Our apartment , the NEW storage unit...

Tuesday, my brother-in-law, Gray was kind enough to help me move our stuff, in U-haul storage, to our apartment - roughly 10 city blocks away. Not that this close proximity between the two locations made it any easier. Our apartment is still on the 3rd floor. Each entrance to our building has a heavy, spring-loaded metal gate that swings shut like a bear-trap when you try to squeeze inside. Not to mention, that the U-haul truck is too big to drive into the parking garage. So, we had to literally park across the street and carry the small stuff up three flights of stairs- after dodging traffic on Texas Street...over and over again. It was actually a little easier when we had to move the big stuff (like our dresser) as we had a appliance roller. Of course, we got a late start and the heat index was about 102 degrees. Naturally, when you have family available you've got to cash in those chips. I would have done the same. ;-)

After the move, I took Gray out the Vietnamese restaurant - "Huyhn" - a mere two blocks from our apartment. For his part, Gray had something called "Phoenix Chicken" which appeared to be merely fried chicken with rice. As plain as it looked, he thought it was good, so that's all that matters. I, on the other hand, discovered the wonders of Bun, or Vietnamese noodle bowls. How have I not had this before? I have no idea since Brooke and I have been eating Vietnamese frequently ever since we moved to Houston. "Bun" is pretty simple: a bowl with ramen like noodles, meat strips (I had beef), bean spouts, some kind of fish sauce, and various random veggies all mixed together. It was great. I must declare that Vietnamese cuisine has officially moved ahead of Thai food as my favorite food of Asia. Good stuff.

So, back to the title of my blog entry. Yes, our 700 square foot studio apartment is now serving as a storage unit until the packers clear it out next Wednesday. After I dropped Gray off, I moved things around , so we would at least have "aisles" between the towers of boxes and furniture. When Rosco saw what we had done to his lair he freaked out. At one point, he got himself wedged between four giant boxes and couldn't figure how to get out. It was pandemonium!

Today, I succeeding in reducing the bulk even further by going through all of the containers and throwing out tons of junk, roach carcasses, and empty boxes. The task is now to make logical groupings of our "crap", so we can ensure that we don't see my pressure washer and worm farm until we make it overseas. These items will not be necessary for our short stay in Alexandria...ha, ha. Overall, it is really amazing how much junk you accumulate over the years. Part of our problem is that we didn't have a lot of time to pack up the 3 bedroom house in Orange City before we went to Costa Rica. Now I find myself throwing out the things we should have rid our selves with last year. We're getting there.