This past week we moved our daughter from her large, grad-school apartment in a less safe, loud, and crumbling urban neighborhood in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, to a much smaller, safe, quiet, beautiful, small town neighborhood in upstate New York, where her new professor job is. What a relief and delight this change is! And even though the new apartment is smaller, the space feels more functional, and came out very cosy and cute.
My husband went over early to Bethlehem to help our daughter pack up, and I stayed back to work, arriving for moving day. Our daughter had hired YouMoveme.com to carry her stuff down the steep, narrow stairs from her third floor in a Victorian duplex and into her rented truck. They were great, and we’d recommend them if you need moving help. I drove the truck from Pennsylvania to New York, through a deluge of rain, which thankfully never effected us on either end of the loading and unloading process. My husband and daughter, with a little help from me, got everything up the one flight into her new place. She put us up in the lovely Colgate Inn (also recommended) and we unpacked the next day. Then my husband drove home, while our daughter and I returned the truck to Pennsylvania, before driving back to Connecticut.
It was quite the odyssey, and was all accomplished with grace, humor, kindness, stamina, and generosity. It was exhausting work but we also had a great time doing it. I think it says something when you can do all this and even like the people more afterwards. For example, I am so grateful to be married to someone that shows up so completely for our offspring! I am also grateful for offspring that want to be with us and appreciate what we can contribute.
We are so very delighted by this new opportunity for our daughter, as well as this improvement in her local environment. Below you can see my captioned photos, which record the whole transition process.
The large bedroom she moved out of…
The much larger, five room place she moved out of…
Ready to load up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, complete with temporary parking permit…
Ready to unload, but let’s see the place first…
Front room with tiny kitchenette…
View from the kitchenette; bedroom on left, then front door, and then closet…
Fridge isn’t big enough to hold a gallon of milk…
In the bedroom door…
View out the window… ah.. so much better!
Great light show while unpacking…
Light show continued…
Truck contents are inside…
And in the small bedroom. Tiny (unfortunately tub-less) bathroom beyond…
Ah… The Colgate Inn… such a nice room to come to after such a long day.
Yes, getting clean felt divine…
The next day, first thing, we determined that her storage stuff fit perfectly in the closet. More relief!
Bookcase in the bedroom next to her desk…
My paintings over her dresser in the bedroom…
Front room came together nicely… with my art as well.
Her treadle sewing machine has pride of place in the front window…
Opposite corner of the front room, with place for all her projects…
She said my art really pulled it all together and made it feel like home.
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6 Comments
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You are a wonderful mom! What will she teach? The hardwood floors in her new apartment look great.
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Author
Physics, Thermodynamics, and Statistical Mechanics.
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Nice art work.
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Spectacularly beautiful apartment. I hope she will feel at home very soon.
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Love the old sewing machine in the original cabinet. The new apartment came together perfectly.
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Looks fabulous…..
