Moving Perils

I have been neglecting my duties as Blogger Extraordinaire over the past few weeks.  I've been otherwise engaged.  In my last post, I told you that we were moving halfway across the country to go back to our hometown.  Well, we are here, and hubby has started his new job, but the move was not without some pretty major complications.  Let me explain.

I am not sure that I mentioned this here, but about 6 weeks ago or so, my 8 year old, Bella got sick.  She was sick for 2 weeks.  She had pneumonia.  Well, less than a week after she went back to school, Jackson (the nearly 4 year old got it).  I was busy packing, dodging calls from annoying moving companies, and giving stuff away, but we took him to the doctor and found out that HE had pneumonia.  The weekend before the moving truck arrived, I got sick.  I had pneumonia.  I also had new sympathy for my kids who had gone through this.  It was terrible.  My fever peaked at over 103.  I felt like crap.  And we were supposed to be moving.  I was too busy to be sick (I was also too sick to be busy).  Less than 2 days later, despite the fact that he had taken Zicam, Airborne, Vitamin C, Zinc, and everything else he could think of to avoid it, my husband got sick with what the doctor called PRE-pneumonia.  Then, the day of the move, my 5 year old, Lorelei, had a fever.  We gave her some medicine and sent her on to Alabama with her grandparents so that we could load the truck, but the next day after a trip to the ER, it was confirmed that SHE had pneumonia.  So, Bella was well, Jackson was recovering, I was in the throes of death, my husband was teetering on the edge of getting sick and Lorelei was sick in Alabama while we were still in Texas trying to take care of everything.  It sucked.  I wasn't just sick -- I was MAN sick.  The doctor had given me 2 shots -- a steroid and a powerful antibiotic, as well as 2 different oral antibiotics.  I was curl up on the bed and not even watch TV or read sick.  I didn't even drink coffee for 2 days because it was all I could do to take in enough food and fluids to act as catalyst for my 2 antibiotics.  I could not help load the truck (which was it's own ordeal), and the drive to Alabama which I have done dozens of times was too far for me to tackle in one day -- we stopped and spent the night in Vicksburg, MS.  That alone made the move hard, but unfortunately, it was not our only hiccup.

Although we had originally planned on renting a truck, loading it and driving it ourselves, I was becoming increasingly worried about space.  Yes, we gave a good amount of our stuff away, but we had A LOT of stuff crammed into that house.  But I still wasn't keen on the cost factor of hiring movers.  I found a middle of the road option -- hire a truck and driver, but pack and load the truck ourselves.  This turned out to be a great IDEA, and would have worked well....except that it didn't.  We thought that we had quite a few friends in Texas.  We had been members at one church and we had been visiting another church for several months, but had not placed membership.  Yet, when I tried to recruit help to load the truck, everyone was too busy to help.  Not even for an hour or 2.  One of my friends and her husband came to help, and we ended up hiring 2 of my neighbor's friends at $15 an hour.  The truck that we hired was promised by noon.  It didn't show up until 1:30.  We were told that we could hire the driver to help load.  Nope, our driver had a steel plate in his back and couldn't lift anything (although he was able to open the truck and put the rather heavy ramp in place, so I am not sure if he was unable or just lazy).  We were told that we could put our 2nd car on the truck.  Sure, for $350 and we'd have to hire a tow truck to lift the car onto the truck and then hire another one to take it off once we got to Alabama because there was not a ramp that you could drive on.  It was cheaper and less hassle to drive it, but we were sick, so driving the whole distance in one day didn't happen.  Then, despite me asking numerous times if a personal check would be fine upon delivery, they tell me that they'll need a certified check.  Well, this wouldn't have been a big deal, except the relocation money was not being paid out until AFTER my husband started his new job, so I had gotten my parents to front the money and leave me a check in Alabama since they were out of town.  (Luckily my brother in law stepped up and was able to get the funds converted).   Oh, and you know how dry Texas is?  Well, not on moving day.  On moving day, about an hour after the truck arrived, there was a monsoon -- torrential rain that blew sideways, thunder and lightning, etc.  So the front 1/3 of the truck was stacked all nice and neat, and the back half looked like my kids packed it because they were trying to get everything from the house and into the truck as quickly as possible.  My husband slipped on the ramp up to the truck and fell right on his backside bruising his tailbone -- he's still recovering from that.  If I believed in omens, I would have reconsidered moving at all. (Not really.  Come hell or high water, I was going HOME).

They finally got the truck loaded and the next morning we headed for home.  The truck company called me to check on everything, and I had to pull off of the highway to unleash my wrath.  The man who called was the same one I had talked to and arranged everything with (the owner of the company) and he kept stammering and saying "Well, um, now I think you may have misunderstood that...." I cut him off and said "Look, I am a fairly intelligent person, and while I concede that I might have misunderstood something you said, I DID NOT misunderstand EVERYTHING you said.  Now I am praying that you are a lot better at transporting things than you are at communicating them because you suck at communication."  I had had it.  I was very sick, it was still raining, and I was not in the mood to be patronized.  I felt a little bit sorry for him after I was done, but I had made my point and the worst of it was hopefully behind us.  Surprisingly, we had no further issues with them after that.

After 2 days of driving, we finally made it to Huntsville.  I still had a fever.  Lorelei was still sick.  We had to meet the truck at the storage facility at 8:00 the next morning.  My parents were out of town.  My husband's parents were watching the 4 kids.  I had been posting on Facebook about the move and the obstacles I was hitting with getting help to load in Texas and all of my Alabama friends were commenting with things like "Let me know when you get here and I will help!" and "I wish I could be in Texas to help you, but once we get you here, I can do whatever you need!"  However, a couple of days prior to arriving in Alabama, I had posted when and where I would need help and none of those people stepped up.  So then I started asking specific people -- but no one was available.  One of Gary's friends came, 2 of my friends came with their kids (one brought her husband for a little while) and one person from my home church showed up.  We got it done, but it would have gone so much faster if all of those who had pledged their help had followed through. 

So we are here.  We are home, but currently homeless.  It doesn't quite feel real yet.  Every Summer I come here with the kids and we stay with my parents and my in laws for about 6 weeks, so it feels a lot like that right now, except that I am looking for a house.  The house hunting process is a story in and of itself, so I will give it it's own post later....like after I actually find a house.  At this point, we might end up in an apartment for a few months so that we can take our time.  I will try to get back in my groove of posting here more frequently, but I am trying to find a place to live before my children destroy my mom's house, or force my dad to abandon retirement just so he can go to work to get some peace and quiet.