Ikea Nesting Instinct

We have been back in our little home for a few weeks now. I would say we are both alternating between bursts of nesty domesticity and occasional moments of post-wedding blues. It's hard to go back to normal after such a lot of big and intense events. Setting up our little nest is a fun distraction though. One of the things we talked about during our honeymoon was how to make our space more productive, and we concluded that we need to change around the furniture in the study. You might think this is a strangely mundane topic to discuss on our honeymoon but actually it was a really good time to talk about many aspects of our "new" life. I mean, it's not like things have changed drastically, but it's true that we both do feel a little different about our lives together now, and that we want our circumstance to reflect that.

Anyway, the long and short of it was that we got the IGo car for the afternoon and went to Ikea. As usual we ended up with more stuff than we intended, but we had a great time. The pictures are us doing the traditional round of Ikea furniture assembly. I particularly like my pigeon toes holding down the frame of the small drawer assembly, and the slightly crazed look in Pocket of Bolts' eyes as he ponders the smaller pieces of our new kitchen island. The kitchen island is great! It doubles our counter space and gives us room for the new appliances we have as well.

Other things we've done include finally joining the gym next door. It's expensive compared to the school gym, but can't be beat for convenience. I mean, it's in the next building over and is open 24 hours during the week! I think we will especially appreciate it in the winter, and if I take advantage of some of the free classes it will help get me out of the house--now that I'm not working at an external job and could probably become a shut-in if I don't watch out. I had a fitness test yesterday and I was overall "Excellent" (there is only one rank above "Excellent" and that is "Superior", but I have a long way to go)! It's true that I am feeling in pretty good shape lately. Pocket of Bolts is too. Hawaii, far from being an episode of total decadence as we had feared, turned out to be a very active sort of vacation with so much hiking and swimming that it nearly counter-balanced our self-indulgent eating. So we are excited about being healthy and domestic, and I am actually managing a bit of enthusiasm for dissertation work as well. It's not easy, mind you.

Well, more soon.