You may have noticed that I have been AWOL on the blog and on Facebook for nearly two months. The reason: we moved and that process ate up all my time and energy. It has been such an Odessey I have been itching to write about it so I can better understand all that has happened..
When I let one of our neighbors know we were moving, he replied,” That’s one of the biggest pains there is.” I replied, “I am looking forward to it, but then we have lived in this house for twenty-seven years, so maybe I forgot what it is like.” That is one of the most profound things I have ever uttered.
Parts of the process were smooth as silk. We had culled our earthly processions, taking loads to Goodwill. We spenty just a little money fixing a few things and staging the house. We only did little things that made a significant difference. We engaged a very successful real estate agent and sold the house for full asking price a week before it went on the market.
We continued to breeze though the numerous steps. We passed the home inspection and even met and liked the couple who bought our house.
So far, so good.
Then we made a trip to Tennessee where a big chunk of our family was moving. We worked with another very experienced agent and found our house on day one.
It was the one we most liked on Zillow and seeing it in real life made us like it more. Our agent commented that it was a nice house, and she checked to see if there were any offers. There was one and the owners had set 5:00 PM that day as the deadline for offers and making their decision.
The proprietor of the real estate firm was out of town on a family cruise and our agent was temporarily in charge. Most of the technology in the office was down and all businesses in the tiny town had closed for the day. So, there was no place to get documents copied. She had to take photos of the lengthy tome and send them a few pages at a time to the other agent. Our agent just barely beat the clock. She is 82 but has more energy than anyone I know.
We put in an offer that we thought would be strong enough to be the chosen one. As we sat eating dinner at Cracker Barrel in Middlesboro, Kentucky, just across the state line, I got the call that our offer was accepted. I did a fist pump and yelled, “All right!” and told our server we just bought a house. It was an exciting and emotional moment.
So far, so good.
For three weeks we did nothing but pack and provide information for the big transaction. It was like having a steady job and it took much longer than anticipated. With our volume of stuff, there was no question about hiring a mover. We hired a good one.
Our son and family who moved at the same time unknowingly hired a broker and had a litany of problems. They were days late and could not take everything on their truck. Our son and daughter-in-law wound up having to rent another truck on their own to haul everything.
Fortunately, our moving company used the same people to load, drive, and unload. They did a good job; except they underestimated the size of the truck needed.
Moving companies come to your home to estimate how much stuff you have and what size truck you will need. After they came out, I made more trips to Goodwill and got rid of more things on Facebook Marketplace and put everything in the garage in our son’s rented truck. I called our company and told them I think they underestimated the size of the truck needed. I was assured they did not.
On moving day, they were not able to load most of the things in the backyard, lawn furniture and things we wanted to take. Also, they could not pick up six boxes of books I had moved to storage facility. This was after I had reduced the load considerably. So, we had to leave the books for a later trip, and we gave a lot of stuff to the new owners.
By the time they had loaded everything, it was late. We had to clean the house and make it to a Lafayette, Indiana hotel. We could barely squeeze the last bits into the cars. We arrived at midnight.
We were exhausted, stressed and frustrated.
By that time, I hurt so bad, I could not raise my leg to get into the car or hardly walk when I got out.
We were surprised (or shocked) by the day’s turn of events.
Part 2 next time.
