Moving is Expensive!!! Parents Rock.

In the last week I have spent:

• approximately $250 at Home Depot (paint, supplies, light switches, microwave, etc)
  
• approximately $200 at Bed, Bath and Beyond (basic bathroom, bedroom, kitchen things)
• approximately $100 at Walgreens (cleaning supplies, kitchen things, etc)
• approximately $500 on a 14 foot U-Haul (including gas)

My parents, blessed saints that they are, paid for a lot of that, and let me borrow the rest. When all is said and done, I will owe them close to $2500 (first month, last month, security deposit, plus all the "little necessities it takes to first get settled" that I can't afford because I haven't worked at my job long enough). This is a little scary, but it's really nice to know that my parents are able to help me out, even at age 23. When do we truly become independent? I don't know if we ever do.

Anyway, I am beyond exhausted...I spent all last week with the mantra "just get through Sunday night," and although I sometimes felt a little weary, I pushed through the tiredness and managed to paint the entire apartment, drive to Berkeley (from LA, twice), move a 1-bedroom apartment's worth of stuff into my new place, scrub and Swiffer and cleanse and take out trash and even start unpacking some things. My dad is a superhero. He not only hung my towel rack and fancy deadbolt lock and lifted heavy things and re-caulked the kitchen...he re-wired a mysterious hole in the wall, finding out that the two clipped wires inside the hole go to the light-sensitive front door light and a socket inside. He bought switches and a switch plate, re-wired them, and now I have a light that automatically turns on when it's dark out and off when it's light, and I have an outlet that turns on via a switch on the wall next to the front door. Like I said, my dad is a superhero. My mom isn't too shabby herself...she scrubbed the grout in the kitchen so hard that what was once dirt brown/black now is sparkly white. I had thought that the grout was just a dark grout...on purpose. Um, no. My mom is also brilliant at putting things away and organizing them so that even if the majority of the apartment is a mess, I still have the basics set up so it feels like home.

Kudos, parents. And thanks a million bajillion.

I won't be writing a lot in the next week or so because I don't have internet hooked up yet and I have a LOT of unpacking to do. But when I do, there will be pictures. And fun times.

Ah, my very first apartment, all by myself. Delicious. The end.