the final papers for our visa applications arrived last week, so Husband and I headed into the city. submitting our paperwork turned out to be a little more complicated than we had been led to believe, but no where near as bad as the 6 hour line horror stories I've heard. thanks to the New York Public Library and the CVS on 3rd and 42nd we were able to get all our forms and photos in order. less than a week later everything was ready for pickup... that's right, we officially have our resident visas for Taiwan!
other than that we've been preparing to move this coming Sunday. special thanks to Dave and Bill for coming up and helping Husband paint the apartment back to its boring beige. you guys did an awesome job! I also would like to state for the record that high coverage primer is totally worth every penny. that room up there used to be a deep dark "Joker's jacket" purple [took I think 4 coats to apply] and with 1 coat of primer and 1.5 of paint it was done.
today we sold most of our furniture [bed, coffee table, tv stand, endtables, bookshelves] and we've been trying to do triage on the rest of our possessions. some to keep, some to give away. it helps to know things like my sprinkle collection and donut pan, heavy winter sweaters and crochet needles will be used and well-loved by friends. though some things- like my bottle cap collection -just needed to be pitched.
in just today I threw out SEVEN bags of junk. sometimes it's difficult to let stuff go, but mostly it feels freeing to be rid of all the unnecessary excess. it might be a little wasteful to pitch the motherlode of bobby pins I picked off the bedroom floor. but I still have a hundred pins not tangled in carpet fuzz and cat fur. I figure if it's been lost or unused for a while then I probably don't need it anyway.
in the flurry of productivity, we've still been trying to take some time to enjoy our last days here. dinners and lunches with friends, backyard camping trips, boutique shopping for going-away BBQ outfits, hitting my favorite running trails, midnight games of bananagrams, and my first crossfit class ever [thanks Bryan!] I also played a small supporting role in assisting my best friend's boyfriend surprise her at work and propose! obviously a celebratory margarita was in order. congrats Erika + Mike, so happy for you guys!
this week is closing out with the last of the packing and cleaning, and a final farewell to our east coast friends. Sunday we head out for the mitten. we will miss a lot of things about our life out here, but are definitely ready to head home to relax for a few months before taking off for Taiwan. I hope to have a little more spare time to keep up with the blog and document all our activities before we go... stay tuned!
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