Adventures in Inner Monologues: My Apartment is a Mess, and an Ode to Trader Joe's

Ok, so I apologize in advance for the randomness of this post: the impending holidays, impending vacation, and impending move have me a bit (by which I mean monstrously) hare-brained and scattered.

Which you'll soon see.

The first issue at hand is the fact that the apartment is a complete mess. Before I left work on Friday, I found a bunch of empty boxes in the hallway -- so after asking around and making sure they were left out for the trash folks to pick up, I happily took five decently large boxes home to help with the packing efforts. 

Between this and the recently hauled out (albeit deconstructed) boxes from when we moved here, I now have the resources needed to...go into a packing frenzy. 

Now, here's the thing about me: I'm absurdly organized, but that tendency becomes a raging obsession whenever I move. We moved a lot when I was growing up, and important stuff would always get lost for months at a time -- or I'd wonder what box a particular thing was in, and then wind up tearing through four boxes before I found it.

So now I set up a command center, and I have a notebook in which I inventory everything that goes into each box. 

Because I'm insane.

Proof of my insanity

The problem? This means the apartment is now inhabited not only by me and Brandon, but by a series of piles: piles of boxes (both filled and empty), piles of books and clothes that are going to Goodwill, piles of old kitchen supplies that we replaced with items from our wedding registry and are now waiting to be given to our friends.


It's starting to look like an obstacle course, which tends to make me kind of twitchy. I'm an "outer order creates inner calm" sort of dame, and all this outer disorder gets me all wigged out.

I'm coping with this by 1) running, and 2) making sure I get my early morning down time during this lovely long weekend. I light a candle, grab a cup of java, and read my book in an effort to get some woo-sah in my life.

Serenity now!

Oh, and I grocery shop. Because grocery stores are my happy place. More specifically, Trader Joe's is my happy place.

I live within a 10-minute walk of a TJ's, and it's the only thing I'm really going to miss when we move to our new place. I mean, the fact that I'll have to drive to one isn't exactly a hardship (oh, the humanity!), but it won't be like taking a quick stroll down the road to bask in its vastly-superior-to-all-other-supermarkets fluorescent lighting.

I love TJ's for a variety of reasons: first, they're incredibly on the ball when it comes to allergen labeling. All the GF-friendly offerings are clearly labeled, which makes this glutard's life a lot easier.

Secondly, they have so much good food...and it's so very cheap! Holy crap, you guys. This is the bulk of what I got, but there was more that I forgot to add in to this picture (regular, non-GF cereal and regular milk for Brandon, 96% extra lean ground beef, and almond butter) -- and it was under $100.

I shall call this work "Still Life With Loot From TJ's."

(Grapes, organic apples, bananas, cantaloupe, pineapple, organic baby kale, organic spinach, organic spring mix, organic kiwis, frozen organic spinach, chicken breasts, chicken breasts flavored with curry sauce, ground turkey breast, herb-infused deli sliced turkey breast, feta, chickpeas, egg whites, unsweetened apple sauce, organic nonfat Greek yogurt, almond milk, and GF brownie mix.) So! Effing! Awesome!

So, while the apartment might be sporting the war zone motif for the next month, if I can just have my exercise, morning routine, and access to Trader Joe's, I ought to survive intact.