It's always fun to get New Stuff, but when the New Stuff is a New Apartment, it's like getting a whole bunch of New Stuff. When I was younger and owned the only video game system I ever owned, the first and original Nintendo, whenever I got a new game, I'd play it obsessively, often waking up early to cram in as much as I could before school. The New Apartment is like that ��I awoke at 6:30 this morning because, after all of yesterday's heavy lifting, I was in a deep sleep by 10:45 last night; in those 45 minutes before the alarm went off, I was thinking of all the things I had to do to organize all my crap. When Casey got up at 7:15, instead of laying around in bed for up to an hour like I normally do, I was up and dressed, finding my clothes, washing more dishes, finding places for more things. Later, at work, I scoffed at Casey when she said she couldn't concentrate on work because she was thinking of all the things she could do at home. I was doing the same thing, only I wasn't thinking about it at work because I had fantasy football scores to check up on.

The living room is in decent "set-up" shape, though there are still some things piled haphazardly that need to be moved elsewhere. The dining room table is there, but we don't have the other couch yet, so it's not completely finished. But I think the living room is the closest to how it will look, with the kitchen still fighting for that top spot. I'm anxious to connect Casey's Nintendo in the living room and relive old time with Rad Racer, Tetris and Tecmo Bowl.

I'm also eager to figure out where to put the dart board. Casey came up with a kind way to say she doesn't want an electric dart board hanging on our wall year-round by suggesting that we decide where it will go, put it up, then find a framed photo or poster to put there for those times when we're not entertaining and throwing darts. Sounds like a solution Martha Stewart would commit a felony for.

The fact that we have three bedrooms kicks ass. We'll have plenty of room in ours, without a desk making it feel cramped. We have a spare bedroom for guests, complete with Casey's bed. And off of our bedroom is a third, which we are using as a study. After roughly 21 years in my parents' house, where my bedroom is smaller than any dorm room I've ever been in (including "singles"), and then another year sharing an apartment with roommates, it's always been a dream of mine to have a place of my own with an extra bedroom to be used as a study (or office, depending on your religion). Our desks fit in there with room to spare. If we wanted to really figure out the best way to get the most out of the space, I'm sure we could fit a small couch in there and have even more room for visitors.

Saturday morning, the movers had our storage space cleared out and all the stuff into the apartment in a total of 70 minutes. It took Dave, Casey and me the better part of a day to get that stuff (and more) out of Jersey City and into both the Edgewater apartment and the storage unit. As we paid them (in cash) and found ourselves with hundreds of dollars in cash left over (we'd taken out a lot, each, in the event it took them a couple of hours), we kicked ourselves for not having them move some of the stuff from the Edgewater apartment. But it allowed us to have three carloads moved in by noon, when we went to Pizza Nova for lunch. Some of the best-tasting pizza ever, even on days when the meal is not so well-earned.

By 2:30, we'd made the last of our Edgewater runs and spent the rest of the afternoon in the New Apartment emptying boxes.

Yesterday, my parents arrived a little after 11 with the dining room table, which provided the first dilemma of the day: it wouldn't fit inside the door to our apartment. We got it in the building easily enough, and up the stairs with little trouble, but the door into the kitchen proved to be our nemesis more than once yesterday. After several attempts and angles, Dad and I took the thing out to the deck (Yeah! We have a deck!) and unscrewed the legs (which, judging by the rust and condition of the screws and nuts, hadn't been done since the thing was put together). That got it in.

Over the course of the day, we moved from Edgewater to Cliffside: one loveseat and cushions, one 4-foot by 5-foot bookcase, two wooden dressers and drawers, one full-size mattress and box spring, and one 6-foot by 3-foot by 3-foot desk. The desk was nearly our downfall. Tired from all the lifting and stair-climbing, Dad and I struggled to get the desk inside the building, then got it up the stairs only with the help of a man coming to visit his daughter and grandkids in the apartment on the first floor. He arrived as we were trying to get it up the stairs, and helped both out of goodwill and because he realized rather quickly that it was the only way he was going to see his daughter and grandchildren last night. Then, at the top of the stairs, it would not fit through the door into the kitchen. I was ready to take it apart, but Dad was determined and we got it through with absolutely NO room to spare on either side. We basically slid it through scraping the door frame on either side, but I didn't care.

Casey and I had one more run to Edgewater to get the carpet for the bedroom and to clean up our two rooms there, and then we had dinner on our dining room table (and nachos on our coffee table) and set up our bedroom. Miraculously, the antenna Mom and Dad brought with the TV for the bedroom got near-perfect reception, allowing us to watch The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Alias without getting a headache.

And it didn't even bother me when the sun came through the windows without blinds at 6:30 this morning and woke me up early. There's just so much to do.