Sunday, August 16, 2009 was my big moving day! Soooo many people came out to help! Just about everyone arrived 30 – 60 minutes early, and they got started working RIGHT away. I am so amazed by the good people that surround me!The final count was 15 people, including myself. Eight cars trailed behind the big moving van when we made the trek to my new home. So thank you, Mom, Dad, Aunt Tess, Uncle Fred, Aunt Maryann, and my exceedingly wonderful friends Andy, Shawn, Abby, Christopher, John, Lise, and especially Doug and Tim!!
Mom was incredible with her cooking prowess that day. She had plain hot dogs and also hot dogs cooked in sauerkraut available for immediate consumption. Later, at the house, she’d serve up steak sandwiches and Chicken Spectacular with cranberry sauce. She created a magnificent salad with toasted almonds, mandarin oranges, and avocado. Freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies and sand tarts in the shape of little houses were our dessert. There was tons of fresh fruit, little rolls, beverages of all kinds, and probably a gazillion other little details I’m presently forgetting. Thank you, Mom!
I had rented the biggest truck available for what I hoped would be ease of packing. It was 26 feet long and designed for a family that lived in a 4 or 5 bedroom house! And somehow I managed to fill it up pretty well with just the stuff I had in my apartment. Doug was incredible at packing in everything just perfectly so that nothing would shift or scratch en route. My aunt was particularly amazed by him!You would have thought that I wouldn’t need such a sizable vehicle, given that my friend Andy had been such an incredible help all week. Each night after work, he’d help me wrap and box things. We’d fill up my car, fill up his van, and then take off for 444. Sometimes we did multiple trips in one night. One night we even stayed up until 5:30 AM! I cleaned my entire kitchen that night while he chatted. It was soooo much better than having to do it alone!
Mom and Dad were incredible also. The night before the big move, they arrived unannounced at my apartment, ready to help pack. I would have never gotten finished without them! By Midnight they left, and by 4 AM, I finally was finally done.
I can’t believe how quickly everything was loaded and unloaded off the truck. Apparently it took about 30 minutes to do each way! Incredible.
I was so proud of my moving and archiving organization system. I used the same strategy which I developed for my parents one year ago, rendering their full basement a synch to navigate (and which had formerly been a very sore topic of discussion for us).
The strategy went something like this: Each box was numbered, the contents recorded, the box described, and each numbered box corresponded to a pallet location in the basement. This pallet location was named after the real or fictional room of the house in which the object or group of objects would go if it were to be brought up from the basement.There are two obvious pieces of fun to this system. The first is the fictional rooms component. For example, one of my pallets is dubbed the Janitorial Supply Room. On this pallet is everything that a janitor would have in his room, from toilet tissue to cleaning products and light bulbs. Another favorite of mine is the Science Laboratory. On that pallet resides a pair of high quality microscopes, plus a set of slides and a few bug boxes from my childhood. The Music Studio neatly displays all my piano sheet music, CDs, and keeps archived even the many cassette tapes of my youth. The Hobby & Crafts Room contains all the bows, wrapping paper, and markers that my little heart could desire!
The second piece of fun to the system is the box numbering itself. Since I’ve designated one set of 10 whole numbers for each room, if a particular room has more than 10 boxes assigned to it, it thus becomes necessary to use the tenths place and thus have decimals written on my boxes. Imagine my friends’ surprised look as they picked up boxes numbered with 112.3 or 79.1 or 200.4. Perhaps only a math teacher would do something like this!
Everyone was so generous with their help, and I thanked people so profusely that I’m sure I got annoying by the end of the day. Doug and Tim effortlessly flipped over and carried down my staircase my 400-pound antique cast iron claw foot bathtub. They even had the patience to pause (while holding furniture mid-air) so that I could peel and stick cute little fuzzy protective pads on all furniture legs in order to protect my hardwood floors. I spent about $75 on those darn things at Office Max and wanted to make sure I got my use out of them!
I was thankful for my excess yet also embarrassed by it when people realized that my entire second floor was to be the “wardrobe.” Dad counted my shoes and came up with 89, not realizing that I had one more pair on my feet and 3 more pairs back at my apartment.
At the end of the night, Dad gave a joyous toast and we all sipped Verdi Spumanti in my living room. That night, Shawn, John, and Andy stuck around, long after everybody left. And when Shawn finally left and John fell asleep on my couch, Andy stayed up with me and helped me push furniture around until the wee hours of the morning and until I got the living room just right.
John kept snoozing as we pushed furniture around him (and sometimes pushed around the very furniture he was on), and he graciously would get up and sleep on another piece of furniture when we had to move him. As I hammered nails into the wall around Midnight, he would wake up briefly, only to hear me remind him that he ought to drive home soon (but to which he would then reply that he was only too glad to keep me company – and then soon be snoring again)! So cute.
What I think I loved most that day was the tight, squeezed-in feeling we all experienced when we crowded into my little kitchen and formed a serving line around the counters, the serving spoons shoveling onto our plates all the goodness that Mom had prepared for us.It was then that I realized that this house is more of a home when people are IN it with me. No longer do I want the kind of privacy that my apartment afforded me. My new policy shall be that I welcome visitors whenever they arrive and answer the phone whenever I hear it ring. Being a homeowner is already making me a better neighbor and person.
Every day this week, I started my day by walking across the street for daily Mass at St. James. My friend Jess, who now is my neighbor, brought her kids by to visit, and they simply adored playing with the doves!
Edward the antique green piano was delivered on Tuesday, and later I will write an entire blog about how magnificent it is to live with a creature of this musical magnitude! He inspires me sooo much!
On Wednesday, Abby came over to visit. She played Edward beautifully (my favorite was “Canon in D!”) and when the piano is played, this entire house simply glows with happiness. I especially love when the piano is played at night when all the windows and doors are open. You can hear its beautiful sound even when you’re way across on the other side of the street!That night we walked across the street to St. James where we celebrated my friend Sean’s 26th birthday party. He’s the youth ministry leader, and it was great to spend time with him, his fiancé, some former students, a colleague I ran into, and my wonderful friend Rose. The free food was an added bonus, also!
Then Jess, Lija, and Ruth visited, and both Ruth and Jess played the piano beautifully! We spent the whole night together, laughing, snacking, and enjoying one another’s company! Ruth showed us her new house, which was so beautiful! It was quite different from my own, but it is beautiful how God blesses each of us with precisely what He knows we will enjoy the most!
On Thursday, my dear friend Melanie visited me from Philadelphia! She played the green piano quite exquisitely. She chose nothing less than a piece from Beethoven to brighten my little home a little more!And then we went out joy-riding in her new car. It has the biggest moon roof that I have ever seen, and so I laid my seat down, stared up at the starry night sky, and literally screamed with joy as she drove because the view was so fun and breathtaking. It was like being on an amusement park ride. Turns were the best!
This week, several people called to see how I was sleeping. How kind! I am sleeping so soundly because I truly feel in my element and truly at HOME here!! I have gotten used to the little digestive noises my house makes. Certainly, to live within someone like this is not without the occasional noise! He gurgles a bit when the sump pump activates, breaks wind when the duct work fans kick in periodically, clicks a few times when I flush the toilet or take a shower, and—when it’s time to settle in at night—makes a creaking sound shortly after I’ve gotten into bed.
But my house sounds aren't the only thing I've gotten used to hearing.I discovered that my refrigerator prides himself on the ability to make ice cubes and clunks around his interior parts anyway, even though I don’t have any water hooked up to him. I’m not going to say anything to him about it, either. I’ll just let him keep believing in himself! Tee-hee! :-)
My dehumidifier hums all day long to keep himself entertained in the basement, and when it’s time to change him, he beeps for my attention. The other day, when I was particularly busy and unfortunately neglected him, he got the bright idea to perhaps dump his water himself. And so he literally rolled himself 4 feet toward the French drain in the middle of the basement. When I found him the next morning, his electric cord was pulled taunt, like the leash of an excited dog. He was standing over the drain, a little leak dripping from between his legs, like a kindergartner who had almost made it to the restroom. He produces several gallons of water a day, so it is no wonder that he has to be changed so much!
My washer and dryer are aggressive workers that present me with more choices and options than I’ve ever had. My garbage disposal has a healthy appetite, and my flat-top stove is a particularly cautious appliance, warning with me glowing orbs about which areas are still too hot to touch. So thoughtful of her!So...am I accustomed to the sounds and sights of living here? YES! And I thank God for every moment that I live within these walls!
