BACK to the North End to START moving.  Sheesh, I'm tired already and the day legit just began.

So, here is where it gets good, and by good I mean terrifying.  Ratty wasn't *totally* done packing, though he was in really good shape, promise!  Okay, not really, I had heart palpitations walking through his place, but I couldn't TELL him that.  The psyche of someone moving is very very fragile.  You say the wrong thing and the person absolutely breaks down and cannot perform a simple function.  Maybe I'm just talking about me here but I was NOT taking any chances.  I couldn't tell Ratty that we were in tough shape because I'm pretty sure it would send us both into that 'I'm so overwhelmed I'm going to sit here and do nothing' phase.  

So, I helped Ratty pack, cleaned up around his place while he and our friend Bill moved couches into the U-Haul.  This process took approximately 2 hours and was absolutely horrible, or at least it LOOKED horrible - I was just watching.  Our movers didn't move couches due to liabilities, so we were left with moving them out on our own.  Bill was inheriting them for his man cave, plus he works around the corner, so he came over to help load them in our truck.  Getting those babies down 5 flights of North End stairs proved to be difficult.  Very very difficult.

So, of course while the boys are working away, I continued cleaning [aka throwing everything away because I was sure Ratty wouldn't miss it, if he even knew he owned it in the first place].  I also walked around and took photos of all the rooms, documenting this apartment we'd spent so much time in.  Ratty lived there for 5 years!  And I knew him before he moved there, I can't believe how long it's been, I met Ratty when I was 22 and he was just 26, gah, we were just wee little ones.

Bedroom:

Living room/kitchen:

Aren't North End apartments so glamorous?!

We break for photo ops:

I also decided that the easiest way to get all the couch cushions into the truck was to throw them out the window.  Obviously when no one was around.  I might have also done this with bags of clothes.  Hey, you become resourceful when there are 100 vertical steps between you and the truck!  

One last look down the street:

I swear, I am really excited to move!  Though I will miss sitting in this window and watching all the drunk college kids come home at 2am.

Ugh, I will NOT miss this airplane style bathroom.  It was awful.

Ratty saying goodbye:

Then, we went to my place and loaded up the truck.  I took zero photos because we were working quick like a bunny, er bunnies.  Plus I'd only lived there for 1.5 years so I had zero attachment to the place, which sounds heartless but it's true.  This leg was quick and easy due to the fact that I had already stacked everything downstairs, by the door, ready to go.  We have A LOT of stuff.  Like a lot.  The U-Haul place bumped us up from a 14' truck to a 17' one because they ran out of inventory, and thank GOD they did!  We barely squeezed it all in the big one, plus some stuff in my car, we would have been up a creek with the smaller one.  God, have I mentioned that next time I'm hiring people to pack and move everything for me?  Moving is for the birds.

As if this doesn't seem stressful enough, there was still more work to be done when we got to my mom's house!  My niece Devon was taking my super awesome pillow top bed, mainly because it was a full and Ratty's was a queen, and we were also taking a few new pieces my mom had acquired for us.  That required calling our neighbor and cousin Timmy to come over and help.  Jeez Louise.

After this we all went inside, poured some wine and settled in for a relaxing night.  We need it, tomorrow we unload it all.  Yipee!

62. June 29th, 2011 Picture.

Even though it seems as if my life has been GO GO GO for the past 2 weeks, I was really working hard to get my room packed up and ready for the big move.  I'd been chipping away at parts of my room for the better part of the month, stacking boxes up against my wall and outside in the hallway, much to the dismay of my roommate Jamie.  Since our move is somewhat complicated, spanning 2 days and 3 apartments, I wanted to try and make my portion easy on everyone.  The plan was to move Ratty out first, then me, so in order to save time and sanity, I moved all my bags and boxes to the front hall by the door.  My room was on the second floor, of a spiral staircase, so the thought of having 4 people going up and down stairs trying to carry all of my things gave me anxiety.  I wanted to make this move as simple as possible for everyone, so I just carried it all downstairs myself, ensuring a hopefully quick and painless job the next day.  Plus, I could use the exercise!

Seriously, next time I am paying professional movers to pack up all my things and move them.  I don't care how much it costs.

62. June 28th, 2011 Picture.

So, if you haven't gotten the memo about this move, let me fill you in on a little secret, we are definitely not taking it easy in the days leading up to July 1st.  I mean, seriously, looking back, I'm not totally sure if I even slept.  I know I am always go go go, but for whatever reason this stretch seems particularly intense.  Don't believe me?

How about a bar crawl through the North End on a Tuesday.  A TUESDAY.

Ratty and I had both wanted to do goodbye bar crawls in our respective neighborhoods, but with our Ithaca trip taking over the weekend prior to the move, we were left with limited options.  Enter: Tuesday Night North End Bar Crawl.  I mean, it IS summer, going into the 4th of July long weekend, so why NOT do a crawl to get this party started?  The plan was to meet on the Fiore roof deck after work, soak up some sun, enjoy a few cocktails, then head off to some of Ratty's old haunts in the neighborhood.

Honestly, what surprised me the most was the amount of people who were ready to get down, I mean seriously down.  We both thought the whole thing would wrap up around 10 or 11pm, but as we were making stops at all the bars, we were picking up more and more people that were ready to party.   Ratty had sent out an itinerary a few days prior, roughly outlining our stops and approximate arrival times and people really followed it!  At every stop there were people waiting for us, ready to celebrate Ratty and his 5 years as a NeBo resident.  I think we were both really impressed at the amount of people who wanted to come out and party with Ratty, either they really like him or had had really tough Mondays and Tuesdays that week.  I'm going with the former.

It probably would have been cool to get some pictures of Ratty at all these bars, like Corner Cafe, Living Room, Waterfront, etc etc etc, but we were too busy having fun.  I hate being that girl that whips out her camera and says 'GET TOGETHER EVERYONE!'  That is so not smooth.  Instead I took about 10 pictures on inanimate objects from around the bars, which I chose not to include.  You're welcome.

62. June 27th, 2011 Picture.

Now that I am back in Boston and a mere 2 days away from moving, I needed to get my butt in gear!  It was clean, pack, organize, repeat all night!

I try to be rational when I pack (I know, right?  ME?  Rational?!), I wipe everything down so that I'm not packing dusty or dirty things, and I wrap all my glass/fragile objects in shirts instead of dirty newspaper because, well, I OWN A LOT OF SHIRTS.  So since we're fresh off my weekend jaunt to Ithaca I figured I would use one of my 'Ithaca is Gorges' shirt (the one that Ratty bought for me 5 years ago and is a size 12 kids) to wrap up some of my silver starfish from Nantucket.  We've got starfish, Nantucket, Ratty, Ithaca, did know I could fit so many 'likes' into one thing!  Who knew packing could be so thoughtful?

62. June 26th, 2011 Picture.

On our last day in Ithaca we made the rounds to see some of the beautiful sites the city has to offer - there is more to do here than just eat and drink, though we did our fair share of that too!

First, we drove up the mountain, YES mountain, to check out both Cornell and Ithaca's campuses.

The campus was absolutely beautiful, gorgeous views, green lawns and really pretty, picturesque fountains!  We had a fountain at Bridgewater, but state college fountains are obviously a little bit different.  We called ours the toilet bowl....so yea, you get what I'm talking about. 

 We couldn't really walk the entire campus because it's on a massive hill, okay, we didn't WANT to walk around campus because it was on a massive hill, so we did a driving tour.  We passed the dorms where Ratty lived as a freshman, then the apartments that I heard so many stories about.  We walked through the student union building and even through one of their many cafeterias.  I always think it's so interesting to walk around someone else's college, I knew Bridgewater like the back of my hand, I still do, so I like seeing where others went, trying to imagine what it would have been like to be a student there.  I'm not partial or anything, but I'd pick Bridgewater every single time.


The campus WAS beautiful, though.  I couldn't imagine having views like that from all over campus.  I ALSO couldn't imagine walking up all those hills!  Some were so steep there were stairs built in - I am not sure what's worse, the hill or the stairs, it's pretty close but I'm saying stairs.  I thought my walk across campus at Bridgewater was a tough one, but it's got nothin' on Ithaca!

In case you were confused, this is another fountain.

Once we walked/drove around campus, we decided to stop off at one of the gorges on the way back into town.  It had been raining on and off throughout the weekend, so the water was rushing and the ground was somewhat muddy, I might have been ill prepared re: my flip flops, but the trail was so pretty and when we reached the waterfall it was totally worth it!

After hiking out to the waterfall - it was just about a mile and half both in and out & MAN, it was crowded - we headed off for my inaugural visit to Wegmans.  Now, I've known Ratty for 6 years, SIX, and he talks about Wegmans as if it were similar to us winning the lottery, buying a home on Nantucket and just living out our lives next to the beach.  Okay, that analogy might be a touch roundabout, but what I am trying to say is that HE LOVES WEGMANS.  He thinks it is one of the greatest places on the planet, ever, I mean ever ever.  Now, okay, I will fully admit in the spirit of full disclosure here that I totally didn't get it.  How can you love a supermarket?  I mean, I LIKE Trader Joes & Whole Foods, but would I take someone there on a tour while on vacation?  Probably not.  But, with Wegmans, a tour was totally necessary.

And I'll admit, this place was awesome.  It's unlike any supermarket I've ever been to before, ever.  I can't explain it, you  just need to immediately.

WEGMANS!

Pretzel Bread for Miss Shelby.  I wanted to eat it allllllllllllllllll.

All weekend I was talking about what 'Ithaca is Gorges' shirt I was going to buy, I was in desperate need of a new one.  Ratty had bought me one many moons ago, and that sweet, sweet, naive boy thought I was a size 12 kids.  KIDS.  So sweet, but so so wrong.  I tried it on when he first gave it to me and the sleeves were so tight around my arms and the neckline made me feel as if I was about to suffocate - so yea, time for a new one!

Per the usual, I got it in my head that I needed a tye dye shirt, something that I'd never seen and somehow convinced myself that it had to exist and I needed to find it.  I do this all the time, think about something I'd like to own, only to go on wild goose chases for things that may or may not even exist.  I did this in high school with a pair of khaki cords that had flaps over the back pockets - seems relatively easy enough, except the flaps couldn't have buttons. Say what?  Where the heck did I get this idea from?  I was furthermore convinced that The Gap just HAD to make them, so I spent the next 2 years looking for them.  I mean, whyyyyy?  I don't even LIKE cords.  

Anywho, I spent the whole weekend looking through every gift shop for a tye dye Ithaca is Gorges shirt only to come up empty handed.  I knew deep down that Wegmans would take care of me.  I mean, just LOOK at that wall of shirts, you could bet your bottom dollar that they'd have them, which they did, SCORE!  See, I totally didn't make it up!

And finally, before we hit the road for the 6+ hour trek back to Boston, I mean, hi, didn't we JUST do that? We made one last, disgusting food stop on our way out of town.  DP DOUGH!!!

I am pretty sure that any person under 35 should know what DP Dough is, but just in case you all don't, it is a calzone chain that exists in pretty much every college town in America.  They have over 50 types of calzones, all for $5, and it's literally the best.thing.ever.

I have so many college DP Dough stories that I COULD tell, like the time they refused to let Annie and I order one in the store (they claimed they were only doing deliveries) so we stood outside the glass door while we called them and placed our order.  Okay honestly it's much funnier when I tell this story in person - promise.  My personal favorite is the Roni Zoni, which is just a whole bunch of cheese and pepperoni, dear lord I want one right now.  The DP Dough in Bridgewater was unfortunately seized by the IRS for failure to pay taxes (I am so not joking), so it's been a LONG time since my last indulgence.  Ratty and I each ordered 2, one to eat now and one to take home.  We're such fat kids.

Pure heaven.  Please note that I am drinking a DIET ginger ale, which totally counters all of the greasy fat calories I just consumed.  Obviously.

And, that's a wrap folks!  We hopped in the car and made it back to Boston in, barely, one piece.  Such a fun roadtrip!