The Move.

The day began with the alarm clock around 6:30. The first order of business was to bring the cats to the new house and get them set up for the day. The first major oversight of the morning was both of us forgetting to bring our phones with us. Just as we were getting ready to leave the house to pick up the Uhaul, a giant Lowe's delivery truck pulled up to the house. They were supposed to give me a 2 hour window during which they would deliver our fridge, but apparently they called my phone on their way to the house or something. At any rate, I knew that waiting for them to install the fridge would throw our schedule off a bit, but I figured it would be one less thing I'd have to worry about later. I happened to wander outside as they were about to unload the fridge and saw that they were unloading a giant side by side WHITE refrigerator. Ummm, no. It turns out that the kid that entered our order into the computer ordered the wrong fridge. The delivery guys said they'd look into it, but weren't sure if they would even have the fridge we had ordered. So, it wasn't even 8 am and our first debacle had occurred. We left to pick up the Uhaul feeling disgruntled.

Since we were running behind, Ted had to leave me at the Uhaul store and head back to the apartment to meet the movers by 9. That left me to drive this hog:



It gets about 2 miles to the gallon and purrs like a kitten (if by kitten you mean giant bulldozer with a muffler problem). I considered driving down the freeway with my flashers on because I had no idea what I was doing behind the wheel of this thing. Even though it has giant side view mirrors, you can't see ANYTHING around you. When changing lanes I basically put the blinker on for awhile and hoped that everyone was smart enough to get the hell out of the way. It was classic.

The movers were there when I arrived and the got right to work packing some things, standing around, packing a few more things, taking a break, dropping some things, taking a break, watching each other work, and having a bite to eat. Meanwhile, Ted and I were busting a move down in the garage loading our Uhaul with what seemed to be a billion and a half boxes.



At first I was all gung ho and going a mile a minute thinking "What a great work out! It's fun to move!" After an hour or two, however, I could barely feel my arms and my legs were beginning to take on the consistency of jello. Ted and I often take pictures of each other and give each other "inspiration" just before snapping the photo to capture the true facial expression. Ted's inspiration for the following picture was "This is how you feel about moving right now":



We finished packing the Uhaul (just the two of us, with billions of boxes and other miscellaneous items) about the same time the movers finished packing our furniture. To be fair, they did have to wrap things up and pack their van all neat and such, but still. A little hustle doesn't hurt anyone is all I'm saying. So we all trekked over the new house and started the torture of unloading it all. Once again, I started off all gung ho putting boxes in the appropriate room, stacking things neatly as I went. By the time we got halfway done with our truck I was at the point where I didn't think I would physically be able to pick up the next box. We muscled through, however, and the movers helped us with the last bit of boxes. At that point, however, boxes were being put into whatever room we happened to be in when they fell out of our noodle arms.

In the midst of the moving, I received a call from "Lyndell" at Lowe's. He informed me that the fridge they sent us that morning was indeed the one that was ordered for us, so the mistake began with the sales guy that rang us up. To make a long and irritating story short, I decided I better go to Lowe's to see what fridge they were planning on sending us next. Now, I don't know if you've been fridge shopping lately, but they all start to look the same after awhile. They have about 5 models side by side that look almost exactly the same except one will have an "egg area" and will be $100 more than the other or something ridiculous like that. I didn't see the fridge we had ordered. Or at least I couldn't remember which one it was. The one Lyndell had all packaged up and ready to be delivered to us looked good enough, and we needed a fridge, so I gave up and said okay. They delivered it just as we were finishing the unloading and it just didn't look right. But now I was all messed up and couldn't even remember what the original one we wanted even resembled. Once they put it in place it looked pretty good and we started to think that maybe it was the one we had ordered after all. We took another trip to Lowe's to take one last look, but ultimately stuck with the one they delivered. I'm glad that we did because it has turned out to be a really nice fridge, whether we ordered it or not. I think the people at Lowe's know me by name now after all the trips I made there that day.

After the movers left around 3, we still had errands to run with the truck before returning it at 6. Ted had to head back to the apartment, so I saddled up again and took the hog out for a spin. I picked up the treadmill at Sears, which incidentally has the best pick up service ever. You go up to a little kiosk and scan your receipt or punch in your phone number and it retrieves your order. It then starts a clock counting and you are guaranteed to have your order within 5 minutes or you get a $25 gift certificate. I spent my 4 minutes and 24 seconds praying for the 5 minute mark. No such luck, but I got my treadmill and the fellas even loaded it into the truck for me. Sweet.

Then it was off to the furniture store. Ted had arrived before me and was hoping to have everything ready to just load into the truck. He was told "We'll get the stuff out when the truck gets here," so of course we had to wait around for another 10 minutes after I arrived to find some people to get our stuff for us. They loaded the dresser and bed on the truck and we were off again. We unloaded everything just in time to lock up and head back to the Uhaul store.

Being the wily cats that we are, we then went to the apartment that night and finished cleaning so that all we had to do was turn the keys in. On the way home I ordered a pizza for us. Ted didn't care what was on it, as long as there was pepperoni. When the pizza arrived, it had everything I had ordered EXCEPT the pepperoni. He's still upset over it.

Our bodies were utterly exhausted upon arriving home, but we still kept going until after midnight that night. We started unpacking boxes and moving messes from room to room.

When Ted donned his "T-Bone" tool belt, I knew he meant business...



During all of the commotion, the cats weren't quite sure what to do with themselves. They finally found a safe and comfy spot up high and away from all of the action.



To Be Continued...