The Move, Part 1

Holy cow, it sucks to move to a new place. I, personally, have not started to move, but this weekend we moved Julie from the basement to the third (top) floor of the building. I ache in places I didn't know I could ache in. I took pictures of the apartment before we really started moving stuff on Friday night and I wanted to upload them to put on here but I forgot my camera at the apartment tonight. I'll get it later this week and put 'em up.

We actually managed to do it in 24 hours, which I thought wouldn't take as long because it's only a one bedroom apartment. Man, can stuff accumulate in six months! Julie keeps all sorts of things that I would consider junk and she knows this. We discussed it and decided that while moving, I would put things aside of hers that I thought should be chucked or donated. She would then take a look at the stuff and plead her case for any items she really wanted. About six trash bags later it still looks like there could be more weeding out. We went through her clothes this morning and two bags are going to charity or the garbage bin.

"Babe, I like this shirt a lot."
"When was the last time you wore it?"
"Um... I don't remember."
"I have never seen you wear it."
"Oh, alright then." (said in a dejected British accent)

The only thing I absolutely made her throw out was her wedding dress. The rest she had a chance on. She didn't put up much resistance on the dress though...

And yeah, this won't be one-sided. My stuff will be weeded out next. A one-bedroom apartment with a little storage room is not big enough for two women's possessions unless there is serious chucking done. I'll be doing that this week while I'm back here at my parents' place. I also have about three loads of laundry to do because I haven't done any since before I went to Philadelphia. It seems like a long time ago but that was less than a week ago. Wow. This week has felt like a month long! This weekend was the longest I've had in a long time, mainly because this is only the second Saturday I've had off in about three months. Thank goodness for the busy season being over at work (although it's still super stressful due to low inventory, but whatever...)

Oh, speaking of work, I found out on Friday that I will be making more on vacation this year than I will working normally. The reason for that is because vacation rate is based on a percentage of what I made the previous year. Well, due to having no back-up last year, I worked an insane amount of overtime (which unfortunately also bumped me up into a higher tax bracket that I wouldn't normally reach), this year's vacation rate is based on all of that money as well.... so this year, even after my 5% cost of living increase, I'll be making just over $3 more an hour on vacation! Last year was the other way around. Due to getting a raise for being in my position for a year, plus hitting over five years with the company and getting four weeks of vacation time from the previous three, it somehow worked out that my vacation rate was over $4 less than my hourly rate working normally. It killed me to use vacation time last year because it was such a reduction in pay. This year will make up for it though, yay!

Okay, time to get my ass to bed. It's nearly 11 pm and I'm going to be dead tomorrow!

Today I'm grateful for:

* My American twin updating her blog
* My understanding girlfriend
* My humidifier
* Half the moving finished