The move.

This is a bit long. If you have time, read on. I started writing this three days ago and have been having a hard time finding time to finish.

The last several days have been exhausting. I am not even sure I was awake for parts of it. We had a major issue at work on Wednesday (last week) that consumed my lunch breaks and kept me from leaving on time on Wednesday and Thursday. Simple things I can usually do at work, like calling to make sure we are on the trash route, were neglected. So life at our new house begins without a recycling bin and a huge pile of trash in two different parts of the garage.

Friday I left early from work and got home to find out that our dial tone provider was being super efficient and disconnected our phone three days early. All day I was wondering why the truck rental company hadn’t called to confirm. Not only did they shut it off but they “forgot” to put a message on with our new phone number. While I was on the phone with customer service, Carli called to confirm the truck and where it would be waiting for me. A short 20 mile jaunt to pick up the truck and we would be in business.

Saturday morning I picked up the truck. It was brand new. Must be karma for driving that piece of junk they gave me last time. It’s amazing what a difference it made on the move. Once again we had too much to fit on the “biggest” truck they had. We filled my truck as well but, still had enough left for a couple of trips. We got to the new house and started to unload. Unloading goes so much faster than loading. Everything was off the truck in half the time it took to load. I even swept out the truck and had it back before they shut down the rental facility for the day. I got back in time for some cold pizza and a little beer.

At about 7:30 I realized I forgot my “everything box”. The “everything box” is loaded with everything I will need the first night. It contains hardware to put the beds together and the important tools needed for the little things. So I grabbed D1 for the two hour round tripper. We loaded my truck since we were there and figured we’d be back just after 10. I took D1 with me to keep me awake. She was asleep before we left our old neighborhood. Nice.

Sunday, we went back over to the old place to clean and load the truck for the final trip or trips. I decided to rent a trailer so I could make just one trip. After 40 minutes of trying to get the wiring harness on my truck to work, I gave up and started loading the truck. Luckily the boy was tired and slept most of the two hours it took to drop off a load and come back. I didn’t want to make a third trip so I piled it high and strapped ‘er down. Carli wasn’t sure I was safe and expected things to fly out as soon as I hit highway speeds. We made it to the new house without incident. Carli and the girls were busting their humps to get the house ready for the 4 o’clock walk through. The landlord called at 3:45 and said she wasn’t going to make it because of a potential storm. WTF? We will be getting all of our deposit back so I guess I can deal.

Monday was Memorial Day. Believe it or not, we still hadn’t gotten it together enough to buy appliances but, today would be the day. We went and got all of the appliances for our kitchen without too much trouble. The washer and dryer however were back ordered and we were not going to wait 3 weeks for them to be delivered. I think Carli’s exact words were “We can cook on the grill for weeks but, I will NOT go to the laundry mat again”. So we scrapped that idea and started shopping for a washer and dryer. We tried several places and couldn’t find what we wanted. There were certain brands we wanted to stay away from and the ones we liked must have been popular because they would take weeks to get. We went home defeated to grill for Carli’s brother and his wife. We got very little done in the house again.

On Tuesday, my objective was to buy a washer and dryer and take it home. I shopped all of the appliance stores on-line, I found a washer and dryer that I liked and saw that they had a set in the store 30 minutes north of were I work. I left a bit early. Went to the bank and loaded up with about $100 in cash less than what they were asking. I pretended to shop and have the sales guy follow me around. I stopped at the pair I wanted told him I was a bit short but I would give him cash and take them home today if they were in stock and he could get the price with tax to match what I had in my pocket. After some negotiations I was driving home with a new laundry pair.

I set up the washer and dryer but, I couldn’t find my wrenches in the garage. So we couldn’t really use them for 2 days until I found my tools and leveled them. I went to bed last night while Carli waited for a load to finish so she could toss them in the dryer. She had what I would liken to ‘afterglow’.

There have been many adventures in the last week. I will share some more in future posts. Right now I need to get some work done so I can get out of here early today.

Cheers!