Tag Archives: moving

June 21, 2010 · 1:00 PM

Father’s Day Weekend Wrapup

Song Lyric of the Day:

You can’t fool me / I saw you when you came out / You got your momma’s taste / But you got my mouth / You will always have a part of me / Nobody else is ever gonna see

Ben Folds / “Gracie“

Bear with me if I start rambling. It’s been a lonnng weekend.

Rich, the furkids, and I survived the move this weekend. We had a great moving crew, as well as the support of our parents, who all took turns directing furniture to rooms, starting on small home improvement projects, making sure the moving crew stayed well hydrated, and that we (particularly yours truly) were fed and also well hydrated. Now we’re excited to start unpacking. It feels like opening every box is a treasure hunt at this point. I was so happy to find my glasses last night you would’ve thought I’d won the lottery. It’s pretty hard to read* without your contacts when you can’t find your glasses and have to hold the book about 8 centimeters from your face to try and make sense of those blurry, vaguely word-shaped thingamabobs on the page. I looked like Mr. Magoo‘s long-lost daughter Saturday night.

Yesterday being Father’s Day and our first post-move day, we made a point of taking it easy. We woke up at noon having had almost no sleep since Friday, although I think the last night Rich slept was Thursday night. We ran some errands and swung by both parents’ houses to give our dads hugs, cards, and gifts and to thank them again for their help on Saturday. After that I dropped Rich off at the new house so he could nap or relax, and I swung by the A-frame to pick up a few things. After helping me unload the car, I treated him to a Father’s Day dinner at Wasabi where we talked about how excited we are to meet Bundle and wondered what she’ll be like, what she’ll be interested in, who she’ll take after, and whether or not she’ll like sushi — she doesn’t know it yet, but she has a date in the future where her daddy is going to take her out for sushi. I look forward to hearing how that date goes.

Not only is Bundle very lucky that Rich is her daddy (he has such plans for her), but he and I are also very lucky to have the dads that we do. I wrote a bit about mine a while back, and I hope my father-in-law knows how much I love him, too. I can’t wait to see them meet their granddaughter in a few months.

*Currently reading My Name Is Memory by Ann Brashares.

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Tagged as ben folds, gracie, moving

June 18, 2010 · 8:21 PM

Programming Note

Finishing packing. Counting down to a lukewarm shower and bed. Bittersweet getting ready to leave our A-frame. Will update over the weekend about how the big move goes.

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Tagged as moving

June 17, 2010 · 7:00 PM

Late-Night Special

Song Lyric of the Day:

He’s been working so hard / I’ve been working too / Every night and day /Yeah yeah yeah / We gotta get out of this place / If it’s the last thing we ever do / We gotta get out of this place

The Animals / “We Gotta Get Out of This Place“

This is officially the Week That Will Not End. This morning started out with a three-hour OB appointment for the lonnnng gestational diabetes test. I failed the first one (which is an hour long with one blood draw), so this was my retake. Unfortunately, today’s test involved having blood drawn four times in three hours from the same arm. Then it was off to work and home to — yep, you guessed it — pack for the move this weekend. The spouse and I are both taking tomorrow off to finish up the last of the packing. We’re thisclose but it feels like we’re this far from the finish line. And now, since it’s late, and I’m going on maybe four hours of sleep, I’m approaching delirium. Which is why I’m leaving you with this I Can Has Cheezburger video. I think it’s pretty appropriate.

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Tagged as i can has cheezburger video, moving, the animals, we gotta get out of this place

June 11, 2010 · 10:00 AM

The Neverending Move = Why I Dread the Weekend

Song Lyric of the Day:

And you’d see me waiting for you on the corner of the street / So I’m not moving / I’m not moving

The Script / “The Man Who Can’t Be Moved“

As my 18 loyal readers (see what I did? I added one) know, the spouse and I are in the process of a move. A move which physically, officially began about four weeks ago, when we closed on the new house. Unofficially, it began months ago, when we rented a storage space*, started packing, worked on decluttering the house, worked on home improvement projects, and began the long kiss goodbye with our sanity.

This weekend promises to be more of the same: wrapping up knickknacks, packing, wondering how the hell we lost yet another tape gun. Our original plan was to move everything to the new house ourselves except the furniture. A few weeks and roughly half our possessions later, we’ve changed our tune because we’re exhausted. Not to mention poor Rich is having to do almost all the lifting/moving/loading himself since I can’t right now. Since we‘ve got the movers scheduled for next week, we’re going to let (read: pay) them move the last boxes along with the furniture.

At least this move is not only an in-state move, but an in-city one. To this day, I have no idea how the hell I survived the move from Chesapeake back to Knoxville. I vaguely remember calling the whole thing off at one point when about 90 percent of the house was already packed and ready to go — that’s how stressed out I was. Then, come moving day, I discovered the movers we’d hired were rogue movers (an emergency call to Mayflower and we dodged a bullet). Trust me — carefully research your movers.

So as stressed as we are right now, we’re grateful that it’s a local move, that our awesome family is willing and able to help out whenever possible, and that there’s nary a rogue mover in sight. Of course, once we get the A-frame empty, then comes the really fun part of shuttling between houses to finish up home improvement projects and getting the house ready to put on the market. Come back then and ask me how my stress level is.

*We used — and highly recommend — Nortshore Pellissippi Storage. It’s a brand-new, climate-controlled building with great security features, reasonable prices, and a very friendly, helpful staff. And, no, they did not pay me to say this.

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Filed under homebuying, personal

Tagged as moving, the man who can’t be moved, the script

June 7, 2010 · 12:00 PM

Done Went and Bought a House

Song Lyric of the Day:

Ahh home, let me come home / Home is wherever I’m with you / Ahh home, let me go ho-oh-ome / Home is wherever I’m with you

Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros / “Home“

The spouse and I bought a new house recently. I’ve resisted saying anything about it because, as people who know me well can attest, I’m a very superstitious person. I wanted to wait until everything was in place and papers were signed before talking about it. Because if I’d said anything before everything was in place, the house would’ve disappeared into thin air. Seriously.

How did we end up buying a new house? Rich started the ball rolling back in September while I was in Toronto (my fault for leaving the country, I suppose). We’d already been talking about how 2010 would likely be the Year of the Baby (which it is), which, combined with our desire for a housing situation change, made the idea of a new house more appealing. Rich was initially set on buying a house in Old North Knoxville, which is where he started looking while I was away. I was fine with that, even though it would’ve put us further away from family and work. Our friends have a fabulous, large, beautiful house down there and that’s the kind of house we hoped to find. Alas, people who already live in those fabulous, large, beautiful houses in Old North Knoxville don’t move very often. So the only houses for sale we encountered were much smaller than our current house, needed a lot of work, had sacrificial altars in the basements that could double as horror-movie sets, were thisclose to the street, and didn’t have backyards. Or any combination thereof.

We then started looking all over Knoxville and the surrounding area. We fell in a love a couple of times, although in hindsight we both realized it’s a really good thing we’re not made of money because we would’ve ended up with serious buyer’s remorse. Where did we end up? West Knoxville; I will say it’s not Farragut. And after looking all over for months and months, we finally found the house that truly is perfect for us. Everyone in our family loves it, and we’ll be more centrally located for all of our family, too, which will come in very handy once Miss Bundle arrives. The dogs also like it, although Caleb has some issues with the hardwood floors upstairs. Not surprising considering this is the same dog who won’t set foot in our current house’s kitchen because of the parquet floors.

I’ll post some pics of the new house as soon as we sell our beloved A-frame. Superstition and all, you know. In the meantime, I will share that it doesn’t look like this: