Movin' on up to the West Side!

Okay, so it's not exactly The Jeffersons...but it's pretty darn close!  In just three short weeks I will leave the quaint Central West End neighborhood and move out to Yuppyville, also known as Clayton if you're the United States Post Office.   Although it's not to the East Side like The Jeffersons, I am definitely movin' on up!  For the first time in my apartment-life, I will have STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES, a gas stove, granite countertops, beautiful wood floors, a brand new washer and dryer, more than one window in my room, a dining room AND a living room, garage parking for Ferg (that's my '07 Focus hatchback. She's a beauty), and the best, most exciting thing of all, a BRAND. NEW. BATHTUB! That's right. No one's "tuchus" in it before mine.  Cannot wait!

[I feel like the little girl in Jessica's Daily Affirmations.  She goes on and on about all the things she loves. My new roommate, Molly, and I have made her affirmations appropro for our life..."I love my countertops. I love my dining room. I love my washer.  I love my sink...etc, etc."]  In case you haven't seen Jessica, here:

Since my roommate has to move out this weekend (see earlier post about her upcoming nuptials), I decided it'd be a good idea to follow her lead and pack up some of my things.  This turned into scanning my room, which has been declared a National Disaster Area since I started picking out my daily outfits, looking for things to give away. About the same time I started picking out my daily outfits, my mother began habitually asking my father for a bigger home because we had "no space."  Dad always quipped back with a witty remark about having "too much stuff" and so he would go terrorizing through the house making rash decisions about things that we didn't need.  I spent many a weekend going to St. Vincent DePaul with the most recent "stuff" that was going to keep my family in our home.  It really is an ingenious idea because we never moved!  So, whenever I feel like I don't have enough drawer space (which I really don't) or prepare for a big move, I, too, go terrorizing through my 900sq ft. cardboard box house deciding which "stuff" is next to go.

So this morning, after a visit with The Big Man Upstairs, I started looking for things that would be better at someone else's home.  I decided the following just had to go:

• 15 pairs of shoes (some circa 2005--how these made it past the last three rounds of "terrorizing" I have NO idea)
• a speaker system (I use this term lightly.  A 16yr old version of my brother gave them to me for Christmas when I was in college to hook up to my unreliable Dell laptop), 
• A lap desk (that I have not used since my family stopped taking road trips but for some reason it makes EVERY MOVE just in case I decide to do work in bed--which has yet to happen)
• A corner shelf (that was in my very first big-girl bedroom and is simply beautiful, but I just can't keep storing it in a closet from move to move; some seven year old princess will be obsessed with it)
• A side table (the one that you drape a tablecloth over it and you have a glass piece that goes on top)
• 2 bags of clothes (1 bag that I put together after the Christmas season but never took...Oops)
• A suitcase (without the handle. It broke, sue me.)
• AND my all time FAVORITE decorative sign: "I always wanted to be a procrastinator but I just never got around to it." (I am only parting with this GEM because it is red and my new room colors are a light mint green and a deep rose pink)

Some people get worried that I give things away without thinking, but what I didn't tell you about my Mom and Dad's "back and forth" about "bigger house" and "too much stuff" was that my mom benefitted from this whole ordeal.  All the shelves we cleaned off were filled again in three months.  It was like directions on a shampoo bottle: "Rinse and repeat."  So don't worry, those 15 pairs of shoes will now make way to 15 more pairs of MUCH newer shoes!

Although my apartment looks like something circa the Depression Era or that I'm facing foreclosure, I am very very VERY excited to be turning a new leaf in my St. Louis Adventure.  The suburbs will surely bring a more relaxed way of living, and I am SO. READY.

Here's to new beginnings....and new shoes!