The Misery of Moving

You know the feeling, you think a big change is a really good idea until you can't find a thing and everyone is tired and fussy. Here's some advice, DON'T MOVE! And certainly do not be dumb enough to think moving with three kids won't be the biggest effort you've ever made in your life.
Let me start with the process of getting out of our house. I hired two men to load the truck. But Armand and Kenneth forgot to bring along their positive attitude. They arrive first thing Sunday morning. My Dad immediately talks to them about taking the swing set he had taken apart the minute he flew in. They laughed at him. "If you want to take the swing set, that's fine but you ain't takin nothin else then." They walked around the house and said, hmm, hm hm hm hm.....all these boxes..a 24 foot truck? You should have gotten a 48 foot truck. I was constantly telling them what was most important to load and what was not, needless to say all the non important stuff is here with us in DC. All the important stuff? Who knows. Thank goodness for our neighbors, 2 of which loaded trucks for Bridging, another took bunches of stuff. Armand kept saying...um, ummmm....that too? Every time I told him about something else that needed to be packed he looked surprised. Did you think all this stuff was just stored in our house or we just keep empty boxes around for fun? 7 hours later the moving truck door was shut and promptly my phone rang, Scott had just arrived. I was miserable. Our dining room table, none of our chairs, my grandfather's end tables, even a box full of wedding pictures and wall pictures were still all sitting on the front lawn. My neighbor said, why don't you pull a trailer? Good idea.
Kurt then said, would you like a glass of diet cherry Pepsi? I said is it in a real glass? He says I can even put ice cubes in it. It was the best soda I'd ever had. But it's now 4:30 and Budget closed at 4:00. so I called U-haul. The conversation went something like this:

I was wondering if I could rent a trailer?

For when?

Right now.

What kind of truck do you have?

A 24 foot truck.

OK is it your own truck?

No.

Well what kind of truck is it?

Um...it's a budget truck.

Oh, let me put you on hold.
Really, I'm so not in the mood to be discriminated against because its not a u-haul truck. 5 to 10 minutes later he comes back and says,
Yes that will fit on your truck, but we close in 20 minutes so if you want it you better come now. UGH!!! I'm in one of those states where you are so tired you can barely breath and I just wanted to lay down on the driveway and fall asleep. Just then Scott and My Dad pull up with the kids who had been with my Dad at a soccer game.
I hadn't seen Scott in 5 weeks, I know I didn't ask about his trip, it's questionable whether or not I said hello. I know it started something like, "here's the situation."
Needless to say we decided against the trailer on the truck and there are some people just setting up their home in Minneapolis now with some very unique furniture and a lot of kids shelves.
Scott was able to squeeze some more stuff in but it was to the point where I ripped open a box of linens and was throwing towels in individually just to get them in.
Finally we said our good-byes (which was very hard at the end)...closed on our house which is a weird feeling coming back to the neighbors and looking at MY house and its not MY house anymore and we were on the road.
I was asleep for what seemed like 15 seconds when I hear my Dad on his cell phone, "Scott, uh it seems like the car is overheating. I think we better stop."
OK, I'm awake now. We stop, add antifreeze and we're off again. Again, "Scott the gage went back up and its starting to smell...it's definitely overheating. We are in Hammond, Wisconsin at this point 50 MILES from the Twin Cities. And there's a lot of corn fields. The BP clerk says the only mechanic in town is Dave's Auto shop. Just go east for a block you'll find him. We did, except Dave says our head gasket is going to blow and we might be able to drive 50 miles but we might not. We definitely can't make it to Virginia. It will cost 1500 dollars and take 3 days to fix. Dave I hate to be pushy but that is not the answer I'm looking for. Well, OK I'll do some more tests. So Scott and I start the command center, checking on rental cars, considering the possibility of him driving the truck with two other people and the other three of us flying and even calling dealerships in the closest town of Hudson, Wisconsin. We just got a check for the sale of our house...who wouldn't want to live in a minivan. When my Dad comes over to the sidewalk we had plopped ourselves on and said, "CRISIS IS OVER" It just needed radiator fluid..40 bucks. Ding ding ding...Dave that was the answer I was looking for.
By the way there's a 2002 minivan with 89 thousand miles on it for $4,996 in Hudson if anyone is looking for one. The rest of the trip was 'uneventful.' But Minneapolis and DC are not close especially on the second day of driving. Who knew Pennsylvania was so mountainous. I thought we'd never get there and started to wonder what are we doing. Someone else is enjoying my perennials and my new floor in the kitchen. But then we pulled in at my sister's at 11 p.m. and the kids were still up waiting for us to arrive with our 24 foot budget truck. OK, maybe this will be OK. I'll post on move in day later. All I can say, hot, humid, and hilly complete with an overflowing toilet.