Cat Grant's Blog: Memoirs of an Amnesiac - Posts Tagged "moving"

I've lived in the same apartment for - believe it or not - nineteen years now, but...

With my husband gone, I don't need two bedrooms anymore. I look around, and I see so much space wasted storing stuff I don't use or just haven't bothered getting rid of.



I've spent the last couple of weeks looking at new places. How refreshing to see apartments that have actually been remodeled in the last decade! I've seen a couple places that were close to what I want, but none that made me want to move in on the spot.

After my tumble down the stairs a few weeks ago, it's imperative that I find a ground-floor place with a decent amount of light (I tend to get depressed in a place that doesn't get adequate sunshine) that also accepts cats. I'd also like something in a quiet neighborhood with a view - not the ocean, necessarily, just something nice and calming for me to look at while I write. My current writing space (aka, my kitchen table) overlooks a beautiful oak tree.

It'll be a daunting task, downsizing from a cluttered two-bedroom place, but every day I walk past stuff thinking, "When I go, I'll be getting rid of that." I've got shelves and shelves and SHELVES of books - a writer's bane - but most of them I've read once or not at all. I've got boxes of old receipts and tax records that are well past the five-year limit.

I've still got tons of my late husband's stuff that I haven't gotten rid of because it seemed... well, disrespectful. But he's been gone four years now, so it's time to move on.

Whatever new place I finally move into will be mine and mine alone - free of clutter and the ghost of old memories.

May and June were pretty quiet around here, despite me keeping busy finishing up two books. In fact, here's the brand, spankin' new blurb for my new m/m novella, Black Dog:



Danny Bannon and Eddie Roscoe have been fighting in out of the ring for more than 15 years, held together by mutual attraction and small town ties, yet kept apart by a shared tragedy that continues to haunt them. Their steady on-again off-again is shaken up by the arrival of Tom Delaney, a teenage runaway trying to escape his tense home situation and his punch-happy dad.

In no time, the scrawny, homeless kid has shown himself to be a boxing prodigy, and building him up brings Danny and Eddie closer than they've been in ages. It seems that the three of them, plus Eddie's mother, Gloria, are forming a new family unit, much tighter than anything Tom experienced in his difficult past.

But Tom's politically influential father isn't the only person he left behind, and when his mother shows up at Eddie and Gloria’s diner with a shiner and a haunted look in her eyes, Tom is hopeful for her future. But when that hope is snuffed out, Tom is ready to turn his new fighting skills to a deadly purpose: get revenge on his abusive father, or die trying.

It's up to his surrogate big brothers, Danny and Eddie, to put their differences and their painful history aside to prevent another tragic ending.

Coming this August from Cat Grant Books! :)

In other news...

Drum roll...

I found a new apartment! It's a lovely two bedroom on the border between Monterey and Pacific Grove. It's about a third smaller than the place I have now, so I'll be spending the next couple of weeks downsizing and dumping nineteen years' worth of accumulated crap.

Fun, huh?

I've made about a dozen trips down to the dumpster today, and it feels like I've sweated off five pounds already. Could this be the best diet EVER?

Okay, enough goofing off on the 'net. Back to packing!

Me, I'm moving. And writing. And publishing a new book. All in the same month!



What fun is life without a challenge, right?

I've already cleaned out three closets and hauled countless trash bags down to the dumpster. I'm knackered, but I need to take a few more bags down before I'll call it a good days' work. Then I get to write!

It just struck me how truly happy and lucky I am to be able to do what I do for a living. It's not "I have to write," but "I get to write." Like it's a prize I've earned.

I like that. :)

I heard it was the Fourth of July last week, but you'd never know it from looking at my place. Yes, the packing has begun in earnest - which means my apartment is now an obstacle course of trash bags and bankers boxes.



Moving after nineteen years in the same place (fifteen of it spent with a guy who collected EVERYTHING and never threw ANYTHING away) is... pretty fucking overwhelming. In a way, it's like starting a new book. On some level, you know it's a monumental undertaking, yet you can't hold it all in your head at once. The best thing, I've found, is to focus on what you can get done that day.

So, another carload of old clothes and other crap to drop off at Goodwill today. Another trip to Costco and Office Depot for more trash bags and bankers boxes.

And the packing continues...

Or in my case, the unpacking. Yup, I'm finally in the new place. Turned in the keys to the apartment I lived in for nineteen years yesterday.

Here's a little before-and-after for ya:







The living room, kitchen and bathroom are pretty much unpacked. Still have to work on the bedroom and, oh - my new office!



Still a lot of stuff to unpack, but I'm getting there. :)

My new apartment is literally right down the street from this place:



The Defense Language Institute at the Presidio of Monterey. Which means . . .

I now have two hot Marines living right above me. Both guys. Both early risers in every sense of the word. *wink wink*

Oh, and my next-door neighbor is a sweet, respectful Army guy named Matt. He told me if I needed any help, feel free to knock on his door.

I think I'm gonna like it here. :-)