local moving Archives - Laura Vanderkam

Snowy Friday

Laura Vanderkam — Fri, 07 Jan 2022 17:22:29 +0000

Well, this has been a week. Moving is stressful. The good news is that the new place is slowly feeling more livable, especially now that our beds and kitchen table have been delivered. A bed is better than an air mattress. A table and chairs are better than the floor. We have a temporary fridge (the real one has yet to arrive…) so we could buy groceries. After doing pancakes and fruit for dinner one night and pasta with plain sauce (and fruit) for dinner the second night it is good to be able to expand the repertoire. Well, some. There is still no oven and won’t be one for a while.

It is also snowing! The new yard is beautiful in the snow and I went for a good stomp around this morning as a break from supervising virtual school. Yep, virtual is back, though just for the weather — the district has been making do even with staff members out for isolation and such. The older kids have done fine with online classes. The 6-year-old has been diving onto my lap and racing off and declaring that he hates zoom and asking what time it is every 7 minutes and so forth. This with a teacher he absolutely loves. I am hoping everyone is back in person next week.

Today should be the last day of the movers – it has been a four day project with packing and loading and transporting. We have furniture coming next week and no doubt a great many hours of unpacking and organizing but I am telling myself that things are improving. And so far the car hasn’t died again, so there’s that! I have walked away from this blog post — this short blog post — half a dozen times to deal with things. So may as well hit publish now.

(Just a quick reminder to sign up for the Time Tracking Challenge if you haven’t! Link is in the last post. If I go look for it I’ll get distracted again and never publish….)

Night one at the new house

Laura Vanderkam — Wed, 05 Jan 2022 14:28:03 +0000

I’m writing this from my old desk in my old house. It turns out that the movers want someone here through the packing and loading process to say where everything goes and answer questions. It makes sense, so I am working here, on and off.

We officially moved ourselves yesterday, though. We ate a Grubhub delivered dinner on the floor of the new kitchen because we don’t have any chairs. Or a table. We slept on air mattresses on the floor because we won’t have beds for a few days. It was not the easiest night. The toddler really fussed about sleeping in the portable crib, and was up until 11 or so. There are random beeps from various things. Nothing is where it is supposed to be so I kept tromping up and down the stairs. Some of the kids were wigged out by the new space, and some of the air mattresses were less than fully comfortable (I did OK, but I was also really tired). Also, the van battery died last night so we had to use the jumper cables, which added a note of whimsy (ha) to a tough evening. I would really like to replace the van but it seems there are no cars to be had…same problem affecting our oven, fridge, etc…

I know the first night anywhere is hard. I have a vague memory of our first night in the old house some 10.5 years ago. Everyone was freaked out by new noises and such. We will get used to things and when all our new stuff is there things will slowly come together. Already some of the kids’ new furniture is in and it’s really cute. And the 12-year-old has really liked having his own room. He’s already assembled the (indoor, foam) hatchet toss set he got for Christmas in there.

So, patience…And wow, there is nothing like seeing all your stuff come out of the cabinets to remind you how fast stuff can accumulate…Everything will find its way to a new home eventually.