Hello, SGV!

Since Peter’s return from Wisconsin, we’ve unpacked and settled into our new apartment in the 626 at full throttle. Though we’ve had keys to the apartment for a few weeks now, we’re finally comfortably moved in. Throughout the week while Peter was out of state, I did what I could after work, which was a lot slower than I had hoped. Especially with some of the furniture, it was much easier to rearrange together. I had taken care of much of the little things required for daily living, such as kitchen and bathroom necessities. Even so, I encountered a few inconveniences during this transitory phase. For example, there were several evenings I showered without a shower curtain, squatting low and near to the tub as to not make a mess.

With much of the necessities already set and ready to go, we just needed to figure out how to return to our previous pace of living. Our lives had been discombobulated for what seemed like an eternity. We started by going through our bedroom and figuring out how to organize all our clothes and bedding. This new apartment comes with ample closet space, much of which I am again monopolizing. There were several storage systems that we had to rebuild, and they’re fitting quite nicely into our space. We’ve somehow found an even better organization than when we were at our last apartment. It didn’t take long to update and make final arrangements to our bathroom and cleaning supplies either. And as couples are wont to do, we got new matching electronic tooth brushes to adorn our new bathroom.

The kitchen and our eating habits were next to be brought back up to speed. I actually had most of it set up, but Peter took it upon himself to re-organize some cabinets to his liking. He likes to show off his superior logic in organization. Needless to say, we got back to our meal prepping routine fairly quickly. Our new oven only came with 2 racks, so we Amazoned a third rack to better bake chicken breasts and vegetables en masse.

Surprisingly, our first few meals were actually home made hot pot. We are big fans of soup, and for some reason May was having a cold streak this year in California. This location is situated in such a walkable neighborhood with restaurants and Asian grocery stores galore, making it very easy to gather ingredients on a whim while getting in our walk. Cooking in this new apartment already feels comfortable, though the dramatically reduced amount of countertop space is frustrating. We have about a third of the counter top space that we had in Westminster.

Now that we could sustain and maintain ourselves, it was time to tackle our work stations. Like our last apartment, our new one is a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom unit. One bedroom is for sleeping and the other is a dedicated work den. We fit both of our standing desks comfortably against one wall, with the remainder of the room dedicated to nurturing plants (have to make full use of the south facing windows)! I helped Peter set up all of his monitors along with cable management.

I am a big proponent of working in a clean, streamlined space as I find it contributes to productivity. Just as we did in our last apartment, we kept our walking pad so that we may get in our physical activity while working at our desks. It’s already such a comfortable workspace I regret not being able to work from home more often.

On the topic of walking and physical exercise, we had to now find a gym as we gave up our home workout set up in lieu of the work den. In addition to its proximity to restaurants and supermarkets, our apartment is conveniently near a gym. We typically do not like big box gyms, but figured it wouldn’t be so bad going at 5:00 AM. Our aversion is mostly to the hordes of gym bros. It’s not ideal, but it’s also an opportunity for us to be out in our local community and to use a wider array of equipment. The local community unfortunately includes many older Asian gentlemen hacking up loogies at this particular gym…

The living space was probably the last major room to undergo revision. It’s pretty much been transplanted from Westminster to SGV, but with some minor tweaks. I do like the windows and lighting a lot more here, in addition to the fact that it is now a dedicated living room. Our previous apartment was very much an open concept layout, meshing together living, dining, and kitchen spaces. It’s nice to have discrete spaces for different purposes now, including a living space where we now like to unwind. Perfect for end of day tea time and debriefing for the next day!

In the process of making our place cozier, we put up various decorations, many of which have some form of sentimental value to us. Included in these decorations are generic wall paintings and my favorite Rorschach ink blots. For some reason, our command strips would not hold up any of these frames, none of which weighs more than a few pounds. More frames have fallen overnight than we could count, leading us to waste an obscene amount of strips. In the end, we were able to spruce up the apartment to our liking and in time to host Mother’s Day brunch (more on that next week)!

After countless rearrangements of furniture, cabinets, and decor, it was finally feeling like home again. By this point, we’ve put our Dyson and Swiffer through an exhaustive cleaning of our place. I forget just how many times we vacuumed and wiped during that first week. As nice as it is to live cleanly, much of it was also in preparation for our first big event in honor of our mommies. This event served as a family get-together as well as a small housewarming, so it was imperative everything was in order. Even our therapist found it impressive that we were able to go from moving in to hosting in such rapid succession.

We’re very proud of how quickly we accomplished getting settled in. I certainly am not a fan of moving, and Peter hates dragging his feet—a combo ripe for just getting it over with. With the pieces in place, we are now working on new iterations of our “ideal week.” My work schedule is undergoing some change over the next few months, and with new piling obligations, we’d like to have a roadmap as it all unfolds. Most of all, though, we (mostly me) are looking forward to hosting all our wonderful friends and family!