Wednesday, October 31, 2007

"Even My Skin Hurts"

I think C put it best in the wee hours of this morning when he said “even my skin hurts.”

Yesterday was a VERY long day for us as it was our last official day in our house. At 4 p.m. the movers came to take the final load to storage and I packed up the trusty Hondamatic with some more boxes (mostly cleaning supplies, empty boxes that need to be trashed, etc…). Then my job was to wait for the realtor and the new owners to come do the walkthrough at 6. C went with the movers. Well here it was quarter to 5. I poured myself a well deserved glass of wine and caught up on some email, when C texted (is this a word?) me.

“Did you empty the Hondamatic yet?”

What was he talking about? He never said anything about driving the stuff over to the other house and unpacking. And I was in no frame of mind to think clearly. Shoot. This was bad. So somehow, in rush hour traffic, I flew to my grandmother’s with my car packed to the brim, unpacked it and got home with 15 minutes to spare before the walkthrough. Not really sure how that happened, but it did.

Then the fun really began. We ate pizza on our kitchen floor since we had no furniture – but I did manage to find the salt and pepper (I always know what is in what box when I pack them). Then more trips. C’s truck and my SUV packed back and forth, back and forth. It was tiring, yes. Moving the giant man-sized TV – even tougher but we did it - together. I’ll admit, while I have been pretty focused and pushing myself harder than I usually do throughout this process last night I was sore, exhausted and borderline moody. it was bound to happen. Let's just say at about midnight I curled into a ball on the floor of our empty livingroom and went to sleep. But We finally finished up last night about quarter to one in the morning. I’m a zombie and every muscle, every smile hurts right now. But it’s all good. The house is officially sold and it is no longer ours. C’s off today – taking care of some errands and trying to make some sense of the tons of boxes littering my house at the moment.

Tonight we celebrate at a romantic dinner for two – I only hope I don’t fall asleep in my soup!

Thank you all for listening, for your friendship and for talking a usually super organized person off the ledge many times this week. I owe you all!

Sunday, October 28, 2007

Good-bye Home Sweet Home

It's been great having turned this house into our home. To watch as each room was brought to its full potential through a lot of hard work and sweat, but now as the days are numbered, it's almost time to say good-bye.

All the closets are empty, the only furniture left is our bed and our kitchen table. And of course the high-def TV - can't watch the Sox sweep the World Series without it! Every room is finally empty and now we are about to make our last trip to my grandmother's with the last of our stuff we'll need during our transition. The bed and table are coming Tuesday.

That's it. No food, except some cheese in my tiny college-dorm-like fridge, which also holds cream for our coffee and some soda, wine and water. The clock is finally counting down and in 48 hours we will no longer call this great century-old house home. It's bittersweet. It was the first major step in our at the time newlywed phase of our relationship - but now we are moving on to an even bigger step. Finding the home we will together grow old and raise our family in.

A toast to you our great home. You've done us good and made us very happy. I hope the happiness I had here is something the new owners will enjoy as well as they put their own personal touches on a house once belonging to someone else that they too can now call home.

(On a side note: while in 2004 I got to see Game 2 of the World Series with my dad, this time around I was left in the bullpen. Dad and my brother both went to Game 1 and as I type, my brother has been in Colorado with the Red Sox brass taking in all the action from there. Go Sox and A - have a great time and be safe!)

Monday, October 22, 2007

Give Me Strength

What a weekend. Too many life-changing events in too short a time.

My grandmother (my mother's mother) passed away Saturday night and we weren’t expecting that – it was tough, but we are all doing pretty well considering.

Then yesterday we put an offer on the house we wanted, and they countered (which we expected) but countered at only (hold your breath) 1.5 percent under their asking price. In this market that is insane! Needless to say we came back up another 1.5 percent and then they notified us in no uncertain terms that they were staying with that number take it or leave it. We left it. We’re good – there are at least 10 other houses on our list that we can get for a better price. So we’ll see. We can't actually do anything this week as we have to move and the closing is next week. But rest assured - we'll be moving full steam ahead once we get past the closing!

But the stress of sitting in the realtor’s office yesterday morning making an offer on a new house, knowing we had the movers coming on Tuesday and my grandmother’s death just finally physically stopped me in my tracks. It was simply too much for me to handle – emotionally and physically I am exhausted.

I’m actually at work this morning – need to get some stuff done before I lose time this week. Working half a day today, half a day tomorrow and then I’ll be out on Wednesday for the services.

Give me strength.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Almost There

This weekend was yet another turning point for us in our quest to vacate our house for the new owners and get one step closer to finding our new home.

On Sunday morning, early – way too early for someone who was at the Red Sox playoff game Saturday night (or wait, should I say into Sunday morning) – we headed out to look at two houses I had wanted to see for a long time. They are both large split-level homes, both on the same street (in fact, they are almost across the street from each other). They were both absolutely beautiful, turnkey (except for some interior paint and paper), on great lots of land in a neighborhood I could picture raising a family in and growing old together in. In a word, they were perfect and we are leaning toward possibly making an offer on one this week.

After trudging through nearly 40 houses in the past six months, this was such a completely different experience. Everything was what we wanted. The location, the neighborhood, the size, the space – everything. And for the first time, we are both in agreement – which I never thought would happen. (last time I found “the house” C found “the house” too – although they were both different houses!)

Then yesterday we made some real headway. We took everything (with the exception of clothing and what we need to cook for the rest of the week) over to my grandmother’s house (where we are settling in temporarily while we wait to move into our new house). Three trips with both the truck and my trusty Hondamatic packed as full as possible. It actually wasn’t so bad. But definitely tiring.

So we are making headway – moving along and by this time next week will be out of our house – whether we are ready or not – the movers are coming a week from today to take our furniture to storage (what am I going to do without my bed for two months!)

But in the end I know it will all be worth it. No more city for this suburban girl. Back to the suburbs for me (though it’s so far out I’d have to say it’s more country than suburbs, but it sure beats city living).

Until next time …

Thursday, October 11, 2007

The Continuously Ticking Clock

The clock is continuing to tick (not the biological one but the one that says we have to be out of our house within the next two weeks). This week has been a total bust for me in terms of packing thanks to a cold that started slowly last week and has been kicking my ass ever since. All I want to do is sleep and no matter how much it’s never enough. I’m exhausted, every muscle is sore and yet I’m still turning out page after page here at work and trying to create crafty ways to get everything that’s left to be packed taken care of by the end of the weekend.

Problem is – the weekend is two days away and I only have a limited amount of time to get anything done. I’m working tomorrow day and night. Saturday afternoon we are going to look at two more houses we are interested in (thanks to me finding them online before we went ahead and chose among our top four which was the original plan). Sunday morning we will doing second showings at at least two of the houses and then Sunday afternoon we picking Nana up to take her down to my parents’ so we can all go out to dinner to celebrate her birthday (her 98th by the way!).

Whew.

I’m off on Monday – the plan is to get everything we plan on taking to our temporary housing over there so all that’s left in our house is what the movers will be taking off to storage the following week. (sniff, sniff) I still can’t believe we are moving. I’m definitely looking forward to finally finding our new house and making it a home. And C is on a mission to make that happen as soon as humanly possible. Until then we will be living the life of a couple of nomads squatting at my grandmother’s house. But thankfully she has plenty of room so space won’t be an issue. Now if I can only be sure not to send anything to storage I may need in the meantime.

Oh and did I mention the majority of what I have left to pack is my clothing? And you all know how much work that’s going to be! (I did incidentally already pack up all my shoes) – I think they had shoe babies in my closet – I don’t remember having this many!

Thursday, October 04, 2007

How Cute Is This?

Yesterday I was talking to my mom. She was telling me she was out with my nephew (who is now 16 months old) and as they walked into a store an older woman held the door for him. He walked halfway through the door. Stopped. Looked up at her. And clear as day said "thank you." How precious is that? I couldn't be a prouder aunt!

Making Progress

I’m on a roll – this has been a week of what I like to refer to as “power packing.” And even though work has been so crazy busy this week for some reason I can’t keep my head above water – I’m not letting that affect my goal and challenge to myself to have the majority of my crap boxed up and labeled by week’s end.

All of my books (with the exception of the rather large pile I have yet to read) have been packed up and trucked off to storage. I have even managed to pack all my china and dinnerware, as well as all my stemware with the exception of eight glasses which will be coming with me to my temporary location (I intend to pack those up tonight). I even boxed up all my games – well, except for our chess set and Trivial Pursuit – you never know when you’ll be in the mood to play a game and I certainly don’t want to be without.

I started boxing up my clothes to go to storage with the original intention of only taking what I might need to our temporary living arrangement, but then realized last night that there is plenty of room there so to make life a bit easier, they are all coming with me. Besides, clothes are the lightest and easiest to transport right?

That’s all for now. Tonight I tackle the shoes – sending the summer stuff off to storage, and gearing up to make sure by tomorrow night all my stuff is taken care of so I can start to help C with everything else we have. Wish me luck!

Monday, October 01, 2007

And So It's Begun

I’m actually quite happy with my progress. On Saturday my girlfriend came up from the Cape for the day and visited. We haven’t seen each other in FAR too long so we had a ton of catching up to do. And while we caught up I packed … and packed … and packed. I managed to pack up the entire china closet in the dining room by day’s end Saturday. (which incidentally ended with a delicious meal C made for us – he’s too good)

Then yesterday, we went house hunting again – looking at four of them in two different towns. Again, some we liked but this time there was only one that was put on the “no” list. So we’re making progress there.

When we came home I fully intended to crash on the couch for an hour or so and just do nothing, but the packing bug got the better of me so I dragged out 80 percent of my china from my hutch, piles of newspaper and boxes, and plopped down in front of the TV to finally watch the season premiere of “Grey’s Anatomy” while packing. I’ve always been a multi-tasker.

And I’m proud to report, by the time I was in bed dreaming away last night – 20 boxes of china and books were packed, taped, labeled and ready to go to storage. Not so bad.

My goal tonight is to finish the china, catch up on some more TV premieres awaiting me on the DVR and then gear up for tomorrow night. My clothes. Ah, I finally get them organized and now they have to be separated into (a) going to storage (likely all summer wear, sandals, etc…) (b) going to Goodwill (already have a full bag but want to do it all at once) and (c) going with us to Nana’s (where we are going to be living temporarily).

When does the fun begin?