We're in...more or less

Despite torrential rain on moving day, we're officially in our new house. Even before the rain came,
this move seemed to be fraught with more problems than any other I remember...and I've made a lot of moves over the years.

First of all, closing dates and times were tentative for an excruciatingly long time, which made it difficult to schedule movers, utility transfers, or deliveries. We weren't told our closing time till late afternoon the day before. That's never happened before.

Also, my daughter had planned to take three vacation days for the move, but her job got hectic, so she was either constantly on the phone with the office or was actually working. Add to that chaos several end-of-school events for the boys that she had to attend in the middle of moving, and you get a snapshot of her life the past few days.

On top of that, we had asked for as early a closing time as possible and had rented a small U-Haul truck and hired a two-man crew the day before the big move to take all the small, unboxed items you always seem to have...things the moving company can't or won't haul. They arrived around 10:00 a.m., and my daughter went to the title company at 10:30, planning to be back with the keys by the time they finished loading the truck. At 11:00 she called to say that the owners hadn't signed their paperwork yet, so no keys. After the truck was loaded, we had to send the two workers home (fortunately a husband and wife team who lived near us and had a clear afternoon schedule) until we got the keys around 4:30. In the meantime, we took carloads to the new house ourselves in intermittent rain (i.e., no rain while we were driving, just when we were loading and unloading). That same intermittent rain continued till we decided to call it a day sometime after midnight.

Official moving day could just as easily be called "Monsoon Day," but the movers soldiered on, as did we, and by the end of the day, the house was full of furniture, plastic totes, and boxes, and the garage looked like this. (In all fairness to the movers, we're the ones who just threw in the last loads helter-skelter.)

And all those new appliances we ordered? They're not here yet, so we're living out of two dorm-sized refrigerators. I can't fault the appliance company, since up-in-the-air closing days kept us from ordering them until a few days ago; we were hoping they might arrive by the time we moved in, but we knew they might not. Keep your fingers crossed that they get here quickly. A washer and dryer might be nice soon too.

We've unpacked all the totes and boxes in the house, but we've decided to make some major changes about where the furniture is going, so several rooms have to be switched. And then there's the garage...

But everything will eventually be unpacked and in its place. Somehow it always is. This time it may be later rather than sooner, however, because we seem to be taking a lot of breaks to swim and to drink adult beverages. At least we're not stressing about the move anymore.