My First Few Days

Over the past few days, every single thing in my life has changed. That may seem a bit drastic but it's true: I packed up almost everything I own, drove 1200 miles from Michigan to Florida, moved into a new home with new roommates, and started a new job. Every day I'm doing things I've never done before, and many people encouraged me to start a blog to document my year... I've never blogged before, if you haven't gathered that much already, so these first few posts may be a little rough. But here goes!

The days leading up to my departure from Spring Lake were extremely hectic. My parents were at band camp and I was still working full time, so trying to pack up everything and still have time to spend with friends was difficult. Naturally I chose friends over packing more times than I probably should have, and my parents expected me to be packed by the time they got home, so I ended up cramming almost all of my packing into Thursday night. I think I did pretty well, considering how fast I had to do it. Four crates full of stuff, along with a couple more backpacks, and I was good to go (I actually started off with three crates and a lot of extra small things but my dad figured out how to get everything into four). I spent all of Saturday loading up the car and saying goodbyes, and then my parents and I took off at 4 am on Sunday.

We drove 17ish hours to my new home, and spent the next couple days on a cycle of sleep, hit every thrift shop possible, repeat. And by "every thrift shop possible", I mean at least twelve a day, even going to a couple of the same ones multiple times a day. The thrift shop scene down here is awesome, by the way. They're all extremely well organized and many are absolutely gigantic, getting tons of new stuff every day. When I got down here, all I had was a desk, but thanks to the thrift shops I now have a bed, dresser, side table, office chair, lamp, several pieces of artwork, a bunch of kitchen stuff,  and a cool new papasan chair.

So, to make a long story short, my parents and I spent the first few days of my new life in Jax buying everything I might possibly need over the next year, and writing a list of all the things I forgot to pack that they will have to mail to me. My parents left early Thursday morning, and here I am, living on my own and doing cool adult things like cooking and blogging and forgetting to drink water. My roommates are cool, I joined a gym, we're hosting a potluck tonight, I'm almost completely unpacked, I had my first day of work stuff and met a lot of cool people... things are looking pretty good so far.