Ch-ch-ch-changes

Well, we are finally getting settled in to our new apartment. We're almost completely unpacked, and all major crises (broken fridge, roach infestation) have been handled. Now what?

This is the biggest move I've ever had. All during college, I lived only an hour away from my family. After college I moved home for about 5 months until moving to Tuscaloosa (about 1.5 hours away from family) to be with my future husband. I lived in Tuscaloosa for 1 year. Then, a million changes happened at one time. Zack graduated law school May 10 (YAY!), he had a job offer with the state in Montgomery, we signed the lease to a new apartment, and started a house hunt. These are all very good things, and I'm so proud of him, but I am unsettled too. I've never been this far away from my mother and siblings (about 2.5 hours). I know that doesn't seem like much, but I've always been extremely family oriented, and I know it makes my mother sad too.

One silly thing I noticed today that will seriously lead to more homesickness - different news anchors! In all of my other moves, I've always been close enough to Birmingham that I still could watch Jerry Tracy, etc., on my local stations. Here, all the local channels are numbered differently, and there are strangers reporting news to me about locations I know nothing about. They talk about Troy, Dothan, Auburn. These places have never even been on my radar, and I don't want to hear about them. I want to hear about Birmingham, Pell City, Montevallo. Our new apartment is smaller than our old apartment (which, by the way, I absolutely loved. It was seriously the best apartment.) So lots of my nesting items which would normally make me feel a lot better are stuck in boxes and shoved into the tops of closets. It feels so much better to have our things displayed, but still nothing looks the same. Bottom line: I was not ready for this move. I had really close friends at work, one of my best friends lived just 5 minutes away, and we'd made good friends with some law school people. Other than that, I had a good job (well, more on that later. It was good enough.) We had a kick-ass apartment, and were really convenient to everything except home. Now we're even further from home, and I don't know my way around.

On the one hand, I remember feeling this exact same way when Zack and I had our first conversation about me moving to Tuscaloosa. Until then, I'd always assumed that once we got married, we would live closer to Birmingham, where I would work, and he would commute to school until graduation, when he would find a job in Birmingham. Well, I had no idea how difficult it would be for him to find a job. So when I resigned myself to moving to Tuscaloosa, I was miserable. I lived there completely alone while he worked in Washington D.C. for the longest 6 weeks of my life. I didn't have a job, and I had all kinds of pressure. I cried all the time and just wanted to go home. But of course, Tuscaloosa felt more and more like home after a while. It's where Zack and I shared our first home as newlyweds. It's where I had my first real job out of college. My coworkers there traveled to my hometown to watch as I took my vows. It became home.

So I'm hoping Prattville can become home too. Because we hope to buy a house either here or in Wetumpka, and stay there for probably 5 years. We will probably have our first child while we're living here. I know our parents are not happy about that. Zack's parents have been sort of freaking out about it. Both Zack and I are from nearby Birmingham, and in our hearts, that will always be home. I hope one day it can physically be home again.For now, I am trying my best to clean, nest, and make this place as comfortable as possible while I learn my way around. I took some pictures of my new apartment, and I will post those later when I learn more about how to do this.