Lessons Learned

Things with the house have been crazy or as Roo says "Cray-Cray." We pray, we think something is a sign from God to follow and then it all just goes "South." Like selling our house...we both decided to take our house off the market and that night we got an offer from a family in MD. They had never even seen the house, then another offer from someone who kept driving by the house and made an offer. Our Realtor found not one but two houses of people who had a single level house, not listed, but wanted to sell. One house kept haggling on the price, so G decided to walk, the other house we loved even more and verbally agreed on a price, closing costs, and closing date....then that family decided to not sell. Apartment living is where we ended up...on the second floor...bearing in mind the reason we decided to sell was to not have stairs.

Now for hiring the movers...Two Men and A Truck wanted over $7600 to move us...Motivated Movers $1300, and then what I thought to be a sign from God was Motivated MUSCLED Movers (a company that uses Body Builders...the estimate was $100 an hour, 4 hours to load, 3 hours to unload. Hired.

We decided to move a lot of stuff ourselves to save even more...we had the kitchen, books, pictures, clothes...well, just about everything that was not furniture settled at the apartment before moving day. I even donated our dining room furniture. (It suffered a lot of banging with all the military moves) So, now the items to move is minimal...Monday arrives, the movers show up at 9 am and 7:45 pm only about 1/3 of my stuff is moved. The assistant manager promises a discount. The movers show up the following morning and at 1 pm, Greg sends them packing. We were charged $1200 and given a $25 discount.

Now we are in panic mode...stuff needs to be moved, house needs to be clean, and the closing is on Thursday...Not good.

Did I mention it was unbearably hot and humid? I am perplexed how things that seem to be so perfectly aligned turn into total mess ups.

On Wednesday, we hired some cleaners who pitched in and helped us move the remaining items (they took pity on us and saved the day.) They then cleaned the house, Thursday morning, Greg applied the touch up paint, and we walked out at 9:50 am leaving a perfect house...the walk through happened at 10:30 am. Closing was delayed until Friday since their loan papers had not arrived.

And now it is done. Apartment living has commenced. The air conditioner was broken for the first few days...all I could imagine was a $1000 electric bill and a Summer of sleeping on the couch where it was cooler. But now that is fixed. I feel kind of guilty grumbling since there are people in much worse circumstances. I drove home from skating on Monday and saw the tent under the Interstate where some of the Homeless live...they are being evicted by the Department of Transportation. So really, what do I have to grumble about? Now if I can just get the kids to understand how blessed we are even though they have no yard to play in.....