The Move: The Beginning (laying the groundwork)

I fully expect that someday Evan and Chloe (and the ever possible but highly unlikely third child to be named at a later date if needed) will turn to me and ask me why everything we do ends up being more difficult than it seems it should be.  And I will answer, without batting an eye, so that we can entertain other people when we share our stories.  So, I hope our move to our new house entertains you.

I'll start at the beginning, Friday, February 25, to lay the groundwork for the drama chaos.  It was decided that on this Friday all of our items in storage would be transferred to our new house.  The items were to arrive on Friday morning.  This same Friday morning my father-in-law would be taking Evan (and my car) so that we wouldn't have to worry about watching him and Brian would have to go to City Hall to prove to them that we own this property and change the water to our name (yes, this antiquated system is how Atlanta handles water utilities). 

To manage all of this, Brian took me to the new house and waited with me until the movers came.  Unbeknownst to me he also left the movers with strict instructions not to let his 7 month pregnant wife lift anything and that I would be pig-headed about the entire situation (apparently he forgot to tell them not to tell me what he said).  Brian found a chair for me off of the truck, deposited me in the driveway and he took off.  I spent the next 3 hours telling the movers where the 5,700 lbs of crap storage items should go and wondering what the heck all of this stuff could be. 

Once the movers were finished, they took off and Brian returned.  Our builder, my father-in-law, and Evan also showed up and while all of us we were meandering around the house Brian noticed that the fridge we chose was not counter depth.  Instead, it stuck out about 4 extra inches (not counting the doors that need to stick out).  Now, I had noticed this on our final walk through the night before and my reaction was excitement.  I had just dealt with an apartment sized refrigerator for about 8 months and was seriously looking forward to the room in this fridge.  However, my husband's OCD did not see this as a glass half-full moment.  Instead, it became something so annoying to him it was like having a shard of glass in his eye every time he looked at it.  He needed the situation fixed and after listening to him talk about the fridge Friday night, Saturday morning, and the rest of the weekend I told him to do whatever needed to be done so that I wouldn't have to hear about the fridge anymore.  The builder assured us he could get the same fridge counter depth so all seemed good.  We will return to the fridge in another post as this post is only about the beginning.

All seemed good Friday night.  Then on Saturday we were told that the packers/movers would be at the apartment between 8am - 10am and Brian had to meet our alarm guy at the new house between 8am and 12pm. We all got up at the crack of dawn (also known as 6:30 AM) to be showered, dressed, and fed before anyone showed up. My father-in-law again took Evan and my car out and about Atlanta. 

I sat in the apartment with our 4 cats sequestered in bathroom (and screaming and clawing at the door the entire time) until 10am when the packers/movers finally arrived.  While they descended on the apartment I watched TV for as long as I could and then read a book.  I assumed, with 3 packers in a 3 room apartment it would only take about 2 hours to pack.  Well... 4 hours later they were still packing.  In fact, they didn't finished packing until 3:00 PM.  Thankfully, once the alarm person showed up at our new house (at about 12:30 PM) Brian was able to bring me food... because let's remember, I had no car and was stuck with the packers. 

At 3:00 PM we all made our way to the new house (except for the cats who were going to spend one more night in the apartment) and I once again sat in the driveway while I told the movers where things needed to go (and naively assumed that was where things were going...). Thankfully, everything was unpacked and Monkey's crib was put together just in time for him to go to bed (7:00 PM).  All of our stuff was in our house and everyone was already exhausted.

Sunday, I went back to the apartment to clean it up.  Again, I figured it would only take me about 2 hours to clean up the 3 room apartment.  Brian was out running errands for the house, Al was out with Evan, and I was cleaning with 4 cats.  Four hours later (clearly I had underestimated the dirt) Brian came to get me, the cats, and the items left behind.  At this point my 7 month pregnant back was completely done in.  Clearly nothing else was going to happen that night.

Monday began 2 things: 1) the never ending saga of unpacking, and 2) the contractors.  The unpacking shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone and for those of you who don't live in LaLa Land I've been told the contractors shouldn't be surprising either.  You see, it turns out that our builder did what needed to be done only to get us into the house.  This meant that there were about 1,000 things still left to do all of which had to be done while I was unpacking in the house with an 18 month old.

Here is a glimpse of what our house looked like on Friday afternoon (remember, this was just some boxes from storage...):

And so it began... stay tuned for posts about the chaos that ensued once we were moved in.