Friday was moving day. A big, bright orange van with the words, “San Francisco Bay Area” pulled up in front of the apartment a little after 8:30 in the morning. It took them all day to unload (I think they left at 5:30pm-ish).

My husband said the movers (the same crew moved us out of our SF place) kept commenting on how heavy the boxes were. “In my 35 years on the job, never have I…” and so forth. I did most of the packing. Whoops. But absolutely nothing broke. Except when I dropped part of the espresso machine as I was taking it out of the box. Yeah, well.

The first time I walked through the apartment, I was underwhelmed. No closet in the second bedroom (unless you call a 6-inch deep x 4-foot wide space a closet) and a somewhat similar “closet” in the “master” bedroom. The kitchen was tinier than I thought (and most of the counter space was taken up by a behemoth microwave from the ’80s). And there were dead flies all over the attic (which made the baby cry and want to go home).

Looking at the apartment from the backyard. Second floor.

After my husband arrived (five days after I did), he and Sam the Labrador slept at the apartment, while the girls and I continued to stay with his mom (so much easier to be in a furnished home with a stocked fridge, especially with little ones).

The girls and I still haven’t moved in officially. The fridge and the washing machine are both on the fritz (to be fixed tomorrow). Not to mention the boxes everywhere. But I’m already growing fond of the place. I managed to fit all my cooking stuff (meaning the stuff I didn’t put in storage), save a couple bulky items (slow cooker, mixer), into the tiny kitchen. We figured out solutions for the clothes situation and the attic is a super play area for the girls (and it has air conditioning!).

Me and Sam in the backyard on moving day.

And the backyard. Oh my gosh. Having the girls be able to go downstairs on their own (carpeted, not scary stairwell inside of the house) is a million times better than our situation in San Francisco. And I can see them from the kitchen window. Dream come true.

A lot of our things we allocated for the apartment didn’t fit into the small space. And I kind of love that.  I loved putting books, artwork, clothes, dishes, back into boxes and labeling them “storage.” I loved the process of “no, we don’t need that.” I feel clean. And I feel like, yes, we can move from a 1700-square foot home to an 800-square foot apartment and live to tell about it. Very excited to move in (tomorrow?) and really get this adventure started.