packing to move

We are moving - surprise! We had decided we thought we'd sign another year lease at our current place, but then it sold. (Our landlord has been trying to sell it off and on since before we moved here.) He thought it was going to someone who wanted to keep tenants, but it turned out that the buyer wanted to move in, so we got our 30-days' notice. It was sad, since we have loved living in this place, but okay because we already knew it couldn't last forever. (Our landlord actually offered it to us if we wanted to buy it, but we didn't too badly want to own a loft in Oakland with no doors or storage space to speak of. Someday we'll have kids, and we're going to want to put those kids somewhere with a door when they just want to scream.)

As luck would have it, we were out of town for several of those thirty days, so apartment hunting was pretty hectic, but things worked out. We found a place that will be fine, at least for now. It's not as pretty as this place (I am fairly converted to stained concrete floors), but overall it's a lot more practical, and it has almost as much space. Jon is pretty excited about the big porch-like area in front of our door (visions of cookouts are dancing in his head). I am even starting to be pretty excited about having carpet. I'll post pictures of all that after we're moved in. Becca (and her son, and her brother) and Danielle (and her kids) both came to help us pack, which was rather angelic of them. Both were a huge help, and we made a lot more progress than we would have otherwise.