We're Moved!

Marc and I stayed up until 3 am on Wednesday trying to pack up the last of our stuff. There always seems to be a bunch of odds and ends though, that just don't pack well. And we had a lot of it.

Thursday

The movers came on Thursday morning. We hired Starving Students to do it, and they did a pretty good job. We ended up paying for the extra insurance, just because we had some items, like the new fish tank, that were pretty expensive. It was funny, because right after we signed off on it, one of the guys broke a cookie jar that was one of the first things loaded into the truck. Fortunately, that was the only thing that got damaged.

It took us all day to get moved, and it was HOT. I think Thursday was the hottest day of the week. It was kind of odd hiring people to move, because there were some points when there wasn't anything for me to do, and I just ended up sitting on the living room floor and reading the paper.

We have so much junk. I couldn't believe it. We were really unprepared for that part, because we really should have sorted through all our crap and made a trip to the dump first. Because we didn't, we ended up having to move what was literally garbage.

Marc and I spent Thursday evening going back and forth between the old house and the new one, moving last bits of stuff and cleaning. We moved the pets too, and they were a bit freaked out by the new place. Both the cats went and hid behind the couch, but they only stayed there for about 5 minutes. Stubby made himself right at home.

Friday

Friday was spent moving boxes and trying to find all the essential items we needed. We moved more stuff from the house, and made a few trips to Home Depot. I don't know why we thought it was a priority, but we replaced a bunch of the recessed lighting fixtures in the house.

DirecTV was also scheduled to come out Friday to move our service over. This was such a fiasco. I was at the new place while Marc was at the old house moving stuff. We have an HD dish and service, and Marc called them three times to confirm that they were indeed, moving our HD service over. So of course, when the guy showed up, he had a work order for basic service, and he didn't have any HD dishes with him.

I'm telling you, DirecTV is one of the most bungling companies I've ever dealt with. I don't think they've ever done an install for me without a glitch. My parents have had Comcast for the past 7 years, because when I tried to set up DirecTV for them originally, DirecTV completely failed to show up for the install TWICE. When they didn't show up the second time, I called them and said that if they didn't send someone out that day, I was signing up for Comcast, and that's what I did.

Needless to say, Marc was pissed. Because he told them over and over again to make sure they knew we had an HD dish. And of course they couldn't do anything for us that day (even though we had an HD dish on our old house, which could have been moved). We ended up having the guy hook up the basic one for us, and Marc called and rescheduled for Sunday morning. And of course they didn't show up. So now it's scheduled for Friday.

We're thinking about switching over to Comcast anyways. I'm sure they have horrible service too, but I'm frankly fed up with DirecTV, and I'm just itching to call and give them my laundry list of reasons for quitting their service.

The nice thing is, thanks to all these screwups on their end, we have Starz and Encore free for three more months.

Saturday

Saturday we woke up really early to move the fish tank over. This was the very last thing to move in the house. We bought three big Brute trash cans, which were expensive - $25 each! We got to the house first, and I started removing equipment, draining out the water and pulling out rocks.

My dad and mom, Leslie, and Steve showed up a bit later to help with the move. Once I got most of the rocks and water out, it was time to catch the fish. This was kind of tricky, but with no rocks and not a lot of water left, it wasn't too bad. Dory barely fit in the collection cup I had.

The guys then moved the tank and stand and all the buckets to our new house, and I got all the fish into their temporary tank. So far they seem to be doing alright. It turned out to be not too bad overall - I thought it might be a nightmare, but for once I was pretty prepared, and things went smoothly, and it only took about 2 hours.

At this point, we were officially moved out of our house - I think we did a pretty good job of cleaning it up too, and left it in good shape for the new owners.

Marc and I then did a few more things around the house before taking a quick nap - we were exhausted.

When I woke up and tried to walk, it literally felt like my legs were made of concrete. I don't think I've ever felt that beaten down before. I was barely able to walk. We both felt like crap.

In the afternoon, we went to Steve and Erin's house to celebrate Erin and Jacob's birthdays. They had a water balloon fight that eventually deteriorated into a buckets-of-water fight, which was funny. I didn't participate because we had to go to my grandmother's birthday dinner right afterwards. Marc got wet enough that he had to borrow one of Steve's shirts to wear while his dried out.

So from there we drove to Cupertino to have dinner with my family to celebrate my grandmother's 88th birthday. We had two big tables in our own little banquet room. Lots of food, and lots of dessert.

Went home afterwards and moved some more boxes before going to bed.

Sunday

Sunday was a day of many trips back and forth to Home Depot. Our dryer had a 4-prong plug, while the house had a 3-prong receptacle. So we had to buy a replacement plug and cord. Changing out the cord wasn't too difficult, although Marc and I were pretty nervous when we first started the dryer. We kept waiting for burning smells. It seems to be working okay though.

We also bought new locks for the front door and side doors. I had to drill a hole in the front door because the new handle was a little different from the old one. Drilling a 3/8" hole in your front door is a little bit scary. But the new locks look really nice!

Marc and I also went around and nailed down some of the loose boards in the fence. It's amazing all the little things that need to be fixed around the house. It's sorta fun though.

Anyways, I think that about covers most of the weekend - if anyone wants to come over for a box moving party, you're more than welcome! ;)

I'll try to get some pictures up over the week - my computer and the DSL are working at least!