Moving sucks monkey balls!

I'll just go ahead and say that now. I'll go ahead and agree with Danielle when she says that this move has been more complicated than moving across country. And I'm not really sure why. I just know that I have not stopped moving (except to watch LOST last night) since this process began last Friday afternoon. We are either moving the remnants of stuff from Danielle's apartment, or making trips walking back and forth across the street carry the dregs of my crap. Or we are moving, arranging furniture, unpacking her stuff, unpacking my stuff (read: throwing away), or re-arranging furniture.

And everytime we seem to get a little bit ahead, something happens. Like yesterday, the closet broke! Seems that the support bar holding up the closet rod was only held in by 6 little 1/2" nails that went into the studs maybe a few centimeters. So we (she) had to take everything out and we (me) had to remount the support bar using longer wood screws (thanks for the drill/screwdriver for Christmas Mom!) and then we (she) had to put everything back in! And this was after moving a mattress and box spring across town in the 4runner, with the boxspring attached to the roof.

We are both so tired that we have been going to bed at 10:00 like a couple of old people, and we are like a couple of raw and abraded nerves which the slightest brush against sends waves and waves and waves of shooting pain through everything! Imagine getting the worst sunburn ever, then having your skin peeled off your body and then being given a lemon juice shower and you have an inkling of what we are going through.

Everything is a reason to get upset, and anything can set either one of us off right now. So if you call us, and hear things breaking in the background, just pretend not to hear it, we'll be back to normal again by June.

Even the cats are walking on tip-toe around the house!

* we are not teaching the cats to use the toilet. while it is a nice idea, it's not something i want to devote time to. although, tim is formulating a way to build a box to hide the kitty poo box...which would be an improvement from the small place all three of them share at the moment.

* tim is the best landscaper ever. we now have a yard full of tropical plants and lovely smelling climbing plants. thanks to josh and jess who gave us a heads up on the oh-so-cheap plant sale. only $15 for what home depot would have charged us $60+ for.

* tim is not the only one giving stuff to good will. i did a lot of "spring cleaning" before i moved out to california. he's been her longer and has been collecting things for a while now. and seriously...if yall saw some of the stuff we've pulled out of boxes...(star wars action figures, floppy disks, mushroom paintings).

* men do not have nipples "just in case." see here for more information.

* i hate wire hangers. i'm pretty sure i get this from my mother (i don't mean that in a bad way mom). i always grew up using plastic hangers and when wire ones came back from the dry cleaners i remember them going into the trash and being exchanged for plastic ones. plus, they are way more sturdy and don't bend as quickly when hanging heavy pants on them. granted, that's what these are for. (note to doodah: you introduced those to me when i came to see your lords center apartment for the first time. and i fell in love. and bought some.) and i have never seen mommie dearest, i swear.

* the bed no longer looks like the picture below. in fact, it got sheets and pillows today and awaits me as i type. i got the closet all organized on saturday and sunday...somehow managing to fit both my and tim's clothes (and shoes!) into it. granted, i had to sacrifice hanging a few t-shirts and allow some of my clothes to go to goodwill and i requested an additional bar to hang things on...but it happened. and it looks nice if i do say so myself.

So this has been a long arduous and extremely hot weekend, but I think we have the majority of our stuff moved in!

First off, I'll say that I had forgotten how heavy all of my furniture is. Secondly, I think I underestimated exactly how many cats, three cats is. It seems like everytime I turn around, there is a cat staring at me! It's like an eerie Alfred Hitchcock movie. So if you are allergic to cats, you are more than welcome to come by, I just don't recomend you walk inside...

...and you probably want to avoid going to the bathroom if you do...

Despite all the moving I was able to get many other things done this weekend. I was able to repair all the busted sprinkler heads in the yard, I was able to get a lot of plants for the backyard for very cheap (thanks to the 50th Annual "Day-Before-Mother's-Day" Plant Sale at some vacant lot).

But the house is very cluttered with boxes and boxes of stuff. For every one of my boxes that we go through and Danielle decides all of it is going to Goodwill, it seems like there are three more that I try to hide from her!

One of the first things to go is all of the wire hangers that I use to hang my clothes up with. I'm not sure what the wire hangers have done to her in the past, though they have always been quite a sturdy friend to me, but everytime I ask her what atrocity they have committed (are they as bad as Pol Pot?) she just yells out "No More WIRE HANGERS!" and that apparently settles it! ... and she claims to have never seen Mommie Dearest!

But things are going well, we can both agree when the other has the better idea, and we are learning our boundries on when it is ok to push, and when it is not. Frankly, we've both been so exhausted that we just don't have the energy to fight yet, but I'm sure we will soon.

At one point, we decided that if we put everything we wanted to get done onto the bed, we wouldn't be able to sleep until it was all done...

...then we found out how easy it is to simply push things off onto the floor!

But we persevere, because we must, and most likely we will have pictures hung by the weekend!
More pictures to come soon as we clear out rooms.

Meanwhile, my current favorite part of the house is the nice front porch we have. It is much larger and more covered than my last one, and there is plenty of room for all of my plants!

...that we disappoint our parents! And so close to Mother's Day too! We should be ashamed of ourselves! But you know how young people are, so willful and sure that everything they do is right! Just headlonging on into God knows what without any regard for the consequences! No patience, kids these days! I'm sure glad I wasn't a willful disobedient child when I was their age!

Anyway, today is the day that we can begin moving our stuff! We are doing mostly Danielle's stuff today, as she has decided that's the way it will be and once she gets an idea in her head, there is no stopping her! Then tomorrow my friends (read: Sherpas) arrive to help me haul stuff across the street.

Oh, and the new carpet was put in yesterday. It's much better than the bright peach and emerald green that we had before!

I'm sure we'll have lots of pictures to post soon, but in the meantime, you'll just have to wait.

here are some pictures of the inside of the house. they came in and started working on the carpet today. layed new "tile" (i.e. linoleum) in the kitchen and preped the bathroom for the same. they even added an "entry way!"












i am getting really excited about moving...i'm tired of not really having a "home." it's like my entire life is stuck in "in progress" mode. i'm ready for that to settle...

There is a corner of our backyard that is pretty open to everyone on the street having a complete view of our backyard, so we decided to plant a tree. After a trip to Home Depot (always a mistake on the weekend) and a grueling search for a cart to carry our tree on, we decided on a pink blooming dogwood.

The picture above is not our tree, but what ours will look like!

So even though we are not in the house yet, I am currently working on the yard. I have trimmed some of the trees in the backyard, and am working on getting the sprinkler system back up and running as there are a few holes that need to be plugged and a few sprinkler heads that have broken off and need to be dug up and replaced.

Packing is an ongoing thing, but its fun to find all the things you have forgotten about that were just under a pile of clutter.

Did I mention that Danielle got a new camera and won't stop taking pictures of me!

zeke has been confused by the large amount of "toys" (i.e. boxes) in the apartment lately. he's never been though a move. so for him, this is fun. grace is freaked out becaust last time i did this i threw her in a car of 3 days and turned her world upside down. as for me, well...pretty much everything tim said in the last post is kinda true. i'm working on it, but it's still a kind of overwhelming process. i will say that it's a lot easier to pack when you don't have to consider 2000 miles of bumpy roads while putting stuff in boxes. there are fewer packing materials and less cardboard boxes involved. this time i am taking the garbage bag, plastic tub, shopping bag, and laundry hamper approach. it worked for laura ann when she moved out of the lords center, so why can't it work for me?

so yah, my walls are become bare, and with that i am realizing how many holes i will have to patch.



and zeke will keep trying to help, i'm sure.

As of now, the lease has been signed, deposit checks have been given, and next Saturday the house is officially ours (to rent). Among the many things prohibited by the lease are foil on the windows, shaking out clothing, rugs or rags out the window, making loud annoying noises past 10 pm and meth labs.

Danielle has been freaking out about the move. Afraid we won't get it done in time, we won't be able to move her entire 2 rooms in a day, etc. I tried explaining to her that she has already moved a few times, in fact she moved 4000 miles and did ok with that. I think she is more worried about us moving in together than she is about actually moving.

She's worried that I have too much crap and she won't be able to get me to get rid of it. She's worried that we have too much stuff for that house. She's worried that either she'll hate living with me, or I'll hate living with her. She's worried that I will make her wear a Muslim headress and robes and not allow her to leave the hosue. ("Not Without My Daughter" anyone?) And of course, she's worried that I'll break up with her and make her move out. I've (hopefully) assured her of that last fear and that if it happens (which it won't) whoever does the breaking up, has to be the one to move out. So she feels a little better.

I've tried to assure her that all of her fears are baseless, but it looks like we'll just have to wait and see what happens.

Stay tuned, won't you...