The second longest week…

It’s been a long week.

Friday

We signed the large stack of paperwork that is required to buy a new house.  I was so sick that at one point I think I laid my head down on the table and actually hacked up my lung between signing my life away on one page and promising my first born on the next.

On the way to the title company our mover, Curt, called to let us know that he was almost to new house.

 Dave:  Umm, we’re on our way to the title company.  We don’t even own the house yet.

Curt:  Awesome!  I’m about 45 minutes away.  This should work out great!  Talk about timing!

Dave:  Umm, they don’t have our keys yet.

Curt:  So do you want me to wait at the house?

Dave:  How about Monday?

Curt:  How about tomorrow?

I wish we weren’t so nice.  I wish we would have insisted they put our stuff in storage.  So we could have done things like clean the carpets and paint without the mess and the stuff.  Now we are living among dirty carpets and Navajo white dirty walls, not to mention 283 boxes.

Around 12, Dave met our realtor and got our keys.

Dave:  Do you want to meet me at the house?

Me:  I do, but I’m so sick.

Dave:  I could pick you up if you’d like.

Me:  I think I’d rather just lay here in bed.  And die.

Dave:  It’s okay, you don’t have to come, I just thought I should offer.

Me:  But I should.  We should drink champagne and fornicate or something.  But I’m so sick.

Dave:  Another day.  I promise.

 

Saturday

Saturday the movers came.  Our driveway was too long and narrow and the tree overhangs too low to fit Curt’s 58’ trailer with all of our worldly possessions.  They had to park 2 blocks away and rent a uhaul.  They then shuttled all our stuff from the semi to the uhaul to our house.  It was really rather amazing.

Me:  I think if these guys needed a new job they are totally qualified to be a Sherpa.  Look at him just heft 3 boxes of books on his back like it was nothing.

Dave:  “forget Sherpa, they could be ants!” As Andre single handedly hefts the fridge ond his back and walks it up a flight of stairs.

And as soon as they came, they were gone.  They unloaded all of our stuff, assembled my bed and were gone by 4.  Thank goodness we didn’t have to do that ourselves.

 

Sunday

I’d like to say we went to church but at this point Mike was now sick and I didn’t want our new church family to pin us as the family that spreads sickness throughout the congregation.  Might as well save that until we are a little more settled.

We made the long trek from corporate housing to our new house.  45 minutes around the lake and through the woods.

We reorganized boxes because though our little Sherpa ants where amazing, they did make some mistakes.

I started to unpack the kitchen.  Though my new pantry is about twice the size of my old one, the new kitchen is about half the size of the old one.  You can do the math.

Around box 27, I raised a white flag and gave up.

 Me:  Another box!  For the love of Paula Deen!  How many more boxes are there?!?

Dave:  it looks like we are down to the end.  Two or three more. 

Me:  Forget it!  I can’t fit another thing in this kitchen or on these counters!  I quit!

Dave:  You can’t quit!  If you leave it like this imagine the mess.

Me:  What do you think this is?

Dave:  This is staging. 

Me:  Well, this stuff might find itself staged to salavation army.

Dave:  I know you can do it.

Me:  What I need is your mom!  I need a tetris master.

Dave:  Move over, I’ll use my amazing packing ninja skills.

I decided to organize the game closet.  I’ve found my happy place.

Around 10 pm, when daylight ceased because apparently Washington is part of the North Pole, we trekked back to the corporate housing.

 

Monday

Dave went off to work.  The kids and I trekked back to the house to meet the uncraters.  These are the guys that put things together, our shelves, the kid’s beds,  the pool table, hook up my appliances.

Him:  Ma’am. We had a few problems.

Me:  Sure.

Him:  So, you don’t have a water hook up for your fridge.

Me:  That sucks.

Him:  And your house doesn’t have gas hookups in the laundry room.

Me:  That really sucks.

And this is the night that we decided to start living in our new house.

 

Tuesday

I had a small break down.

Dave:  How’s it going?

Me:  Not really well.  (as my voice cracks because I’m going to cry)

Dave:  Oh no, what’s wrong?

Me:  I took a cold shower and the water pressure was so high that I had to stand with my back to the nozzle because I thought it might actually knock some of my girly parts off.  And I’m rather fond of those parts.

And then I’m overwhelmed in the kitchen because there are dirty dishes everywhere because the sink is broken.

And the laundry room is piled high with dirty laundry and I can’t wash anything because I can’t dry it. 

And I can’t put anything away because the house needs to be painted and that will just make it harder to paint.

And I’m rather overwhelmed! 

Dave:  Oh.  Why don’t you call a plumber and see if they can run a gas line and fix the water pressure. 

And then after trying to call the plumber I had another little break.  We don’t have Internet and phone at our house yet. Trying to use a phone book instead of google makes me wonder what people did before the Internet.  I settled on Roter Rooter because they had a big 4-page ad in color.  Except, like every other national chain that I tried to call instead of putting me through to the local number I called, decided to route me to the northern California branch because I’m calling from a bay area cell phone.

At this point I thought about just giving up and going back to bed.

Eventually I got ahold of the plumber, they were able to come out the same day.

Plumber:  Yeah, so I can’t hook up a gas line in your laundry room.

Me:  Why?

Plumber:  Because you have a gas furnace and a gas water heater and this room is too small for a gas dryer.

Me:  But the dryer is already in here.  It’s right here.

Plumber:  BTU  blah blah blah  not safe.  Blah blah blah.  BTUs blah blha blah.

Me:  But do you see all this laundry?!?

Plumber:  Should we go look at your water pressure?

Me:  Sure. 

Plumber:  Okay, blah blah blah $500. 

Me:  Why don’t you just run over my cat while you’re at all this dream dashing and wallet gouging.

 

Dave:  How’s my beautiful wife?

Me:  I’ve decided to go back to bed.

Dave:  maybe I’ll bring home some wine.

Me:  Vodka sounds better. 

 

Wednesday

Dave fixed the kitchen sink.

I found everything a home in the kitchen.

I found and unpacked all of the boxes in the bathrooms.

The water heater decided to put out hot water.  High water pressure is more tolerable when hot.  FYI.

I decided to unpack the garage.

Dave came home from work sick

The kids and I went to the library.  The library is amazing!

We found the grocery store and home depot and picked paint colors.

 

Thursday

Dave wallowed in bed all day.  I finally started to feel more like myself.  Why is it that you never really start to feel better until someone else gets sick?

The boys and I conquered the garage.  I can park in the garage!

Victory is mine!

I bought drying racks because I will not admit defeat yet on the dryer.

We got a quote for new floors.  When he gave me the price I wondered if maybe he was going to lay down a gold subfloor.  Let’s just say that the whole stained concrete is starting to sound really nice, especially if we can stain it ourselves.

 

Friday

The kids and I spackled all of the walls downstairs.  We moved furniture and boxes, hundreds of boxes, to the middle of the rooms.

And the phone company came.  I met Ralph at the door, my knight in a white cargo van!  How long I have been waiting for you.  And after a mere hour, I have Internet!  I’m back!