DIY: build a little family from scratch

I fix the narrow door to the wide cabinet and then try to drill my skull as a consequence

So, right after a huge hug and s big “congratulations” and some tears, the first thing everybody asked when we said we were moving in together was “so, when’s the party?”We chose a day. June 13th. Friday 13th. Yes. And now, less than a month away, there’s still no electricity  in the building, and until that’s solved we don’t get to sign the papers. I hate it. I just hate seeing all my beautiful things piling up in boxes. It’s just sad. For now, we spend our time drawing funny schemes of how could our home look. We’ve been doing some copy-paste from ikea’s website, since many things we’re getting are not from there but we ca’t find a picture. Otherwise, we just draw away. I looks so silly yet it helps to imagine it!  

The appartment is almost ours. We’ve chosen the 7th floor (the building has got 8 floors) facing the south-west. We know, it’s hot in summer. But the south east option had just 1 bathroom and faces the other building, not our campus. Maybe we’ll regret this. Maybe not. It has A/C and heating in every room, and comes with a parking space and a storage room of about 80 sq ft. The appartment itself has 750 sq ft, and there are 2 built in closets. Both bathrooms are fully equiped, the one in the master bedroom with a large shower and the other one with bath tube. We’ve already got a Nespresso machine, this one:

Eric’s parents gave us their sofas (2 pretty blue ones) a brand new bed they have at their house in Xàbia and used only twice and by Eric a few lamps and a bunch of kitchen utensils. Also from his family we’re getting a TV, microwave, iron & board and a lot of money. His parents are also paying for the washing machine.  My parents have bought us a fridge, this one:

But Titanium-finished. We feel luxurious not having a white fridge. Call us lame.Also, we’re getting all sheets, pillows, towels, tablecloth, etc from my parents (we already bought some!) and the glassware (we got Bohemian glass!!) and from my grandma’s house we’ve got some really pretty white breakfast mugs, many many serving dishes, jars, snack bowls, etc, good kives (kitchen and table), some vintage dishes and a few other things I can’t remember now despite the fact we spent a whole morning wrapping up things in newspapers.Here are some of them:

We expect to have all the paperwork done by tuesday and get the contract signed and the keys by May 23rd. Cross you fingers!  

We’ve seen it, we love it, it’s cheap, it’s just big enough… Could this be our brand new (yay, we’re the first people ever living there) rental appartment? We’re so excited! We can’t stop talking about furniture!  We saw it just 1 day before our 10 months anniversary. Are we crazy? Probably. Are we enjoying this? More than anything we’ve ever done.

So, as surprising as it may seem, I’m back.

I’ve been fighting with wp templates for hours (aaah when I was young and computer-savvy!) Anyway, I just can’t make the sidebars look the way I want them to. I’m working on one of the super famous wp provided themes, as you can clearly see, and it’s  just crazy sometimes.Also, I’ve had to re-format like a thousand times my yesterday’s post, since it kept making full stops disappear. Does this mean I’ll have to code-format all my posts? Probably.

On the working/living parent-free front, I have a job interview next Friday. It’s nothing related to translation, but it could keep me fed until I find something better. I’m just asking for a 6 month contract! We’ll see how that goes…After all the weirdness yesterday, I’m missing Eric a lot. It’s like when we have a not-so-easy moment I need to see him right away! Ok, little miss I-have-less-patience-than-a-hyperactive-10-year-old-needing-the-toilet, suck it up until Friday.

That’s all for now from xietaland, let’s get back to work. 

Today will be remembered, or at least, I’ll remember it for being the day my old blog died. I saved a backup of my mysql database, but now I have no idea of what to do with it. So, yeah, maybe it’s not so dead, it’s just in a coma. We’ll see if it ever wakes up. Anyway, if it does, I’ll be at its bedside, holding its hand and smiling, showing how much I’ve cared…

Ok, back to the point. Today will also be remembered as “the day”. Today, my boyfriend (let’s call him a random name like Eric) asked me to move in with him so I could have the peace I’m not always getting at my parent’s and just as a transition until we find a place of our own… or at least rented just for us, since he shares his appartment with three other people. 

This all came after the biggest argument ever. The bottomline of it was that we can’t cope with being apart (50 miles and crazy work schedules don’t do any good to a relationship) and when we’ve been missing each other for too long, which, for us, can be 10 minutes, we start acting weird, doing things we would never do under normal conditions. It’s not like we have seizures or start barking thinking we’re a collie, but it’s close to that, and we don’t like it.

So, today, he proposed. But the thing is, I don’t think I can be on the road again, not any more. I’ve lived in many places always having the 20kg baggage allowed at the airlines as my only reminder of home, and I can’t do it again. If I move, I need to know all my things are with me. My books, my diaries, my notes from class, all my clothes… It’s a bit materialistic, being so attached to things, but those are my things and they mean a lot to me.

At this point, the decision should be easy: stay. But I have two reasons not to. The first one is that I desperately want to be able to share more quality time with him. Now we see each other once a week a couple of hours before he goes to work and then on Friday night, when I stay with him because I’ve got class nearby on Saturday morning. So not much time, and almost none of it “quality time”. As you can see, I’m in love with that term and no, I don’t read self-help books.

The second reason why I want to go is because things at home are not that smooth, and although it truly breaks my heart leaving my mum, I can’t even focus on working while I’m there. I just wish I could take her with me out of there… she’s been really down lately, and my departure would only worsen things.

So, now, what do we do. I’ve been thinking, and I think the best option is to wait a little while until I can find a job there, then look for an appartment and if Eric is ok with it, have him move in with me. He’s quitting his job soon, he already sent his “resignation” and will also have to find something else. This is going to make things even harder, but it’s 100% for the better. I can’t stand how frustrated, tired and sometimes angry he comes from work. He deserves something more motivating than teaching a few spoiled kids the verb “to be”.  

We both have been filling out job applications and emailing CVs, let’s hope it works. I’ve already told my mum I’m trying to find a job there in order to be able to move out of here and live with Eric. She totally supports me, but I know there’ll be soooo many tears the day I say goodbye…

As for him, well… He’s not the kind of guy who’d shout out loud his feelings, but for me sometimes his silences mean so so much… Like with this thing, we’ve been talking about it for months but he didn’t mention it, not even to his best friend (that changed today). I’m so happy about this all that I’d stop strangers in the street and tell them.  Well, that’s probably not the wisest idea, but you get the point. And I really can’t get over the fact that he doesn’t say a word. I know he’s not the talking kind of guy, but it would be so reassuring to hear him proud of his decision talking about it to his friends… I’ve thought that maybe he was ashamed, or not really happy about it, then it came to me the idea that he thought this wasn’t for real, that we were just fooling ourselves…. I don’t know, I made up so many possibilities… and although now I know how he feels, it’s still hard sometimes.

And yet, I couldn’t be happier that we’re doing this, and we’re doing it together.