Sunday, August 12, 2012

Adventures in Moving

Whew...I am really bad at updating this thing recently.  It's been almost a month!  Sorry to all my (imaginary) faithful readers out there.


We have been in our new place a little over a week now and I am proud to say that we are 95% unpacked and settled.  This was probably the slowest move that we have ever made, but the fastest unpacking that we have done.

We have now moved both ways:  All at once and spread out over a month.  And the verdict IS.....(drum roll)....moving sucks no matter what.  But both Z and I agree that, given the choice again, we will move all at once.  Spreading the torture out over a month sounds great in theory, but it left us in a state of limbo for much longer than was comfortable.  It was a constant question  of "What will we not need?  What can be packed?  What can be taken over the new house that we won't miss?  Where is the _____?  Is it here or in a box at the new house?"  Torturous, I tell you.

In moving,
1. We thought we lost one of our cats, Judy (yes...he's a boy with a girls name...long story).  On official moving out day we brought both cats over to the new house and put them in the basement.  That way we could clean the old house without them getting in the way.  In moving a load of stuff into the new house, Z glanced behind him and noticed the basement door was open...while the door to the outside was also open.  Upon further investigation, only one cat could be found in the basement.  We spent several depressed hours thinking Judy was lost forever.  That night, it rained.  Hard.  When Z went to the basement he noticed water coming from under the door to the old coal room (which was tightly closed).  He opened the door to see how bad the flooding was and....there was Judy.  Judy had found a hole from the main basement through the wall into the coal room.  This is also the cat who, when we brought him home from the SPCA to our old house, found the hole in the wall that led to the plumbing under the bathtub.

"I like holes in walls.  And tuna fish."


2.  We have to add propane to our monthly utility bills (the hot water is heated via propane).  I called the gas company on the second to switch the account from our landlord's name into our name.  Apparently that can't be done...until I sign an affidavit (that they are supposed to be sending to me) in front of a notary, include two forms of ID, and send the paperwork back to the gas company.  WHAT??  And the affidavit hasn't come yet...if it doesn't come in today's mail, they can expect another call from me.

3.  Our kitchen is still not unpacked/set up/cleaned.  Which is incredibly frustrating to me.  There are two hookups for the stove and our landlord told us that we could move the stove and use either one...both of them (were supposed to) work.  When we moved our stuff in, we decided that one particular hook up would be a better set up than the other given the stuff we have for the kitchen.  Well....that's the hook up that doesn't work.  We called our landlord right away, but she was on vacation and couldn't do anything about it until she got back.  The electrician is finally supposed to come TODAY (10 days after we moved in) to fix it.  We spent so long in transition at our other place- eating frozen pizzas and take out - that I was really looking forward to some home cooked meals.  But what is the point of setting everything up if the major kitchen players will just be moved?


Awesome giant box bocking our pots and pans cabinet.

**UPDATE** Our kitchen actually is in WORSE shape now than it was when this pic was taken.  The stove got moved thanks to the electrician but the sideboard that was going to go against the wall in this picture?  Is actually too big.  We never measured.  Whoops.  So now it is sitting kind of halfway out into the middle of the floor and the giant box is right in front of the dishwasher and I can't get to the dishwasher to unload it so that I can put the sink full of dirty dishes in and my kitchen aid mixer is on a chair in the dining room and it's all I can do to get to my coffee maker and *hyperventilates into a bag...*  I would take a picture of the chaos to show you...but I'm too embarassed.  I'll just leave it up to your imagination.

All in all, we are really happy to be in our new place.  Moving always presents a unique set of challenges and I know it could be worse.  Do you have any moving horror stories?  Please share in the comments!