Crossing T's and Dotting I's

Now that we have officially been living in our house for a month, please tell me I will be able to start finding things soon! Seriously, it is A LOT of work moving 2000 miles. We moved to Rhode Island right before we got married, so I coupled the moving checklist with my name change checklist. It was interesting combining all of our stuff and finding a home for all the wedding gifts we received. I remember the most stressful part being the books. Even if you have known Nicholas and/or I for a short time, you have to know our feelings on books. I wouldn't really call it collecting. It's more like we are starting our own library. In fact, Nicholas probably has a small fine arts library that is bigger than some colleges!

In our 888 sq. ft. apartment, we had 12 bookcases and a coffee table with 6 "nooks." I had gotten rid of lots of books during my college years every time I moved, because let's face it, books are heavy! Of course, I mostly got rid of cheap little paperbacks from used book stores. I must mention here, that I am not even figuring in the numerous photo albums and scrapbooks when I talk about books!

Back to books being stressful...I thought it would be a good idea (2 weeks before we were to be married) if Nicholas and I organized our books on the bookshelves. That way, they would be easier to find. We started making piles on the floor, but Nicholas didn't really understand the purpose of the effort, and I thought some of his books were weird. (Point in case: The Discovery of Dragons, and Wiener Dog Art.) The good news is that we got everything organized and survived our first stressful moment as an almost married couple. Here are some of the book categories: non-fiction, fiction, art history books, art books broken down into categories (sculpture, ceramics, glass, drawing, architecture, and miscellaneous), artist monographs, puzzles, cookbooks, Bibles, yearbooks, textbooks, business books, writing books, "coffee table" books, travel books, and miscellaneous stuff (remember the Dragons and Wiener Dog Art books?).

Now to the actual point of this post. There are a lot of things to do when you buy a new house and move across the country. Here is a list of some of the things we have completed.
--Change of Address to all the important people
--Changed the locks on the doors so we hopefully won't meet the crazy neighbors
--Request a lock change on the mailbox
--Get a refrigerator and fill it up
--Update car registrations (more on this in another post)
--New car inspections
--Order new checks
--Stop the RI state income tax deductions!
--Set up electricity, water, trash, gas, cable, and Internet
--Haggle with the insurance company for auto insurance (more on this in another post)
--Get to know the Home Depot paint department really well

Here are some things we still need to do.
--Get Texas driver licenses
--Acquire a washer and dryer
--Buy a lawn mower
--Fix the outlets in the kitchen that are not working
--Install a new keypad for the garage
--Thank the neighbors that have been trying to welcome us since August
--Do the cold weather dance so the heat and humidity will relinquish its hold on us