Skipping Sugar for Show and Tell

Hellooo!!

I feel like I've been so absent from the world of the internet this week. If you have been following me on Twitter, you're pretty caught up, but for the rest of you, I have SO MUCH to say!

As you all know, I left for Chicago earlier this week (road trip with my dad, whatttupp). We drove from Phoenix to the windy city in two days and I was pretty sure I was going to die. I was really antsy to get to my new home so the extended hours in the car were a real killer. We had pretty good weather for most of the drive but right at the end we hit a NASTY storm (90% of the cars, including truckers, pulled over to let the storm ride out). I took a few pictures of the drive because I'm big on road trips and I wanted to share.



The first day we stopped for lunch in New Mexico at the best Mexican restaurant I have ever eaten at in my life. I am dreaming of the next time I have a chance to eat there. How is it so delicious...? The rest of the trip was spent listening to classic rock and comedy which was wonderful.

Friday was my move-in day. My building (and I assume most other buildings?) has pretty strict move-in policies that led a very stress-filled day. My scheduled move-in was from 12:00-4:00. Allegedly, after 4 you aren't allowed to "move" anything else in. I have a car that was filled to the brim with boxes and had to buy all my furniture AND pick up a BUNCH of boxes from a storage unit all in that 4 hour time slot. Ikea is about 45 minutes away from my apartment (an hour with traffic) and the storage unit is an hour away as well. In the morning my dad and I dashed to Ikea and bought my bed (we didn't want to damage the roof of my car so we decided to make two trips) then hurried downtown to unload the first round of stuff. As soon as the car was empty, we headed back to Ikea to grab my desk and bookshelf and made another trip to my building to empty the car. As soon as it was empty (it was 4) we left again to go to the storage unit worrying about how to get the rest of my stuff up to my room since our move-out time had expired. We ate for the first time all day, grabbed as much stuff as would fit in my car, then picked up some fruit to hold me over until I had a chance to really get groceries. The day was SO stressful but we kept our cool and everything went pretty smoothly.



Let me say that I absolutely adore my apartment. I'll post pictures of it later as things get set up but I can describe it for you now. There is a TON of natural light due to the gigantic windows that all have HUGE ledges (can you say window seats!?). The kitchen and hallway has hardwood flooring and the entryway has beautiful tile. My room is going to be so cute once all my furniture is set up and my closet is HUGE. Speaking of things that are huge... the kitchen is TO DIE FOR. I will have SO much room to bake all kinds of treats this year and I couldn't be more excited.

I feel like I'm writing WAY too much for one post so I'll leave it at that. Expect the next few weeks to be filled with peeks at my beautiful new home. I'm so happy to be here. I can't wait to see what these next months bring to my life.

xo
Mal