Slow Start

Monday was a dream. We were completely prepared for the movers when they arrived at 8:00.  We laughed and worked the morning away beside them, and then we went to closing--we had a great time there, too.  The buyers of our house had pre-signed their papers, and the seller of our new one had also, so there was nobody there except the title company reps, the Realtors, the lender, and us!  It took longer than we had hoped, but the movers didn't charge us for the down time between the loading and unloading--which was a big help because it was three hours!

When we arrived at the new house, the truck was already there. We managed to get everything unloaded, make a second trip back for the dregs and unload all that before the rain came. It was cloudy and humid all day, but not unbearably hot as it could have been.  Ornery overheard one of the movers tell another that ours was the easiest move he had ever done and he wished they didn't have to charge us full price.  Too bad they weren't making the bill out.  We really did have a wonderful experience, and while I am only about 10% unpacked, I haven't noticed anything that might be damaged, and all the furniture came through intact and unscratched.

Ornery's mom came over around 11:00 to sit with the house (in case the movers weren't finished there--but they were) while we closed, and she finished up the last little bit of cleaning for us. She came over to the new house for a while, but left before we went back for the second load.  We didn't finish with all that until after 6:00 PM, so we went to eat dinner at Chili's with a gift card from our lender, and then came home, set up a spot to sleep and crashed.

Tuesday morning, we were up and at it early, breakfast at Panera (not quite as close as our old one, but still reasonable...) and a trip to Lowe's to spend the gift card from our Realtors.  We bought peel and stick tiles and primer, and headed home to begin the real work.

Elizabeth arrived at about 9:30 and spent the day putting tiles down in the pantry and kitchen and bathroom cabinets.  What a blessing that was!  I unpacked boxes. Then I unpacked some more boxes.  Did I mention there are a lot of boxes in the house?  Yeah, I unpacked gobs of boxes and it doesn't look like I have even made a dent!  I needed to get some cabinet organizers before I could unpack some of the stuff, like pots and pans and stoneware, but we did get the pantry put away for the most part. I don't know what still remains in the boxes, but it must be a lot of stuff, because there are still a LOT of boxes marked Kitchen.

The only casualty so far was our CD player, which encloses up to 200 CD's. It is stuck closed, and won't play any music for us.  We will think further about that along about September, me thinks!  We discovered this unhappy fact after we had all the electronic stuff hooked up and the wall units moved into place.  Ornery worked on that while we listed to the radio about all the storms in the area.  It appears that the neighbor across the street lost several shingles, but despite all the dire tornado and straight wind warnings, our only sign of a storm was the grapevine that he had placed out in the middle of the back yard. It was attached firmly to a tomato cage which blew over to the side. I am sure the vine is still okay, just a little cock-eyed.

Today I arrived at Lowe's early and then proceeded to whittle away at the list of things to do until noon, when I arrived home and enjoyed lunch with Ornery.  I took care of several errands (new driver's license, address change at bank, etc.) and walked my feet off at Sam's, WalMart, Lowe's, and JC Penney.  Ornery will stop by the appliance repair center on the way home from work to pick up a new dryer plug so I can do some laundry tomorrow, and then he'll work some more on the painting project in the master bedroom, which he began yesterday.  He has primer on about 1/2 the walls and ceiling.  He'll hopefully get that part painted, then we can shuffle the stuff to the other side of the room to finish it tomorrow night.

If he doesn't work on that tonight, I might have him install my kitchen cabinet organizers so I can finish in there tomorrow. That does seem like a higher priority, maybe... Meanwhile, I will be unpacking more boxes.  I'd like to have the living room finished today if possible, and have a small oasis of orderliness to retreat to when I get overwhelmed.

While it sounds like (and IS) a lot of work, we are really enjoying the new place. It is simply lovely!