Hello Goodbye

We made it out of Maryland!

Last week was a true test of patience. Between Friday, August 5th and Wednesday, August 10th, I think I aged 12 years. Here's the breakdown:

Friday
We met with the closing agent and signed all the documents to close on the house. I had the babies with me, so it was a crazy 2 hours of signing, feeding, changing, rocking, phone calls from Keller's new school, phone calls from the new owners of our Maryland house asking questions, etc. Seriously, I wanted to cry.

Saturday
We had some final work to do on the house and some packing to do during the day, but in the evening, it was our going away party. It was a fun but emotional night for me. I hate saying goodbye (does anyone actually like it?) and it was particularly tough that night.

Sunday
Sunday was my birthday. It was an odd day. We had a nice morning and John made us breakfast after we danced to the Birthday song. We were supposed to go paddle boarding but thunderstorms changed our plans. We got to the place and all set to go out and then the skies opened up. We waited for a while but they had to cancel the lesson. Oh well. We then went appliance shopping for the house. Yes, it was lovely looking at refrigerators and washers and dryers on my birthday. Actually, it really wasn't that bad, but I did have to laugh at the romance of it all.

Monday
I got a call from the Escrow agent in CA that we didn't sign all of the closing documents and we had to sign more. They sent them but didn't really give us much in the way of instructions. We signed where we thought we were supposed to sign and sent them back. We managed to go out for a birthday dinner and the babies did really well.

Tuesday
The packers arrived in the morning and started putting our life in boxes. John, my dad, Keller and Lola took off for the drive across the country, leaving us to supervise packing up the house and moving on. I got another call that we didn't sign the papers correctly and at that point, we didn't have internet so I had to go into work to print and fax the papers back. After about an hour or so, I got another call that there were even more papers to sign so back to work I went. Such a pain in the ass. The packers finished around 6pm. Some friends came over for more goodbyes and then it was off to bed. We didn't sleep well at all and were not looking forward to Wednesday.

Wednesday
The movers arrived bright and early to load the truck. Once the truck was packed we were going to head up to NY to my parents' house and stay there until we flew to CA. Right off the bat the movers started complaining that the packers didn't pack things correctly and there was a lot more stuff than they anticipated and they weren't sure if it would fit on the truck. Yes, that was great to hear. They worked throughout the day and it was looking less and less likely that we would be heading to NY that day. Around 4:00 I asked when they thought they would be done and if they thought we should get a hotel room. They assured me they would be done in a couple of hours. About 30 minutes later one of the movers was moving a dresser out of the front door. He should have been moving it with someone as he managed to lose his footing and fall backwards, putting a hole in the wall. He was fine, the dresser was fine, but the wall was not. Then the movers started complaining about their boss and getting paid, etc. Know what? Not my problem. What was my problem was getting the hole in the wall fixed. Thankfully and weirdly, a handyman in the neighborhood was walking by and struck up a conversation with the driver of the truck. It was revealed that he was a handyman and he said he would fix the hole. So that process began.

Fast forward another few hours. Finally, at 10:00pm, (15 hours later) the movers were done. They had packed the truck and everything fit. All the bitching and moaning on the part of the movers was for nothing and the stress it induced for me was for nothing. Bitches.

My mom and I got on the road at 10:30. The drive was uneventful until Brenna pooped about 30 minutes from our destination. She pooped so much and was in a weird position that it leaked out and seeped through the strap holes in the car seat onto the seat of the car. FUN to deal with at 3:30 in the morning. Finally at 4:08am, we arrived at my parents' house.

Thursday-Sunday
It was pleasantly uneventful for the remainder of the week and weekend. The deed of our CA house was recorded on Thursday and we were officially California residents. That was a relief to know we wouldn't be transients for too much longer. My brother and sister-in-law came Friday night for the weekend and some dear friends that weren't able to see us before we left drove up Saturday. It was a great weekend of spending time together.

John and the crew arrived in San Diego Saturday night. They were able to get to the house and check things out. Everything looked good and Keller was really happy with the house.

Everyone left here Sunday. I was off for the rest of the day. It was emotionally draining for me to say goodbye to everyone and I just wanted to crawl under a rock. But the babies decided they were going to be fussy for the night and my hopes of just going to bed were thwarted. Oh well.

My uncle and aunt arrive from Florida today. So we'll have time with them and some more family and friends today and tomorrow and then it's off to CA. Just a couple more days of being a squatter. Thank GOD!