Exhausting Weekend!

While most people were relaxing beside barbecue grills or swimming pools this weekend, I spent the past three days in round-the-clock strenuous manual labor. I moved to another apartment this weekend and it was quite the ordeal. I think packing and moving is one of the most difficult and frustrating things we have to endure in life...it makes me wish I were my grandparents who have lived in the same house for over 50 years. It never seems like you have that much stuff until you start opening all the cabinets and closets and putting things into boxes. Then it's just embarrassing to have to ask anyone to help you. However, it must be done..ugh, ugh, UGH!!!

Saturday morning started off with our rescheduled car wash to raise money for the Wilderness Trek trip. We didn't have very many cars come through, but there were only a few of us so it was probably all we could handle. It seemed like every vehicle that came through was either a huge SUV or pickup truck...which they deserve to have their cars washed as well, but goodness!!...very tiring! After the car wash it was off for more packing. I couldn't pick up the keys until 5pm and the moving truck until early Sunday morning, so Sunday was actually the big moving day. T.A. helped me load the truck with everything except the big furniture and heavy stuff. Then he had things to do, so I recruited some kids to help me unload. The plan was to hire the moving helpers that helped me last time for the heavy stuff. (They were awesome...one of the guys carried a whole couch on his back by himself like it was a backpack). They were supposed to meet us at 3pm. The plan was to have all the boxes unloaded so they could just do the furniture. Dezeray, Raiven, Kearwon, and Rosco did an wonderful job unloading the truck (that took T.A. and I at least 4 hours to load) in about 30 minutes. They were so great!! So we took a break and sat around waiting...and waiting...and waiting for the moving helpers. Strangely, he wasn't picking up the phone and the voicemail was full. This was so baffling to me because in all my other dealings with these people, they have been very professional. Well, I finally realized that I was getting stood up and had to quickly figure out plan B. The kids didn't balk at tackling the big stuff. I have to say that Kearwon was a beast. He loaded the bed, the couches, etc. almost by himself. T.A. came back over and he and Kearwon handled the TV and a few other large things. It wasn't easy but we finally got everything in except the washer and dryer. We are going to need a big dolly (how do you spell that anyway?) and a couple of really strong people for those, so I'm still figuring that out right now. Last time the moving help handled it like it was something a kindergartner could do. How I missed those guys!!! Still don't know what happened to them. I ended up splitting the money I was going to pay the moving help between the kids because they got a lot more work put on them than they bargained for! They were really great...they never complained and just made the day fun. We also feasted our weary bodies at CiCi's before I took them home (after Pizza Hut was going to charge me almost $40 for three medium pizzas...ridiculous!!)

Monday was spent taming the chaos. My new apartment has a garage so my "crew" had just dumped a lot of stuff in there. My apartment is upstairs on top of the garage so a few zillion trips up and down between the garage and apartment have my calves mooing today. I think it will be a few days before I can actually park in there! I really like the new apartment except that the closets are TINY!! Practically non-existent. So I spent most of the day finagling my stuff trying to get it all tucked away somewhere....the garage helped with this hugely! Khris, Kearwon, and T.A. came over to try to deal with the washer and dryer and they managed to get it into the garage, but not up the stairs. I also had to go back to the old apartment and give it a through cleaning, which is never fun. Finally...after about 3 days of nonstop physical labor, I crashed in a nice, neat, super clean apartment!

I say this every time but....I'm NEVER moving again!!! ;-)

P.S. I just realized that I don't think I ever posted about the fact that I was never able to find a house/townhouse/or condo in the price range, area, or condition that I was looking for. Because I had to make a decision with the end of my apartment lease, I decided to postpone the house search for the time being. Thus...apartment life continues!