Moving Sucks

But moving in the rain sucks even more.  Of course last Friday the heavens opened up.  Originally a teacher from the school was going to bring his truck and trailer, but the rain started pouring right about the time school got out.  I called and cancelled him coming and went to plan B which was to rent a Uhaul truck.  I tried Budget truck first, but they were all out.  Uhaul had a truck so Matt took me to get it around 5:30.  Matt and Jason loaded the truck when I got back but then they had issues unloading some of the heavy items.  They couldn’t really get some of the big items upstairs so I was stuck with those being in the garage.  They worked hard, but were pretty exhausted by 10:30 and had to stop.  At that point, I still had about 70 boxes left in the rental house along with the couch, washer and dryer, tv stand, and a few other large items.  On Saturday it still rained.  Josh and I loaded the truck with more boxes that morning and unloaded them, but I’m so badly out of shape that it completely wore me out.  We went to lunch and then I talked to Matt’s friend’s mom, Cathey, who was trying to find me some movers to hire.  She couldn’t find anyone, but gave me another number to call which was a service provided by uhaul so I called it.  I was able to get two guys to help move on Saturday evening for 3 hours for $155.  I had to go back and forth with uhaul to keep the truck another day, but got everything worked out.  Hiring those guys was the best decision I made in this whole process.  They came and loaded the 14 ft truck completely full in about 45 minutes.  When we got to the new house, they moved all the big furniture upstairs for me and unloaded the truck in a little over another hour.  They hustled and did a great job.  I tipped them $50 extra. 

On Sunday last week I cleaned the rental as best I could in the 8 hours I had after church.  I left my keys and a note at the house.  The rental company will have the carpets cleaned and deduct the amount from my deposit.  I have slowed unpacked but still have a ways to go.  I got the kitchen done by about Wednesday.  Today, I worked on the living room while the cable was getting hooked up.  I’ve spent about $2500 at home improvement stores purchasing a refrigerator, new back door with pet door (and installation), a new dishwasher (to be delivered and installed on Monday), and a garage door opener (to be installed Monday).  The pets seem to enjoy the new house and like having their pet door again.  It is a relief to sleep at night and not get up multiple times to let them out. 

Work has actually been pretty productive as well.  I’ve been weeding books in my library and getting other things done this week while the book fair is going on.  I was off campus at a meeting today and got to leave a little earlier than usual.  Of course the cable guy was running late and didn’t get here until 6:45.  He was here until about 8:00 because he had to run another line in my back yard and then bury it.  But I have cable and internet now which is a huge relief. 

Tomorrow I’m looking forward to sleeping in and then getting more of my bedroom set up and unpacked.  I’m still debating whether I’m going to paint the loft area because if I do that, I need to do it before I put a bunch of books on the shelves and such.  I also need to hang a lot of my curtains tomorrow since I don’t have blinds.  I do have curtains in my bedroom, but would like to get the living room curtains installed. 

I do love my new house.  The stairs take a little getting used to – especially when you forget things either up or down stairs and have to make multiple trips.  I love that my kitchen is really big and I have plenty of storage space – though it has filled up quickly.  My living room isn’t huge, but is just the right size for my furniture.  My computer desk is toast after the move but I probably won’t replace it.  I’m going to buy a treadmill and put it in my office instead.  I really need to lose some weight and I realize out of shape I am after this move. 

So that’s the update for the past week.  It feels good to finally be able to blog again!