Why it's not fun to move and why it is at the same time. (part 1: kitchen happiness)

So we moved last month, after living in the 55+/yuppie families/vastly Indian populated Rancho Bernardo for 2 years. They didn't like us so much there. Not that we were loud, but we're nice. Talkative. Happy and occasionally boisterous people, who like to have a good time and maybe some good wine. No one within a 4 mile radius of us had any of those traits. Oh, but they were loud. I'm fairly certain our upstairs neighbors were half-giant. I took to calling them Hagrid and Maxime... in my head. And they had a huge house cat that liked to run laps around their apartment. And they didn't sleep. (I know, because when we lived there, I didn't sleep much either.)

So we were counting the days until we could move in April. Our lease was up April 1st. We've been 'looking' at apartments online since June of last year. Of course, when the time came to actually start looking... it seemed like less fun. We had to actually CALL places, make APPOINTMENTS... DRIVE to these places. Ugh.

So imagine my utter, sheer and complete joy when I viewed the very first apartment (Mr. Spiffing was at work) and immediately fell in love. A two-story townhome (like the one I grew up in!) with a huge kitchen, a decent patio, two bathrooms, and more space. I called the hubs, told him I wanted to put down a deposit on the first apartment I'd seen (and one that he hadn't seen outside of pics on craigslist) and then kind of squeezed into the end of the convo that we wouldn't have parking. At all. Except on the street. Yikes.

So Mr. Spiffing did the ultimate husbandly-duty and said "okay" and I wrote a check for the deposit right then and there. I know that this was a HUGE sacrifice for him. No parking is a nightmare, I don't care who you are. If you have a car and nowhere to park it, you're not happy. I braced myself mentally for what was to come, drove home and ordered moving boxes and bubble wrap from Uline (best $75 I ever spent, and I'd gladly do it again!).

Thus ensued two weeks of packing. Which, somehow, wasn't enough time. (Need I mention that last time we moved, we had 3 days notice, and packed the vast majority of our belongings in Ikea bags...)
We had an extra bedroom and had accumulated SO. MUCH. STUFF. It was a never ending packing nightmare.

Then moving day arrived and all of our pleas and texts and emails and facebook status updates begging for help with this move went unanswered. We had two wonderful helpers. My beautiful and awesome mom, and my grandfather, who, while infinitely awesome and the kind of man I want my husband to be in our golden years, is in his 70s and frankly, I didn't want to ask him to do too much. It was also a super warm day for March, and I was 'glowing' by 9am when we started loading the truck.

Fast forward about 10 hours, and I am bone-deep exhausted, sweaty as all hell, and starving. Mr. Spiffing's mom and grandma arrive and bring Subway. I despise Subway but it was all that was nearby and I scarfed it down like I hadn't eaten in days. And then I blissfully unpacked my kitchen. Unpacking a kitchen for me is like reading my favorite book for the 6th time. I know how it's going to end. But I still love my favorite parts. Like seeing how my dishes will fit, and playing pantry-tetris.
The end result is my most favorite kitchen of all-time. (Being that we have always rented and I can't very well remodel...)

Something about having everything lined up and all in its place gives me the warm fuzzies.

Much limited pantry space compared to the giant walk-in of our last apartment. But I make do.

This was the end result until I got my new spice rack. More on that later.

Cookbooks, oils, vinegars, and my Miss Piggy coin bank that I've had since I was a toddler. The coin slot is her cleavage.

Oh to cook with gas again is such a sheer delight.

Alas, I needed even more space (giant stockpots, potatoes & onions, and some wrap and parchment paper rolls.

It's love. Even my handmade Mise en Place tray is right at home above my stove.

Just the perfect amount of wall space for my KitchenAid collection, potholders and my Elvgren girls.

So, maybe you noticed that there's no microwave? Yeah, I didn't until after we signed the lease. And rather than panic, I decided we just didn't need one. I'd buy the best fucking toaster oven in existence and then it wouldn't be a problem. So I researched, and researched (yay Google Shopping app on my iphone!) and decided on the Breville Smart Oven. I drove down to Williams-Sonoma (a store I had never dreamed of venturing into, since I knew the price range of even their smallest kitchen gadget was astronomically above mine.)

SO let me just say, I have more money now than I have ever known in my lifetime (25 short, yet very long, years). I knew this toaster oven was a HUGE splurge. And that I've kind of been splurging a lot since business picked up in the fall. (to be fair, I've also started a savings account to someday buy a house or put a kid through college or just be a cushion in case the shit hits the fan.)

My new favorite appliance

Back to the fun stuff, Williams-Sonoma is an incredible store! I won't gush about it so much, except that their service was exceptional, and they even loaded my car for me. I came home and was super excited to try this puppy out.
So far I've successfully cooked in this thing:
the best toast I've ever had (you'd think, 'toast is toast' but it's really fucking not.)
PERFECTLY cooked rack of lamb
Sliders that were sooo tender and juicy
roasted asparagus
bacon (in about 7 minutes!)
roasted broccoli with white balsamic vin in under 5 minutes
and this meal for hubby, which was prepared by putting everything on one pan with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roasting:

asparagus, mushrooms, heirloom tomatoes and the fattest bone-in ribeye. yum on all counts.

So, once all decked out in appliances, I decided I needed some decals on the walls, and found this fabulous Julia Child quote on Etsy. But I had other Julia quotes in mind, and this seller fabulously customized a set of 4 quotes in my font choice and even special ordered matte vinyl since that was my desire. (Srsly, go shop there, awesome people!)
End result of that wonderful experience is a serious of Julia Child quotes to inspire me and also not make me feel like fatty for putting half and half in most of my sauces.

Last, but not least, was the spice rack. I have no cupboard space here for spices, so my Ikea jars and mix-and match bottles with hand written labels had to go. I found this AMAZINGLY wonderful newish Etsy seller Wheatland Woodcraft and their executive spice rack with 36 jars. Which was great, but not enough for me. I'm a cooking fanatic. (some people would say a foodie, but there has to be a stronger word for someone so obsessed with cooking and delicious food. Maybe I should invent one.)
I custom ordered from these wonderful people, an unfinished, 48-jar monster spice rack. I had no concept of what the actual size would be, but was confident I could fit it somewhere in this kitchen.
WOW, when I got the box I was floored! The box was huge and I was scared! Luckily, when I took everything out, the rack was not as big as the monstrous box, and I rearranged everything to find the perfect spot. Then, because I had a shit-ton of jewelry to make, I set it all aside and made jewelry, even though the type-a perfectionist in me was DYING to go fill up those spice jars and get my kitchen squared away.

So the next day I used leftover interior paint to paint this sucker my favorite shade of lime green. Then spent 2 hours designing labels wherein each spice was labeled in a different font, and another hour re-jarring all of my spices. The end result was STUNNING!

I'm a typography whore, so sue me. (also, check out the vintage canisters I got at the swap meet for $20 like 4 years ago. Awesomesauce.)

 And THAT, my lovelies, is where I'll leave this for now. My kitchen totes deserved a blog post of it's own. In coming posts, I will discuss decorating our living room, bathrooms, bedroom, patio and of course, my studio!

Oh yeah, and I'll talk about jewelry too.