Simply, Sally

Well, we’re back. ^_^ I’ve missed blogging so badly, so bare with me as I summarize several weeks worth of blogging. lol

The move went smoother than expected, though Mom’s spent enough time screeching today to unpleasantly remind me of the Freaks. We got cable TV and internet today at about 11am, so we’re back online for good. Letme tell you, though…. that Comcast guy was a friggin moron. I had to tell him several times that I already HAD a Cable Modem and Ethernet Card. He was all set to rip my machine open and pop in a $30 ethernet card, when all I needed was to be actually connected. (Aka “Gimme the damn disk before I have to hurt someone.”) And he comes in bringing all kinds of cable when the connections that come up through the floor are nearly 8 feet long. Anyway, now all our TVs are hooked up for the first time in years and I’m on a faster connection than I’ve been on… aside from the really fast ones at college in the labs. The During that time, somehow, Mom’s forgotten how to use the remote other than to blast things she thinks we should desperately hear and to surf the channels as gratuitously as any guy. So she hits one stupid button and then it’s “SALLY, GET OUT HERE!” in the most aggravating tone of voice she can muster. She’s also become a great one for complaining that she has to exercise, but then when I invite her to walk she turns me down. I suppose this is just a sign she’s going to let her weight go again. I also warned her that we needed to set up a checking account in order to get our internet phone, which she conviently ignored. The moment it wouldn’t work, we had trashtalk Comcast time. (Yes, I know… I still think their guys are idiots, so I can’t talk.) However, she also spent a huge amount of time calling Jass and I out to see this or that on a Cable channel we never had before. *sigh*

My mom’s juvenille antics aside, the move has felt more like a vacation than the horrible amount of work it usually does. The usual nightmares never sat in and we’ve chruned through most of the boxes. What’s left is pretty much contingent on other things. Such as my new computer desk, a new entertainment center, or to be put away into cupboards, etc.

The girls are settling in well, though a week ago we had a bit of a scare. Our back door doesn’t latch very well, so unless it’s locked there’s a high probability that even a draft can open it. And when it unlatches, it not only opens… it swings wide open. Well… about a week ago, it happened and we weren’t aware that it had happened. Echo slipped out of it and was gone for about an hour before we noticed. Five hours of frantic searching went by before my baby was home. Since then, Kaze has been very clingy to all of us, but especially Echo and I. In fact, she wakes me up in the morning at about 7:30am and then has to have a cuddle session before I can do anything. If I don’t cuddle her, I might as well forget about walking because she’ll trip me. XD I can’t say Echo has been avoiding the door, but so far she hasn’t had any interest in going outside… so hopefully that escape will be the last.

Where was I…. oh yeah… the move.

The movers showed up on August 24th at 11:51am and got right to work. They wrapped each and every piece of furniture, put numbered stickers on them, and documented it. Then after most of the furniture was dealt with, they attacked the boxes. The three of us felt really underfoot the whole time…. It really was an… odd?… feeling. XD So 300 boxes and 40 some odd pieces of furniture later, the movers were on the road. So, we grabbed our pillows and the essential pet things, loaded the birds, loaded Luna in, and then I got in the car with the kittens in their carrier while Mom and Jass secured the house.

Poor Echo. The car is really not for her. She didn’t screech, she didn’t scream, she didn’t even struggle. No, my friends, this kitten got motion sickness. Oh GOD, did she ever get motion sick. X_x Poor thing started acting faint – swaying side to side, swallowing, blinking, pants – within five minutes and then she got sick. And we had another 45 minutes to go. I thought they had small stomachs, but the mess Echo made was huge. She filled the bottom of the carrier and then my lap. And what’s worse is that poor Kaze didn’t have anywhere to go. Kaze seems to be my great traveler, she just curled up in front of the blowers with the AC on her and chilled out.

I’m a strong advocate for pets being secured inside cars with restraints like Luna’s car harness or the kitten’s special carrier that fastens in like a baby seat. However, poor Echo was miserable and she wanted Luna. So I ended up letting her loose to snuggle against her surrogate Momma. Kaze stayed frosty until the last 10 minutes when she started in showing signs she didn’t want to be in the car anymore either, but I suppose anyone would be after sitting for 35 minutes in vomit. But she refused to come out and go snuggle with Echo and Luna. If we hadn’t been packed into that car like sardines, I would have pulled her out and let her ride in my lap, but then what do I do with the carrier? That kitten was a trooper, let me tell you.

We got to the house first and got it opened and pried ourselves out of the car. Poor Kaze was well on her way to car-sickness, so when I handed her off to Jass, she just kind of sprawled in his arms – obviously happy she wasn’t moving anymore. I had Echo, who was like a limp rag in my arms. She and Kaze didn’t even try to fight us when we popped them, their food/water dishes, and litter box in the Master Bath when the movers showed up.

And with the same professional demeanor they showed when they moved us out – they moved us in. Originally, they had agreed to move the furniture in and then just put the boxes up on our nice, big deck. However, an approaching line of thunderstorms quickly nixed that idea. Once they got the living room furniture set, they moved all the boxes into the living and dining room areas. And just that quickly, they were gone. Only relative mishap that happened was that the 2nd bathroom’s toilet clogged within 5 minutes of us getting there so we did have to make an emergency run to the local Walmart for a new plunger, since we hadn’t found our old one yet. The movers even set up our beds for us, so at least we were able to wade through the boxes to go to bed.

Bright and early on the 25th, we drove back the first time and loaded up the car with the things the movers couldn’t take… such as flammable chemicals, etc. and made our first trip back. That evening, we finished up everything and was able to close up the house in Ionia for the last time.

That was a sweet feeling!

Anyway, the new house – and neighboorhood – is wonderful. We moved into a manufactured house in a manufactured housing community, so we’re paying $405 / month lot rent. But for this kind of quiet, safe, and pretty agreeable place – it seems like a small price to pay. I mean, it beats rent here in Grand Rapids, MI. Cheapest, nice place I found was $1000 / month. *wince* So all in all, not a bad deal. For instance – this part of the community seems to be mostly made up of mature adults to elderly, so it’s very quiet. The community has a pool, rec area, basketball courts, playground for the kids, etc. so the noise really isn’t around us. I’m liking it. So’s Mom and Jass, I think. I’ve been taking Luna out on a morning walk after breakfast daily and she’s finally starting to calm down and enjoy her walks again. Which I’m very thankful for. Ionia didn’t enforce their leash laws; but this community is very strict about it. We get barked at, but that’s it. ^_^

The Odds and Ends: My nice, big computer desk didn’t survive the move – it’d simply been sitting out in the garage in Ionia on that cold, wet concrete too long. So now I’m shopping around for a new desk. I can’t keep working on this horrible, tiny thing. So far I’ve found 3 possible desks, all around $150, but I’d like to go shopping tomorrow to check a few more stores. Ah… what else? HomeVestors was very happy with the condition we left the house in Ionia in and happily released the entire $5000 they had kept in escrow, which we need to take and have placed in a checking account for us. Oh yeah, and we also did make $75 from the few items we put into Jodi’s garage sale. ^_^ We’re talking about having a “Moving In” Sale to get rid of the other things we keep finding that we no longer have any use for. I’m just still thinking about just suggesting we take the stuff and send it to GoodWill because I don’t think we have enough to make a decent Yard Sale with.

So I think that pretty much brings us to the present, aside from unpacking and shopping. ^_^ Expect more blog entries and answers to e-mail in the next few days as we play catch up.

Tags: cable, echo, Moving

This entry was posted on Monday, September 13th, 2004 at 8:35 pm and is filed under Moving. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.