The Blog

It’s hard to believe that August is almost over.  It’s even harder to believe that I’ve been living in our new house in Pittsburgh for over 2 weeks now.  Needless to say, progress has been slow.

At the beginning of August, I was body-deep in work, trying my best to wrap up my year spent as an AmeriCorps VISTA with Habitat for Humanity Virginia.  It was bittersweet to say goodbye to an amazing group of co-workers.  I managed to squeeze in a little time to write some notes for each of them.  I personalized each card with a hand-drawn rendering of a Habitat house in Virginia.  Below are 4 of the 8 cards.

On August 11th, I said goodbye to Charlottesville and made a final 6-hour trip to Pittsburgh.  Once we found out we were moving, the homeowners we had been housesitting for decided it was time for them to put their house on the market.  They asked us to move out by mid to late June so that they could do some work on the house.  Alex had to move to Pittsburgh in May to start his job, so my sister, Amy, was so kind as to let me live in her college apartment for the rest of the summer.  She furnished the apartment with a lot of pieces from our childhood home, then supplemented with some fun new bedding, rugs, linens, and more.  She let me help her place and hang her artwork.  I decided to string up her letterpress calendar to fill the wall by her bedroom and help tie the colors together in her bedroom.

It was a bit nostalgic for me because her apartment is in the same complex where I lived with our older sister for two years when I was a student.  My cat, Freckles, even seemed to remember her favorite spot in the bedroom window.

Since I’ve been in Pittsburgh, I’ve spent some time finishing up a few outstanding work items, unpacking, exploring, visiting with friends and family that have passed through, and spending outrageous amounts of money on house necessities with Alex.  My sister, Jennifer, came to help for a few days last week.  She provided some much needed assistance with the assembly of four new Ikea bookcases for our basement “library.”

Before she left, we took some tourist time to have dinner at the original Primanti Brothers (next to the cast/crew of the TBS Sitcom, Sullivan & Son!) and ride the Monogahela Incline.

More updates to come!