About moving in. It actually went pretty well. We had been packing things into boxes for a few weeks before. We tried to keep similar things together, including glass items, bedroom stuff, etc. So we were decently organized, and only needed a little bit of rearranging at the last minute.

We tried to plan our move a little bit in advance. It’s about 45km from my house (a bit less from Laura’s), so we wanted to do it in one trip. Laura’s parents offered to help us and rent a large (18ft I think) U-Haul truck, which her father drove. We had many of my boxes and quite a few of Laura’s at my house, so we planned to get the truck at 7PM Friday evening, and load it up at my house in town, and then park it out at her house farther out of town and load it up the next morning.

We had asked several of our friends previously if they’d be able to help us move. This was probably the best thing that we could do, as our 4 helping friends were what likely made everything go so smoothly, especially my friend Jimmy who I knew I could count on.

Saturday morning I arrived at Laura’s house at about 7:30, with plans for everyone to show up ahead of time. Laura had moved nearly everything (all the boxes and some light furniture) to the garage the previous day while I was at work, so there wasn’t a whole lot of stuff be brought upstairs. Previously mentioned Jimmy showed a little bit early, and everyone else a bit late. We had started loading right away, with Laura and Allison in the truck moving everything to the back and everyone else loading crap onto the truck.

The hardest challenge was getting the large dresser into the truck, and trying to get the couches upstairs and to fit properly in the truck. Then the guys drove with Laura’s dad to the apartment while Laura, her mom and Allison went to pick up Sophie from the vet in Leamington (about 10 minutes from her house).

So just to put this timeline into place a bit: 8AM started loading, 9AM left for Windsor. 50 minutes to the apartment, so unloading started at about 10AM.

By 11AM, we were done. An entire truckload (18ft) full of our stuff, unloaded in less than an hour. We were done and waiting for 15 minutes before Laura and her mom met us there. Then we all headed back to Laura’s for pizza and beer.

I think there’s some key things we did that really helped us:

• Planned ahead of time, packing boxes over a two-month period, were most of our non-essential stuff was packed long before move date.
• Set a determined date, and arrange everything for that day. The sooner you plan the better, as it’ll help people plan their schedules.
• If it’s feasible, get a moving truck. I don’t think it’d be as effective for moving across town, but for long trips (even 45 minutes), it saves doing several trips. It also helps you get everything done in one bang, and get it all over with.
• Ask some friends to help, and try to be certain you can rely on them to commit. We had 5 friends helping us, which made 5 haulers and 2 “passers”.
• Feed your friends/helpers pizza and beer or something similar. It’s not only a good incentive to tip someone into helping you and a great thank-you, but it’s an excuse to have a pizza and beer (or whatever).

There were some challenges for us though, and things that we could’ve thought over first:

• Our apartment was really cramped with all the unloaded boxes. Unpacking was a chore because it was a game of moving boxes to other rooms just to get them out of the way. Kind of like the game Rush Hour.
• We could have organized our boxes better, based on where the stuff was going to go. Labelling would’ve helped, too, so we knew were to unload them, to minimize the above problem.
• Thinking about how we were going to arrange things. We had trouble (and some arguments) about how to arrange furniture and were stuff like the computer desk was going to go.

So far, after about a month and a half of living here, I’m finding I like it. It’s hard for me to keep up on laundry (that’s one of my chores), and the bedroom hasn’t really been organized yet, but it’s pretty homey.

Again, apologies for the blog silence. I’m not going to promise anything specific, but I have a couple other things I want to talk about, including my new job as a Java programmer and perhaps some web stuff that I’m dealing with in creating my blog for PHP class. Also, that website I’ve been working so hard on at my other work has been release. Checkout www.technophar.com!

Any comments – let me know in the comments (durr hurr).

Together we’ve got about $12k. Tuition and other school fees are about $2500 each and we need to put away about $3600 for rent up until April. With about $2500 for books, bus pass, and other school supplies, I’ve got a little bit of extra cash to stow away. Hopefully that can stay save for gifts, etc.

My concern is the monthly costs. Utilities are included in rent, and the only real needs are food and gas – with gas being about $35/week for going to work across town and getting large groceries, we’ll use the bus for other travel.

I have absolutely no idea how much groceries will cost. It’s just the two of us. We’re not too heavy eaters but we don’t like eating crappy cheap stuff all the time either, and we’ve gotta have lunch-packable items for school. I’ve thought no more than $75 a week (after the initial cupboard stocking, of course), but Laura seems to think that it’ll be closer to $100, if not more. I’m more inclined to believe her, as I don’t cook or do shopping whatsover.

So, this I’m calling for comments. Any ideas on what our weekly/monthly costs are gonna be (keeping in mind we’re in the Windsor area) are welcome, and just general living costs and issues and discussion.

I’ll have some geek stuff next post, I promise.

• My girlfriend and I decided we were going to move out to an apartment for school this year
• My parents gave us a couch set, a water fountain, and told us they’d pay first & last
• Her parents offered us a bunch of stuff like pots & pans
• We bought some cookware on clearance
• I looked up some apartments in Windsor
• We went and seen two, one on Millen St and one on University Ave W
• Decided the first (Millen) was crap and a dump and wouldn’t pay $400/mo for it let alone $570
• Fell in love with the second (on University)
• Before we even go halfway home, had called the guy and told him we’d take it

So now, we’ve got a 1 bedroom apartment with a fair amount of space (600+ sq.ft. I think), $600/mo all inclusive, includes a fridge, stove, microwave, private washer/dryer, and even air conditioning. It’s 14 minutes away from school and about 4 minutes away from my friend’s.

So sweet deal, eh? But what about my Star Wars poster and other things, including my B-wing lego set, my large Master Chief wall-sticker, my two swords, and 40+ Nintendo Power posters? Laura has already said she’s the “decorateur”, and while I’m sure she’ll do a fine (amazing) job of it, she’s not nearly as geeky as I am (yet still pretty geeky). I’m sure you can understand that small spot of rust in this amazing shiny new deal.

However, there is hope – last night she professed to me that she thinks the Star Wars poster might look nice in the living room, since there’s a lot of blue in it and that would match our couches. And if not then I can put it in our bedroom. Sweet. I just love that girl.