Slow and Steady

So I reserved a U-Haul for Saturday and I guess that means this thing is really happening! This move has been somewhat less traumatic than moves past because I have had the luxury of taking my sweet time. Basically every afternoon when I get off work I just drive home past my old place and pick up a load, drive home, unload, and that's it. It doesn't feel exceptionally laborious, and all of a sudden the only things left in my studio are large items of furniture. It's been sad packing up and leaving my cute-bachelorette space, but I'll tell you what, I am happy I did all that purging 6 months ago when I moved in!

The more stuff that I move into the Carmichael house the more it starts to feel like my home too and that's exciting! Not to mention I get to think about things like furniture! and paint! and decorating! all over again. Obviously those fun things will have to wait a little bit because with Maui coming up at the end of May all of our extra cash is being budgeted for that excursion and not so much for new furniture, but even just browsing for design inspiration gets me all giddy! I've been cutting things out of magazines and keeping all my ideas in a notebook at home and I can't wait to start working on it.

Speaking of notebooks, since I've been packing things up I have found A LOT of old journals that chronicle my pre-blogging life as well as a number of old photo albums. It's funny to note that even before I started this blog I obsessively documented the most random aspects of my life. It's actually been tons of fun to go through and read about exactly what I was feeling even just 4, 5, 6 years ago...because although it seems like practically yesterday, my life has changed SO MUCH! The other night I read my way through my life in Los Angeles, my move up to Sacramento, meeting my new roommates, subsequent moves, my thoughts on my future career, my laundry list of items I was looking for in a partner -- just about everything you can imagine. And the best part was that the writing was totally unencumbered. It's made me feel like I need to get back to a little bit more personal writing, and probably by hand. I've gotten so used to the quick blog update, and although that is also good documentation, and a great way to stay connected to my family and friends, sometimes I just need a place to let out some of the other important ideas that I'm stirring around. I'm not saying things are distilled here, but in some ways that have to be because of the broad readership. The idea of jotting down thoughts only for myself feels just perfect right now.

Speaking of old journals and photos, I decided the other night that I'm going to take some of the photos I have lying around and using them in our house. Garrett and I have had a ton of great adventures over the past few years and the other night we spent an hour sitting on the couch reminiscing and looking through old photos and had such a fun walk down memory lane! It made me think that we should have those pictures out and about, because some of the photos really capture fantastic moments. I definitely don't want our house to turn into tchotchke photo land, but I think we could find more ways to artfully incorporate some of those moments into our decor and I'm looking forward to finding a way to do that. (My only fear is that dealing with things like hanging pictures involves measuring and I HATE measuring...although not more than I HATE crooked picture frames, but I guess that's not something I need to reconcile right this very minute.)

Doing this move at a slower pace has really made me feel pretty inspired and creative lately. I can't wait to start working some of those impulses out, not only on paper but on the walls. I love being absolutely submerged in possibility!