It’s been quite a while since I’ve written, I’m so sorry to leave you hanging. The move was really tough, I didn’t realize how badly the heat will wear out my old body!

The last time I wrote we had moved our heavy stuff using Nationwide Movers who did a FANTASTIC job, and we still had to move the “left-overs” as I call them. Well, first, let me tell you about the moving crew. They came at about 9:30 a.m. and never stopped. They were on the clock and actually acted like it. They moved fast but were careful with our stuff. They wrapped everything in shrink wrap, I don’t know why they do that unless it’s to protect the surfacees but it did give me a sense of security. It ended up taking 5-1/2 hours but 1-1/2 hours was a break we had to give the crew because the garage door at the apartment wouldn’t open. There was some kind of a short in the electrical and since it was Sunday the maintenence man had to come from his home which was 45 minutes away. It ended up causing a work stoppage of about 1-1/2 hours during which we had lunch. Since it wasn’t the crew’s fault, we had to pay for the time they spent. Things would have been different if we had loaded the stuff to be stored on the truck first, but since it was on the back, we had to wait to open the garage.

After we got through that day, Brent and I still had to move most of the stuff that was in the garage and the attic. It really didn’t look like much but believe me, it was. The ReMax office we used to sell our house has a truck, I’d guess it’s about 15 ft long. They let all their clients use it, kind of an insentive to use ReMax. Anyway, Brent was off on Tuesday so we picked up the truck at 9 a.m.

We quickly filled it and took it to the garage at the apartment. Then we went back for a second load. There was still a little room in the apartment’s garage but not much. As we started getting down to the last of the stuff, nothing was packed or sorted and it took forever. By the time we had the attic and garage empty, it was 8:00 p.m. and the truck was full again. I really didn’t think there would be room in the apartment garage and we had all this stuff. I called around to see if any of the public storage places would answer their phone, none would. We were in a fix.

Well, it turned out okay. For my gift basket supply business I have some inventory and most of that we had planned to put inside the apartment. We took most of it over in the first load and just off loaded it into the garage instead of taking it upstairs to the apartment. So, when we got to the apartment, we just moved all the inventory upstairs and that left room in the garage for the second load. Whew! The garage is as full as it can be but everything fit.

It’s now over a week later, we’re all unpacked inside the apartment, and I’m LOVIN’ it. It’s big enough for all of us to feel like we’re not on top of each other, we have a separate room for our office and our inventory (plus we use the walk-in closet) and it’s just so nice! Cleaning is a breeze! At the house it used to take me forever to dust and vacuum, yesterday I was finished in 20 minutes! I love it.

We’re going to be here until at least the end of October. We’re considering staying through November so Brittany can be close to school for another month, it’s quite a ways for her to drive from the new house, but we’ll see. We also have some neighbors who volunteered to let her stay with them, we’ll just have to see how it goes.

Oh, I forgot to tell you about the closing on the old house ~ it was a cinch! Only thing that went a little wrong was on the morning of the closing (closing was set for 1:00 p.m.), Brent and I went over and did a little touch up painting. We had 2/3 of a gallon of paint left over from when Terminix opened the wall to see if there was any termite damage (there wasn’t any). We thought since that paint was a perfect match, we’d just do a light coat in the living/dining area to cover the dirty spots. Well, it ended up not matching and the walls looked awful. The buyers went to the house to do a walk-through just prior to the closing appointment. That was the first thing they asked about! Well, we knew we’d have to repaint so we told them we would and kept one key to go back on Sunday. It worked out great because they were going out of town the next day and would be gone through the weekend. We went in Sunday, repainted, and when we left, it looked great. I’m sure they will love their new house.

So next step in our process is to wait for the new house to be built. I called the mortgage company on Monday to see how things were going on that and they never called me back. I’m going to have to remember to give them another call. Also I think I’ll go drive by the lot to see what’s been done, Brittany has her first volleyball scrimmage of the new high school season out that way tomorrow, perfect time for me to drop by.