As I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been caught up in the hell of moving the last few weeks. Of course, the actual hellish part didn’t start until the 13th, which was when we started trying to get everything out to the garage to be loaded onto the truck the following day.
Hour after hour spent packing things I could have sworn had already been packed. Hour after hour spent CLEANING THAT EFFING KITCHEN. Hour after hour spent trying to keep the kids out of the way so that we could just get. Shit. Done.
Listen. I know you’re all probably aware of the special hell in which moving house resides. A lot of you (based on my general readership) probably have zero idea what it’s like when kids are involved, though.
It’s like the general horribleness of moving, but then you still have to make sure that the kids are fed and snacked and taken to the bathroom, and tripped over and kind of accidentally kicked and crying all the time because they can’t watch effing Numberland for the eleventy billionth time, plus there’s no longer any couch or chairs for them to sit on, and then they get all bitchfacey about the fact that they have to ZOMG SIT ON THE FLOOR (when every single other day, you’re trying to KEEP THEM OFF OF THE FLOORS) and then you’re crying and crying because you don’t see how it’s at all possible to get everything done in the time you have left before your self-imposed deadline to get out of the old house.
You know, because you know you still have an over 4 hour drive and you have to have your moving truck back at a certain time before you’re charged for another day…
This was my life on Monday, Tuesday AND Wednesday. The plan was originally to be out of the old house on Tuesday.
That totally didn’t happen.
So then, the plan was to get up early on Wednesday morning, finish up everything that needed to be done and be on the road between noon and 1.
That didn’t happen, either.
At around 9 am, husband realized that he couldn’t find the keys to his car. Were they packed? Were they locked inside? [shrug] Since we had to be able to get into the damn car to load it onto the towing thingy (there were 3 cars, a truck and 3 drivers, one of the cars was going to have to be towed), husband spent the next hour with a coat hanger in the street in front of the house trying to get into it.
He didn’t find the keys in the ignition like we’d half expected, but he did find THE SPARE in the glove box.
So, since the HOUSE KEY was also on the key ring he couldn’t find, he had to make a trip to have a duplicate made because we HAD TO HAVE A CERTAIN NUMBER OF KEYS to hand in.
This put us past 11 am.
Only the kids had had anything to eat.
I was running on coffee and sugar from the candy I hadn’t packed.
Tempers were at an all time high, and everyone was fighting with everyone else about the stupidest shit imaginable.
The house was finally empty and clean at 2, but then we still had to finish loading things onto the truck.
And deal with the scavengers coming to pick through our trash at the curb while we were loading the truck.
And keep the kids occupied AND not running into the street because they couldn’t go back into the house, since it was FINALLY CLEAN.
At 4, we were finally on the road.
But it wasn’t that simple.
Because the GPS for the Rogue (what I was driving) didn’t recognize our new house address as a valid address.
So I had to program in the address for husband’s new place of employment and hope we didn’t get too separated.
We seriously stopped 5 miles down the road because we realized we had forgotten to bring drinks and snacks for the kids. My dad was already way ahead of us in the truck (he had the 6 y/o with him) so we decided not to follow him, and to just listen to the instructions the GPS was handing us.
But it took us a different route than the one he was taking.
That wasn’t fun at all.
Then, my dad kept calling at the EXACT MOMENT the GPS had something to say. This is what the experience was like:
GPS: Boop! In 400 yards…
Phone: BRING!
Me/Husband: Wait, do what now?
GPS: TURN LEFT NOW. TURN LEFT NOW.
Dad: Why did you miss your turn?
Us: BECAUSE WE DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS COMING SINCE YOU HAVE THE WORLD’S WORST TIMING EVER.
Us: U-Turn after U-Turn after U-Turn.
We finally met up with him and the 6y/o just before we got out of North Carolina.
At this point, what should have been a 4 hour drive had already taken us 5 hours, and we still had TWO HOURS LEFT TO GO.
Everyone went to the bathroom at the rest stop, we got snacks and got back on the freeway…and it started to rain.
And rain.
And rain.
Then husband got OFF the freeway and I followed him, cos I didn’t know what was going on.
7y/o had been carsick with no warning. At all.
7y/o: Daddy, this is pretty cool – [vomit]
[sigh]
So we cleaned him up (luckily, I had clothes for them all with me for just such an occasion) and got back on the road.
…we didn’t get here until after midnight. So, the four hour drive took us just over 8 hours.
I know, Mrs Todd would have been so disappointed with us.
I did have fun watching my dad try to make the turn onto our road and almost wipe out an entire bank of mailboxes, though – I may have been slightly punchdrunk at that point, though, because in hindsight it isn’t as funny as I thought it was at the time.
Driving down the winding road to our new home, one of the first things I see is a house with a Romney/Ryan sign out in the front yard. Never too late for a recount, eh new neighbours?
We get to the house and decide to say eff it, we’ll just bring in sheets and pillows and everyone will crash in the daylight basement (because it’s the only carpeted room in the entire house), but we don’t have blankets because for some reason, those are IN THE MOVING TRUCK and everything else was in the trunks of the various cars.
Worst night sleep I’ve ever had, because even though I situated myself under a heating vent, the VENT WAS CLOSED so I was freezing and sore the entire time.
We woke up the following morning (I can say now that it was Thursday, but really I had no idea what day it actually was for most of the day) to rain.
We backed the truck up as close to the garage as we could get it, and everything was unloaded by noon.
So my dad and husband left to take the truck back, and that was when the satellite guy showed up.
That was also when it started TO SNOW.
…and that’s not even all of it, but whatever. I don’t feel like talking about it more right now.
I’ll post the next part later or tomorrow, but probably won’t get around to comments until this weekend, since our internet isn’t being installed until Friday.
