Moved in

This past Monday, I moved into Cal's house.

Sure, I've been living here for a little over three months now.* My stuff, however, has a different story.

When my parents came up to Macon the weekend before we got married, they helped Cal and me move my boxes from my house all the way --two doors down-- to Cal's. I was leaving for Thomasville the next day to make final wedding preparations, and the next time I'd be back up here would be the day we came back from our honeymoon. I knew that if I still had an apartment full of boxed-up mess awaiting my return, I'd never fully enjoy our time away. So we moved it.

The problem came in the fact that Cal was still going to be living in his house (alone) for a few more days. He wasn't heading to Thomasville until the Thursday before the wedding, and I'm sure he was hoping to treasure his last few days as a bachelor, living in his bachelorish bachelor pad. He was quite ready for me to move in, I think, but he got a bit squirmy when anyone made mention of my things coming with me. I was, therefore, a little nervous about filling his house up with mounds and mounds of boxes filled with unorganized junk and promptly leaving town. What if my stuff drove him nuts and made him rethink his proposal? What if he didn't show up as planned?

In an effort to avoid the rather annoying abandoned-at-the-altar scenario, I decided that we should cordon off one of the guest rooms for my things. That way, we could shut the door and Cal wouldn't even have to see it. And, when we returned from St. Simons, we'd have a semi-clean, organized house in which to live, and I'd have the rest of the summer to unpack and get settled.

Those who know me well can, I'm sure, figure out exactly where this post is going. You see, I procrastinate. I procrastinate severely. And so, three months later, I was still living out of the boxes in the front bedroom, digging through piles of old bills, checkbook stubs, notepads, staple guns, and extension cords whenever I needed to use, say, my calculator. When I had found it, I could leave the room and close the door, forgetting again the mess behind me. Whenever we'd have company, we'd just stack the boxes so that they'd perch precariously on top of one another, reaching as high as we could get them and thus providing the illusion of a somewhat clean room with lots of floor space. Goodness knows the mess we would've had if the boxes had ever toppled.

But now, I am pleased to announce that it's official. This is my house, just as much as it is Cal's. No more boxes, no more wedding gifts, to unpack. It is done.

What made me finally do it? Kinda funny, actually. Cal and I had gotten into a silly argument a couple of weeks ago on a Saturday night. I can't even remember what it was about. Afterwards, he was watching football in the tv room. I had three options: 1) stay and watch tv with him and silently seethe about whatever it was that had made me mad, 2) call Elizabeth and head to the local Irish pub for gin and tonics, or 3) go to the other room and find something to keep me busy.

The first option, let me tell you, just wasn't going to happen. The second? Well, I was SO tempted. It was certainly the most pleasurable option. But I knew that my leaving would be a slap in the face or a slamming of the door after our argument, and I felt that it wasn't a real mature move. At some point I would have to learn how to argue with the man who I share a house with, and it might as well be now. So, the third choice it was, and I was so dreadfully bored that I decided I might as well throw some of my tension into the mess in the guest room. I put on my Ipod headphones, and, two hours later, I was done. The room was spotless. Ready for overnight company.

This past Monday night I completed the moving-in task by finally making room in some of our kitchen cabinets for our fine china, which, until then, had been sitting out all nice and pretty on our dining room table, gathering dust. I figure that it'll buy us some time until we can find a china cabinet that we really like, rather than feeling pressured to settle on one just to get the dishes out of the way.

It feels nice to have a house of my very own. And even nicer to be sharing it with an adorable man, who just happens to also be my husband. How did I become so blessed?

*You wanna know something crazy? Last Thursday, we had officially been married longer than we were engaged. One of Cal's cousins got engaged a couple of weeks before we did, and his wedding is still 2 weeks away. I don't know how they're standing it. We HATED being engaged, and that was just for 3 months.