Moving to Greener Pastures

Six moves and seven houses later  I have finally landed in a place that feels like “home”. A place that I am not already planning on moving out of during the process of moving into. I feel like I can take a deep breath, spread my soul out and build a life in this house. Who knows how long we will actually stay here, our average is 2 years, but for however long it lasts, I am going to enjoy every second of it.

The actual moving process was uneventful. We picked up the 26 ft U Haul as soon as the place opened at 9:30 am Saturday. Dusty and I then proceeded to load it up as Wyatt ran around playing and making us laugh. We had learned the proper way to pack a truck when we lived in WI. Our friend Brian had worked for a moving company for several years and we quickly learned that our technique was pretty abysmal. Since then, we have packed like pros and it really makes a big difference.

I felt bad because, while I could easily help with carrying out all the heavy wooden furniture and mattresses, the boxes that Dusty had jammed with books and DVDs were just too heavy for me to lift. By the time my parents came over to help around 1:30 pm, we were just down to two remaining mattresses, our 200 lb solid marble dining room table and the annoying garage stuff: tools, sporting goods, lawn mower and mismatched supplies that couldn’t easily be stacked or contained. After that was loaded up, we headed off to the farm house.

One interesting side story here. Dusty and I spent 4 hours moving very heavy things out of the house and into the truck all by ourselves. Several neighbors drove by, stopped to chat and get our phone number. One guy pulled up and asked if he could look around the place as he was hoping to rent it. Right in the middle of us moving! We said sure and walked around with him. Ok…odd but fine. Then around 2 pm our neighbor across the way walks over. We were basically done at this point. He chats with Dusty for a while and then I see Dusty walk off with him.

Next thing I know poor Dusty is helping the guy move his large TV out of his house and into the back of his pick up! The nerve!!! To come over and ask a guy who has been moving heavy stuff all day without offering to help and then ask him to move your TV?! Dusty is way too nice.

We pulled up and I was bursting with excitement. We had been over several times to rake, put up some fencing and clean the gutters, but had only been inside it the very first time we looked at the place. My memory was vague and I was dying to get inside and figure out the place.

Built in shelves

Ginormous fireplace

Adorable colored glass light pulls

Once I established which room would be what, I sent my mom and Aunt inside to help organize everything. I’m not good at making decisions on furniture placement, but they are amazing at it. This took a lot of stress off my hands and I could focus on unloading and getting things settled.

It only took a few hours to unload the entire truck and settle the furniture in with all of us working our butts off.  Dusty had packed more than I had and he didn’t label any of the boxes, so those just got piled in the car port/garage (not sure what to call it: it is attached and big enough for 2 cars but doesn’t have a door) while my mom and Aunt worked hard at moving furniture around to the best places inside. By 5:30 pm we had everything unloaded and just enough time to make it to my niece’s 4th birthday party tired, dirty and a little smelly.

I slept like the dead Saturday night and woke up bright and early afraid to move. Everything was tight and sore, but there was still a lot to do. We had left some things behind that were too awkward to pack up in the truck and were too tired to get it after the party.  Dusty headed out to the old house Sunday morning while I got busy alternating between organizing boxes/unpacking and chasing down a very excited little boy and his dog who have suddenly found themselves with room to roam.

At 12 pm I got a message from our hay guy: he had 50 bales ready and loaded, could he drop them off a week early? Ok…cue panic to get the garage ready. It didn’t take super long though to move all the boxes over, place pallets down and prepare the space. The hay came around 4 pm and then we were starving, tired, cranky and ready to be done. We headed off to O’Charleys for dinner, grabbed two more 60 lb bags of cement from Home Depot for the last remaining fence posts and headed home to fall back asleep at 8 pm.

So much still remains to be done: getting the fish tank over from the old house, cleaning it and emptying the fridge; unpacking all the boxes at the new place; finishing up the horse fence; building a horse shelter; and then moving the horses themselves. It will all get done in good time.