The Move - A Novel By Cyn
So, we're here. Finally. We spent as much of Thursday packing as we could, but I had a ton of errands to run, as well, so I took Charlotte & Andrew with me (it was Emma's last day of school) and did those. I got a really cool portable DVD with 2 screens and built-in video games (which Emma hasn't even tried yet LOL!) and got the windshield in the van fixed, that kind of thing. Did a lot of banking and got a cake for Emma's last afternoon.
By Thursday night we were still SO far behind. We were told the movers were coming sometime between 9-10am, and that Matt was going to take them over to the storage unit so they could do that first. I figured that would give us an extra 2-3 hours at least in the morning and I would just shove everything I could see into a box.
8:00 rolls around, the movers are HERE. And they have no intention of going to the storage unit first. Oh yeah, this is great. And, Matt's mom isn't coming until 10am to take the kids back to her place. So, I gated the kids into the living room at which point both the babies started screaming their heads off watching all of their stuff be taken out of the house. Gre-eat.
Matt and I are still frantically trying to stuff things into boxes, but one or the other of us had to keep going into the living room to settle the kids down. Matt's mom finally shows up - LATE - and we throw all of the food from the fridge into a box and she takes the van with the food, a couple of suitcases which I HOPE have enough in them to get us through until Monday or Tuesday, the dog, and the kids.
I ask Matt to make sure the double stroller goes on the truck, to give us more room in the van. He says, "the double stroller isn't in the van."
"Of course it is," I reply.
"No, it's not," he says. I go outside to prove him wrong. Stroller is NOT in the van. I start to bawl, because it is nowhere to be found. Someone must have stolen it right out of the van. I must have left it unlocked. I am in hysterics.
At this point, I start trying to go back to packing, but Matt had insisted that the car needed an oil change, and the check engine light had come on while he was driving home, so he'd made an appt at the dealer, and I had to take the car in. So I had to leave him at home while I did this. I decide, just to be safe, to stop by Best Buy because it suddenly occurs to me that the kids were tired and wrangy by the time I had left there yesterday and maybe I just put them in the van and drove off without putting the stroller back in the van. I walk into Best Buy and the guy at the front says "Hey, you're the stroller lady!" Sigh...
When they're ready to do the work, they give me a ride home. I call to say I'm on my way, and apparently they're on the way to the storage unit. Since I'd given my house key to the lawyer, I asked him to put his into the lock box which was still on the front door. Got home, no key. I'm not happy. Thank goodness it's a nice day. I haven't eaten anything today, so I go to a neighbour's house and order a pizza. "Should we go to the front door?" they ask.
"Actually, they should go to the front porch," I reply. "I'm locked out."
Pizza woman laughs. "They can deliver to the backyard if you'd like."
Me: "No, that won't help, the movers have taken all of the chairs out of the backyard anyway. The porch will have to do." Pizza woman laughs again. I am not so much laughing.
Anyway, Matt finally arrives about 90 minutes later and I find out that the movers had gotten frustrated with our disorganization and decided they were done. There was still stuff EVERYWHERE, including the bedding off our bed, all of our cutlery still in the drawer and a few baskets of clean laundry that never got put away. It was UNBELIEVABLE. I was nearly in tears.
We decide that as much of it as we can, we'll put into the car and the van, and the rest we'll have to store at Matt's parents' until they can bring it to us. We go back to his parents' house for the night. Charlotte is up until 3am crying. The next morning I took Emma to Karly's birthday party back in Oshawa and met Matt and his dad at the house while we packed everything else up. This took until about 6pm between trips to the dump and packing everything as compactly as possible into the vehicles.
One more night at the in-laws. We finally get going on the drive at about 11:45 the next morning, after much fuss getting the cats (we left them in the house with a litter box and food and water) and packing the rest of the stuff in around the kids. It was a LONG drive, but the kids were really good. Thank goodness for the DVD player! We got in around 11:00pm to the hotel and snuck the pets inside (I asked if they took pets, they didn't ask how many and I didn't volunteer the information...)
The next morning we head to the new house. The owner is still moving her stuff out, and since she hasn't lived there since October, the place is filthy. She has people there helping her, and they are cleaning up, but I 'm tired and frustrated and forced to put the kids in a room at the back of the house while they do their stuff. They finally leave. The cable guy was supposed to be here between 2-4pm. We waited until 6pm. He didn't show up. Grrr...
We sleep on air mattresses that night. Put Emma in her new room, and she won't go to sleep. The fourth bedroom, where we put Charlotte, is at the other end of the house, and it make me nervous. She wakes up crying. Finally we bring both Emma & Charlotte into our room and they go to sleep. The next day I realize that Emma is so used to having Charlotte in the room with her that she's freaked out. Matt and I talk and after all the insistence on a four-bedroom house, Emma & Charlotte are still sharing a room. Sigh...
Tuesday morning I use Matt's cell phone to call the cable company. Apparently the guy went to our house and said no one was home. I argue that there were at least 7-8 people in the house the entire afternoon. The supervisor gives me a description of the outside of the house. I have no idea what the outside of the house looks like, off hand. They originally told me they had no appointments for a week. When we called back and told them that they guy DEFINITELY had the wrong house, we finally got it rescheduled for Thursday. I am without phone, internet or cable, and in the middle of NOWHERE for another 2 days.
We check the voicemail on our old phone. The movers had called. There was a problem at the border. The US office of the van line was closed for Memorial Day, so they couldn't cross over until Tuesday. We're not getting our stuff until Wednesday. Matt has to go back to work on Wednesday, and won't tell his boss that he can't come back yet. I'm close to a breakdown by this point.
We finally get our stuff on Wednesday, and that actually went pretty smoothly. Meanwhile, I get a stomach bug and can eat almost no solid food. The cable guy shows up on Thursday, and having outside contact DEFINITELY helps my mood, but I'm still pretty down and homesick. The house is nice, and the people in one of the back cottages are nice - they have 4 kids, which Emma loves. But, I miss my friends and everything. I know it will get better, but I'm lonely.
If you got through the novel, thanks. If you didn't, and you're just pretending, that's ok too. Just thought I'd let you all know what was happening while I was offline for a week - BLECH!!!
By Thursday night we were still SO far behind. We were told the movers were coming sometime between 9-10am, and that Matt was going to take them over to the storage unit so they could do that first. I figured that would give us an extra 2-3 hours at least in the morning and I would just shove everything I could see into a box.
8:00 rolls around, the movers are HERE. And they have no intention of going to the storage unit first. Oh yeah, this is great. And, Matt's mom isn't coming until 10am to take the kids back to her place. So, I gated the kids into the living room at which point both the babies started screaming their heads off watching all of their stuff be taken out of the house. Gre-eat.
Matt and I are still frantically trying to stuff things into boxes, but one or the other of us had to keep going into the living room to settle the kids down. Matt's mom finally shows up - LATE - and we throw all of the food from the fridge into a box and she takes the van with the food, a couple of suitcases which I HOPE have enough in them to get us through until Monday or Tuesday, the dog, and the kids.
I ask Matt to make sure the double stroller goes on the truck, to give us more room in the van. He says, "the double stroller isn't in the van."
"Of course it is," I reply.
"No, it's not," he says. I go outside to prove him wrong. Stroller is NOT in the van. I start to bawl, because it is nowhere to be found. Someone must have stolen it right out of the van. I must have left it unlocked. I am in hysterics.
At this point, I start trying to go back to packing, but Matt had insisted that the car needed an oil change, and the check engine light had come on while he was driving home, so he'd made an appt at the dealer, and I had to take the car in. So I had to leave him at home while I did this. I decide, just to be safe, to stop by Best Buy because it suddenly occurs to me that the kids were tired and wrangy by the time I had left there yesterday and maybe I just put them in the van and drove off without putting the stroller back in the van. I walk into Best Buy and the guy at the front says "Hey, you're the stroller lady!" Sigh...
When they're ready to do the work, they give me a ride home. I call to say I'm on my way, and apparently they're on the way to the storage unit. Since I'd given my house key to the lawyer, I asked him to put his into the lock box which was still on the front door. Got home, no key. I'm not happy. Thank goodness it's a nice day. I haven't eaten anything today, so I go to a neighbour's house and order a pizza. "Should we go to the front door?" they ask.
"Actually, they should go to the front porch," I reply. "I'm locked out."
Pizza woman laughs. "They can deliver to the backyard if you'd like."
Me: "No, that won't help, the movers have taken all of the chairs out of the backyard anyway. The porch will have to do." Pizza woman laughs again. I am not so much laughing.
Anyway, Matt finally arrives about 90 minutes later and I find out that the movers had gotten frustrated with our disorganization and decided they were done. There was still stuff EVERYWHERE, including the bedding off our bed, all of our cutlery still in the drawer and a few baskets of clean laundry that never got put away. It was UNBELIEVABLE. I was nearly in tears.
We decide that as much of it as we can, we'll put into the car and the van, and the rest we'll have to store at Matt's parents' until they can bring it to us. We go back to his parents' house for the night. Charlotte is up until 3am crying. The next morning I took Emma to Karly's birthday party back in Oshawa and met Matt and his dad at the house while we packed everything else up. This took until about 6pm between trips to the dump and packing everything as compactly as possible into the vehicles.
One more night at the in-laws. We finally get going on the drive at about 11:45 the next morning, after much fuss getting the cats (we left them in the house with a litter box and food and water) and packing the rest of the stuff in around the kids. It was a LONG drive, but the kids were really good. Thank goodness for the DVD player! We got in around 11:00pm to the hotel and snuck the pets inside (I asked if they took pets, they didn't ask how many and I didn't volunteer the information...)
The next morning we head to the new house. The owner is still moving her stuff out, and since she hasn't lived there since October, the place is filthy. She has people there helping her, and they are cleaning up, but I 'm tired and frustrated and forced to put the kids in a room at the back of the house while they do their stuff. They finally leave. The cable guy was supposed to be here between 2-4pm. We waited until 6pm. He didn't show up. Grrr...
We sleep on air mattresses that night. Put Emma in her new room, and she won't go to sleep. The fourth bedroom, where we put Charlotte, is at the other end of the house, and it make me nervous. She wakes up crying. Finally we bring both Emma & Charlotte into our room and they go to sleep. The next day I realize that Emma is so used to having Charlotte in the room with her that she's freaked out. Matt and I talk and after all the insistence on a four-bedroom house, Emma & Charlotte are still sharing a room. Sigh...
Tuesday morning I use Matt's cell phone to call the cable company. Apparently the guy went to our house and said no one was home. I argue that there were at least 7-8 people in the house the entire afternoon. The supervisor gives me a description of the outside of the house. I have no idea what the outside of the house looks like, off hand. They originally told me they had no appointments for a week. When we called back and told them that they guy DEFINITELY had the wrong house, we finally got it rescheduled for Thursday. I am without phone, internet or cable, and in the middle of NOWHERE for another 2 days.
We check the voicemail on our old phone. The movers had called. There was a problem at the border. The US office of the van line was closed for Memorial Day, so they couldn't cross over until Tuesday. We're not getting our stuff until Wednesday. Matt has to go back to work on Wednesday, and won't tell his boss that he can't come back yet. I'm close to a breakdown by this point.
We finally get our stuff on Wednesday, and that actually went pretty smoothly. Meanwhile, I get a stomach bug and can eat almost no solid food. The cable guy shows up on Thursday, and having outside contact DEFINITELY helps my mood, but I'm still pretty down and homesick. The house is nice, and the people in one of the back cottages are nice - they have 4 kids, which Emma loves. But, I miss my friends and everything. I know it will get better, but I'm lonely.
If you got through the novel, thanks. If you didn't, and you're just pretending, that's ok too. Just thought I'd let you all know what was happening while I was offline for a week - BLECH!!!