A "fond" look back at moving week

Monday Sept. 29th-The day before we close on selling our condo and buying our new to us house: It finally seems real that we're going to move out of the condo where we've lived for the past 10 years. We're both excited to be leaving that nest of craziness with it's compliment of nosy religious right wing neighbors and to be out from under the do nothing condo management company that did nothing for us. It hits me as I pack my truck for the last time that I won't ever have to see any of those people again unless I run into them in the grocery store or something.

Later that evening as we watched the news reports about the first attempt to get the House to bail out the rich I can tell Sparky is getting antsy. I don't let her see that I'm concerned that something might go wrong the next day because of all the instability in the financial markets. I do my best to calm her down and to reassure her that we're doing the right thing.

I got about three hours sleep before the alarm went off at 6 AM.

Tuesday Sept. 30th-Closing and moving day:
We get up at the butt crack of dawn and we begin the final assault on getting ready to move. I break down the bed, after a quick trip to the hated Wal-Mart for a pair of pliers, and then Sparky gets ready to go close on selling our condo.

The movers show up at 8:30 and they tell me since they are one man short they're going to knock ten bucks an hour off their rate. I nod and show them what they've got ahead of them. They seem non plussed and they dive right in to work.

I get a call from Sparky after she closes on selling our condo and she tells me it went well. The relief that we sold our place washes over me as I watch the movers packing all the boxes we spent the last few weeks packing up. Sparky tells me our realtor is leaving the key to the new house in the mailbox so when we finish loading we can take it straight over and start to unload.

At 10 AM my friend Keith and his son Cameron show up and we load all our electronics and my "art" in his van. Being the generous guy I am I offer them bananas and bottled water for their hard work. Only Keith takes a banana, both have some water.

At 11:15ish I get a call from Sparky and she tells me the closing on buying our new place went smoothly. A tidal wave of relief hit me. The movers get the last box in the truck and I give them directions to our new house and they take off. Keith and Cameron and I then set out for it as well.

At 11:30ish we arrive and the movers do so as well. For the next two hours we unload all the trucks, vans, and other vehicles. Sparky shows up and I can tell she's excited to be finally moving in. Happy day!

After Keith and Cameron leave to go home at 1PM the movers get everything off the truck by about 1:30. I pay them and since I didn't have to lift one stick of heavy furniture or too many boxes I gladly write them a check and thank them for their hard work.

The next few hours we start unpacking and setting up the new place.

Our friend Snad shows up about 6 PM and she starts raving about the new place. It turns out it's her birthday as well as our moving day and she invites us to have dinner with her, her husband, her brother, and his kids at a local chain restaurant in about an hour. Despite having eaten out for the past four days in a row, we had packed all our kitchen stuff, we agreed because we were bone tired and we had yet to unpack our kitchen stuff.

Dinner was, despite being at a chain restaurant, very good. And the company was amusing and delightful, especially Sand's nephews. When we get home I hook up the TV and the DVD player and we watch an episode and a half of the Vicar of Dibley before we pass out from exhaustion and from eating too much pasta and salad.

Wednesday October 1-Unpacking and setting up:
I got up around 9:30 and I stumble down stairs. I took one look at the mountain of boxes left to unpack and I shriek like a school girl. It looked like they had multiplied overnight.

We spend all day unpacking, hauling broken down boxes and the newspaper we packed fragile stuff in to the recycling bins, and muttering to ourselves about how much shit we own. Sometime during the day I remember breaking out and going to the grocery store and getting food. I also vaguely remember cooking supper for the first time in days, it was quite a treat to eat food that wasn't laden with too much salt and fat again. I also remember sucking down a few beers. Mmmm, beers.

Thursday October 2-More unpacking and setting up:
The mountain of boxes seemed a little smaller and we dove right in and unpacked them when we got up. We also set up a few more rooms as the day wore on and the feeling that the house was really ours sunk further in as the day wore on.

We worked about 12 hours unpacking and setting up. As the sun began to set we finally remembered to shower and have some supper.

Friday October 3-Unpacked and cable ready:
I hauled off the fifth or sixth load of boxes and newspaper first thing yesterday morning and Sparky began going about doing more setting up and furniture arranging.

The cable guy got here around 1PM and when I told him what I wanted. him and his partner got to work. For the next three hours they worked to install our cable, our high speed internet, and our phone service. When they got done we had digital cable again, but sadly no more free HBO, phone service, and my beloved internet was back.

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The past few days have flown by and I'm sure I left out some great blog worthy stories but to be honest my brain is mush right now. I'm tired from all the days of non stop packing, unpacking, and setting things up.

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We're very grateful to the movers, to our friends Keith and Cameron for all their help, and to Sand for coing by and making sure we were still alive and taking us out for dinner on her birthday last Tuesday. We're also grateful for your kind words, well wishes, and comments on here. We've got more work to do to make our house a home but we've got the rest of our lives to work on it.