Moving - The Grand Adventure

Moving day was yesterday, and it went much better than I had hoped! Tuesday we had packed the almost every last thing, so there wasn't much left to do in that regard on Wednesday morning. Mostly bathroom and last minute kitchen stuff. The "moving team" was supposed to gather at 12:30 so we spent the morning storing up our last bits of energy for the big push. Mo hadn't really been able to fall asleep the night before (he does that) and so he spent the morning asleep on the futon. I did some bead weaving and crochet to keep myself sitting and relaxed.

Around 12:30 the "team" arrived. We didn't have a big team, but it was more than enough. Ruth came, yes, that's my Mother-in-law and we have the same first name. Then we had my brother Gordon, Dad, and Mo. The hardest part for me was staying out of the way while they packed. Ruth started doing some cleaning and I sat and crocheted while the men packed up the vehicles. It was HARD not to be doing anything productive (at least towards the move), but at least I knew everyone understood.

We were all amazed at how much stuff the guys fit into that first load! It amuses me because my Dad is an expert at packing up vehicles with people's stuff, but he hasn't personally moved in over a decade! With him organizing things they stuff the two pickups and our car full to the brim, and we took off to the new apartment.

While the men brought up load after load (we're on the second floor), Ruth and I began to tackle unpacking the kitchen. We had planned it so that the kitchen boxes were the first things over here just so that Ruth and I could start in on that. As far as I'm concerned having my kitchen settled is my first priority in a new place, and it gave me something that I was capable of doing.

Ruth and I made a good team. She'd unpack items and I'd put them where I wanted them. It went much faster than I thought it would! I LOVE my new kitchen. I mean, it's still a dinky apartment kitchen, but I have much better storage than I did in the last one, and everything has it's place. That makes me super happy. I still dream of the day where I'll have a huge ranch-style kitchen, but I'm happy for now.

Ken, my father-in-law, was supposed to join the guys at 3 (after he got off of work) to help with the rest of the heavy stuff. That left us with an hour to kill after the first load was done. Did I mention we had record breaking heat yesterday? We did. So we spent that hour just down the road at Burgerville. It was a nice break. The rest of the group enjoyed nice cold shakes and I had a grilled chicken burger to help get my strength back and level out my blood sugar.

Ruth and I stayed at the new apartment while the guys went for the second load. We finished getting the kitchen settled and then curled up on the two halves of the futon (which was on the floor) and just relaxed and talked with the fan blowing on us. It was so nice!

We got a great surprise when the guys showed up with the second load. Some one else was in the process of moving out and they offered us a cute little love seat! It rocks too - so we're calling it our cuddle rocker. It's perfect. The futon is actually my evil twin's and we're giving it back to her. It fit in our old apartment, but it was going to be a really tight squeeze in the new place, and the cuddle rocker is going to fit much better!

Two loads was all it took to get our stuff moved. We were done by 4 o'clock, even with that long break! Ken helped Mo get the bed set up (the other thing of paramount importance in a move), we had hugs all round, and then his parents took off. Ruth just had gum surgery so she wasn't really up to eating anything yet and joining us for dinner. My brother had already taken off a little bit before, exhausted, so that just left my Dad, Mo, and myself. Mom was getting off work soon so the guys and I headed out to find some placed air conditioned to eat.

Finding a place to have dinner was an adventure in and of itself! We had a few thoughts for most in our mind (after the air conditioning of course), and that was "cheap and close." So first Dad headed to KFC while Mo and I went down to the store to pick up one thing. He called us and informed us that KFC had poor air conditioning, so we switched the plan to Don Taco. Well, we all got to Don Taco and discovered that they were propping the doors open to keep the place cool. Not a good sign. So Mo and I followed Dad to a restaurant he thought he remembered...but that we know suspect he was remembering from 20 years ago... At that point I decided I didn't care if we were driving across town, we were going to head to Shari's (a diner) because we'd all be able to find good food and I knew there was air conditioning!

And that's the grand adventure of our move.