It went like this: I was packing and recovering from my weekend at work, simultaneously. I allowed myself to doze on the sofa for about an hour when --- Bzzzzzzz----my entire house shuts down. I go to the sliding glass door to look out back, just in time to see the man from the electric company hanging a lock on my meter. “ No! Wait!”, I screech, as I run out the door. But he was gone before I got to him. They turned off my power 2 whole days before they were supposed to, and I was left bewildered. How was I to pack in the dark? And wtf was I to do with the $300+ in groceries I had just loaded into the refrigerator?????I had to make arrangements to move into the new house, had to call the builder and make sure it was ready for inhabitation. Thank the Powers That Be that it was. John came home from work, and we loaded the car with groceries, pillows and blankets, dirty laundry, a television, and an alarm clock and headed one block over to the new address. Evan was three shades of excited about our “camping” in the new house. I have never roughed it, so sleeping on the floor, watching a television that was not hooked to cable and sitting in a fancy armoire was pretty much as rough as I could get. But my food did not spoil. We had hot showers the next morning. We had to wait for first light the next morning before we could be even remotely constructive at the old place. But wait! What about coffee? So we back-tracked to McDonald’s for my large coffee ( 3 creamers, 3 Equal, Thank you very much!). You have to love the “I’m Lovin’ It” People early in the morning for handing you your coffee with the cream and sugar already added! It truly does give me that warm fuzzy feeling, but I am easily pleased these days after our Summer of Hell. Anyhow…..
John went to work, Evan went to school, and I scrambled. I managed to get the entire house packed in that one day. Well, almost entirely packed. The only thing done prior to that point was the packing of non-essentials. Now I had the rest of the junk to contend with. It took some arse-busting, but it was all done.
John came home from work, and we headed to the new house with boxes of clothes, toys, and other items. I personally supervised the transport of my purses. John grumbled about the quantity of them, as well as the massive quantity of scrubs, and deduced that I could truly go for 26.333333 weeks without ever having to wash or duplicate my workwear. I discovered, through this process, that is better to keep my vices shoved into the closet, where my husband can remain blissfully unaware. But instead, we are relocated them all, and I had to convince my husband that, yes, it truly is necessary to have over 80 sets of scrubs and that, yes, I really do use all of those handbags. I must be good, because everything survived the trip.
We waited until the next day to move the furniture and appliances. Our neighbor, Jon ( Yes, Jon and John) used their manly powers to lift and load everything onto a trailer, and we hauled the stuff one block over. It looked a little Clampett-ish, but I refused to pay the money to rent a truck for that short a distance. We did rent an appliance dolly for the armoire and appliances. My armoire for my television is massive, and was rather expensive. I preferred it to be intact at the end of the move, and I wanted the men to be physiologically sound after moving it, so the dolly was useful. They loaded it up, started to move it, got it almost to the trailer. Someone must have hit a bump, because all I saw was the gleaming wood crashing to the ground. “Dammit John/ Jon! Who didn’t tighten the strap?????” My hillbilly neighbor (NOT Jon!) asked “ What IS that???” I wanted to cry. But I learned that when you spend that much on a piece of furniture, it truly does last. Other than the need to tweak a hinge on the door, and fix a drawer track on the bottom, my armoire is fine.
I returned Thursday to clean the old house and turn in the keys while my boys were at work/ school. I had just a few hours, then we would have to head to school for Family Fun Night. Evan was singing, so we had to be good parents and attend. I love how schools have a knack for scheduling these little events when you have the least time available, and have the biggest To-Do list of your life.
Well, we survived the move. It was so surreal to see the old place empty. Evan was not smiling at me from his pictures on the walls. There were no spelling tests or crayon art on the refrigerator. John’s work boots were not by the door. The only trace that my family was ever there was the handprints Evan had left on the wall, which were swiftly cleaned away. It just goes to show you that “Home” is not just a building. My family is my home.
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