Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Stuff about moving that I want to remember.

It's done.  We are officially in our new house.  I can't believe we really moved.  Who knew people who never have anything change in their life could change things so drastically.

I never dreamed I would get this house.  When we first saw it, it had been 90% complete for a few weeks.  They had just lowered the price by a significant amount, and it was expected to go fast.  Despite this, we decided to go for it.  I put my house up for sale on a Tuesday and expected every. single. day. for them to call me and tell me the house we wanted had gone under contract with someone else (because I couldn't deal with putting my house up for sale at the same time as putting a contingency offer on the new one).  We ending up waiting 4 days before we finally made our offer.  Even then, I thought it would be sold out from under us.  After only another week, we our offer on the house we were selling.  3 days later, someone else put an offer on the house we wanted to buy, so I had to scramble to get things squared away.  The entire time, I never dreamed we would actually end up with it. I hoped, but didn't expect it to really work.

I'm so glad it did.  I don't think I could have handled jumping any more hurdles.  The inspection nearly killed me.  Worrying over financing filled my nights with sleepless tossing and turning only to be followed by anxiety dreams about people wanting money from me or spending my money without asking me.  For me, the actual buying/selling of the houses was much more stressful than moving from one to another.

But we finally moved.  Saturday night found us with a garage full of possessions that we didn't know we owned.  I am embarrassed at how unprepared we were.  I *thought* we were prepared, but we weren't.  The morning of our move, I had an entire basement that was mostly intact, except for the books that I packed.  The TV was still hooked up, the DVD player and DVR still plugged in and functioning.  I did pack the remote (which took me until monday to find because I didn't remember packing it!) and 3 DVDs, but that was it.  We had food storage still under the stairs, laundry soap sitting on shelves, clean clothes hanging on racks.  I just didn't realize that it would all really need to go, and therefore should have been packed.

But somehow, with a lot of help from friends and neighbors, we got out of our house.  As we were moving, my mother-in-law Vonnay was vacuuming my upstairs carpet.  After everything and everyone had left, my friend Melanie came over to the old house to help me clean it.  I don't know what I would have done without her.  She vacuumed downstairs while I swept the basement and mopped the floors.  After we were done, I found myself alone in my house for a moment.  With as much composure as I could muster, I asked Mel to leave me alone at the house.  I burst into tears, filled with sadness that I was saying goodbye to this house. I found myself in Thomas' room, exactly where I always sat to nurse him when he was a baby.  I wanted some further confirmation that what we were doing wasn't crazy, wasn't wrong.  I stood up and noticed that something was on the shelf in Thomas' closet.  It was only an old hockey stick, but behind it was a hospital ID tag from Shriners hospital from when Thomas had his tendon lenthening surgery at 4 months.  When I found it, I knew that it was my confirmation.  It was the little token, the tender mercy I needed at the time to say it's ok, you are doing the right thing.  I still felt sad, but my heart was peaceful and my tears started to wane. 

Some moments I want to remember are:
  • Shane and his friend John toting our outside canopy down to the new house on top of our rented U-Haul.
  • Trying to coax one of our cats from out from the ceiling in the basement where she hid when I tried to secure her in a cat carrier.
  • Wrestling the other cat into the cat carrier without letting the first cat out.  Every time a new person would walk by, she would start to try to escape.  I must have spent 20 minutes fighting cats.
  • Our last old fat cat who calmly rode on Vonnay's lap to the new house, meowing all the time while her friends sat in the cat carrier, scared for their lives.
  • The fact that my old bishop/home teacher ended up carrying my underwear drawer to the garage.  Special.
  • Missing the delivery of our fridge, which meant that we couldn't get a fridge until Sunday morning.  We had to put all our cold food in coolers on the back porch and send our frozen food home with Vonnay.  She was so sweet to make 2 extra trips up to get my food and then later deliver it.  I don't know what we would have done without her.
  • Sweeping and mopping my kitchen floor in the old house for the last time.
  • Eating at Olive Garden Saturday night.
  • Having a picnic dinner with Vonnay, Shane and the boys on the living room floor on Friday night.
  • Unpacking the kitchen with Vonnay Friday night while the boys went to get Five Guys and McDonalds.
  • Feeling all warm and fuzzy at the service that our home teacher, neighbors, friends, family, and a couple of missionaries gave us by helping us move.
  • Having to let the new owner of our old house in because he nor his 2 grown male friends could figure out how to work the key.  I then gave him a tour, showing him where to turn on and off the water and sprinklers. I showed him all the leftover paint so he could do touch-ups, and told him the types of all my beautiful trees.  Sniff. 
  • I'm excited: he's being really cool and letting me come back and split the iris in the back yard later this spring.  Score.
We have spent the last 3 days getting moved in.  The garage is now able to accomodate a single car, and once we have our garbage day on Friday, we will be able to park both cars.  All our rooms are unpacked except for the living room, which is covered in boxes and books and pictures (I can't even get in the door.) I still need blinds everywhere in the basement.  It still feels a little weird, but we really live here now.  Tomorrow we will stop paying rent (because we had to wait to close until Shane could get paid from his new job) and we will finally close.  It feels like I have spent every moment of this year worrying about moving.  I don't remember what I did before.

So this is my last whiney post about leaving my old house.  I know that it will take some time, but soon this house will feel as much like home as our old house.  It's feeling more and more like home with every box we unpack and every random item we put away.

5 comments:

Amy Sorensen said...

awesome post. I sniffed and I laughed! Can't wait to see photos of the new house. Sorry we couldn't come and help.

If you are doing blinds and not shutters in your basement, I have a GREAT website you can order them from! Or...if you're doing shutters we have a shutter friend. FYI.

HUGS!

Apryl said...

Moving is just as emotionally exhausting as it is physically exhausting. Unless you're the people from 9 by Design. They're my heroes. Also, they're crazy.

K. Bitton said...

I think moving is good for the soul. You learn and remember so much! I can't wait to see your new house this summer, with my new baby:) You are still welcome to come and pay us a visit after Lucy arrives, you are welcome any time but I figure after she comes is better;) I'm glad you had so much help! I really would like to see pictures, I can't imagine you in any other house.

Karen said...

Hey Becky....remember me? It's been a LONG time and somehow I happened upon your blog....totally random & crazy huh? You are an AMAZING writer, I absolutely enjoyed reading your posts. I wish I could express myself the way you do. Anyway, hope you survived your big move & congrats on your new home :)) xoxox --Karen Christensen

Ginger said...

I'm so happy for you in your new house. You are opposite of us. The living room is clean but we can't walk through our room or the office.