The Move !

Ok so we moved over the weekend. Let's see if I can give you a quick run down of the weekends activities..

Thursday- Took the day off work and packed all day, my dad came out to help. My son (Skippy) and I made a run out to the new house in the afternoon, met up with my Gail and her boys (Spaz and Sparky) and we all grabbed a bite to eat. Skippy and I went back to our house and continued to pack. I loaded up the car and made a days last trip to the new house as did Gail. I got home around 1:25 am.

Friday- Got up around 6 am took Skippy to school. Kept packing. Movers should have been to house between 8:00 and 9:00 am, called at 9:15 am and said they were stuck on Rt. 47 in traffic that wasn't moving they were going to find alternate route. At 10:00 am the movers finally arrived. Started packing truck, a second truck showed up (small) and packed lawn tractor, snow blower, table saw, etc. After the small truck was packed they took off for the new house. I had to leave because Gail had her hands full with directing the movers with the stuff on her truck and said she would not have any idea where the stuff on the small truck should go. And with that I had to leave my dad to supervise and close up the old house

Got to the new house in time to direct unloading of the small truck. Meanwhile the big truck had left the old house and stopped for lunch. Finally arrived and got everything unpacked around 6:45 pm. The move cost for Gail and I was about $500 over budget....(basically my move..)

Now the refrigerator hadn't been working properly for days, the freezer was ice covered and the fridge part warm. The landlord came over to repair and unplugged to let defrost overnight.

Around 9:00 pm Gail noticed the house was cold and it appeared the furnace wasn't working. I went to check and saw a blinking light on furnace panel indicating that a pressure switch was closed. I took apart and cleaned the area, put back together and it worked.....(or so I thought) meanwhile Gail wanted to take a hot shower around 11:00 pm. I ran downstairs came back up and she was in bed, I said "that was fast" she responded she didn't do anything, and I should go try the shower. I did and the shower head had '3' single streams coming out, 1 of which only dripped. With that we sent the 3 boys on an errand back to Gail’s old apartment to pick up a few things including a spare Waterpik showerhead. 45 minutes later I had installed the new showerhead and Gail and I were able to take showers. The end of a very lonnnnnnggg day!

Saturday- Woke up and the temp in house was 62. I checked the furnace and the same error light was flashing again. I called the landlord again to tell him about the furnace (I'm sure he dreads our number coming up on caller ID...lol). About an hour later he came over to check on the fridge and the furnace. He fixed the fridge and then called the HVAC company that came out and cleaned the furnace two weeks ago. Turns out they don't have techs that work weekends, but told the landlord to call anyone with a Saturday tech and they would cover the charge. Ended up calling a guy from down the street and he came a cleaned out the line and cleaned some electrical switches. It now works fine.

The rest of the day was organizing. I also started to assemble a couple of cabinets we had bought from Ikea. Sparky had a baseball game in the afternoon. We were supposed to go to a family gathering at my cousins later in the afternoon, however we called off with regrets as we were just dog tired.

Sunday- Mothers Day. (It’s been raining since early this AM….this is important.) Woke up, continued putting together the Ikea cabinets that I had started on Saturday. Everyone started taking showers to get ready to go over to my brothers for a MD gathering. Gail in the shower, Spaz in the other shower, Skippy in the family room, me making a cabinet and Sparky decided to go to the basement to play some X-box. Not 30 seconds later Sparky says 'Scott you need to come down here'. Which I think he wants to bust one of his brothers for leaving on lights, tv, etc. I tell him I will be down in a minute. He says 'Scott I really think you need to come down here now' ...... I think oh shit there’s water in the basement.

Sure enough, water on the floor in half the basement.... (Now the house had been painted over the past 2 weeks and part of that involved removing the old beat up gutters and repairing some squirrel damage (holes) to the eaves. The new gutters have not been put up on the house, so the rain water went straight off the roof and into the ground along the foundation.)

I tell Sparky to go grab towels, and tell his brothers to come down and help. Skippy has come downstairs and I tell him to start grabbing wet boxes and giving them to me. I tell both boys to put the towels down to keep the water from spreading. I then tell them to start taking plastic totes and putting them in the dry areas and placing the cardboard boxes on top of those. Sparky had told Spaz about the 'flood' as he was grabbing towels, and after Gail had finished her shower, Spaz asked her about the ‘flood’. So now I have the whole family in the basement. The boys were following directions and getting things moved and perishables up off the floor and Gail remained impressively calm.

After the past few days of moving and the stress we have been under I would’ve understood her just breaking down.

Gail called the landlord and left a message for him, and then she suggested I call my brother as he has a shop vac. I asked him to bring it over along with a squegee. A little while later he showed up along with his son and our dad. After they left to go to the Mothers Day gathering we then sent the boys over to the see their grandmothers and cousins (and get them out of our hair..)

Gail and I cleaned up the water as best we could. Gail ran to the hardware store and got some Damp-Rid, a small but powerful box fan and a squegee of our own. I dumped the water that the shop vac had sucked up.....all 8 gallons of it. !

When the landlord called back he joking asked how the weekend from hell move was going? lol

I am sure there are a couple of other things I am missing.....that pretty much covers it... we were both looking forward to going back to work as we could sit down and take a 'sanity break'.

Gail and I are toast and we have the wedding in two weeks ! (I can't wait!)