So the past few days have been an exercise in stress (not that I needed any more exercise in that area), endurance, and the necessity of flexibility.  I guess it all started around midnight on Thursday . . .
Many of you will remember that John’s grandmother died last year and that we were at her funeral in Baltimore when our house burned down.  Well, her house sold a few weeks ago and all its contents had to be packed up and sent down here.   I was expecting them to arrive on December 17 (because that’s what the moving people had told John’s mother–they were combining us with another move to save money), not exactly an ideal time of year but at least we had a couple of weekends to prepare.  HOWEVER, at midnight on Thursday, while we were lying in bed, John just CASUALLY MENTIONED (didn’t volunteer it–in response to my question about whether he had talked to his mother lately) that the moving van was coming MONDAY.  I was all like, “What?  When were you planning to tell me?  In the morning when they knocked on our door?”
On Friday I had too much work to do to get started on the cleaning out of the garage (more on that in a minute), but I was happy that at least someone was coming to straighten up the house (a client who works in exchange for representation).  The house was filthy; I didn’t want movers seeing it nor did I want Emily to come home to such a mess.  But our helper called in sick.  At this point, close to a nervous breakdown, I whined to my little sister about my plight.  In short order, she informed me that my mother and my other sister were going to treat me to a paid housecleaning, so that was a spot of good news (the one thing that probably kept me sane).
Did I mention that John was leaving Friday night (taking Willie with him) to go pick up Emily and therefore would not be available to help me with this project?
So all day Saturday was spent in the garage (about which more in another post).  I filled five trash cans to overflowing.  Lorelei helped a little and Jake did too.  Why the garage?  Well, the whole project was like a domino effect.  We were getting new dining room furniture, which meant the current stuff had to move to the garage.  We were also getting a slew of boxes that I had no intention of unpacking immediately.  They, too, were headed there.  We were getting new bedroom furniture.  Thus our furniture was heading for Emily’s room, and hers was heading for the guest room.  (Which Jake had therefore to clean out since it is part of the basement domain that is “lived in” to put it charitably.)
I worked so hard all day.  I was looking forward to a soak in my tub and blogging about some of the emotional impact of cleaning out the garage.  That’s when (around 7:30 p.m.) I got THE CALL.  John, Emily, and William were stranded in Chattanooga, because MY VAN had broken down.  A Good Samaritan who actually owns a car repair shop had towed them to his place (in a somewhat scary part of Chattanooga) and they needed to be picked up.  Now.
Leaving Teddy (none too happy at having his evening disrupted) to stay with Lorelei, Jake and I got in his car (which we had just retrieved from the shop that afternoon, thankfully) and took off for Chattanooga (that’s 90 miles away, folks).  We did not get home until 12:30.
But I still had all day Sunday, right?  I thought I’d get to sleep till ten, go to Mass, be home and cleaning the garage by 1:00 or so.  But Lorelei came into my room at 8:30 a.m. crying with pain from an earache.  By 10:15 we were sitting (and sitting and sitting and sitting) at the Walgreens clinic.  We were there for FOUR HOURS (have you noticed me shouting a lot in this post?).   By the time we got back home and fed all the hungry people waiting on me, it was well past three.  Luckily, now I had Emily to help (she was actually working on some of it while I was out) so she and I finished in there around dinner time.
At 8:30 I left to pick up Jake from his girlfriend’s house (something John usually does but did I mention that he was also sick with that upper respiratory thing that everyone has? William, Lorelei, and Jake have it too, and I’ve just started with it.  And Teddy has a fever–that might be the flu.  But I digress.).  With one thing and another (stopping to buy him food, going to the grocery store and having my card not work until John transferred money from one bank account to another), picking up Jake’s friend) it was 11:30 before I got home.
The only good thing about Monday morning was that John and the little kids stayed home sick so we got to sleep a little longer.  We had to be and at ’em by 8:00 though because that was the earliest the movers could arrive.  Latest was 10:00 but of course it was more like 10:30.  After they looked around the house they told us they needed payment before they brought the stuff in.  The only problem with that was that we were not supposed to be paying them.  This took over an hour to straighten out.  In the meantime the car place called.  We can fix the problem for $1200 or get a whole new engine with a warranty for $1500.  So there’s that.
I don’t even know how long the movers were here.  It was long.  After they left I discovered that a piece of wood that is supposed to go on top of the vanity table is missing.  We called and this still has not been resolved.  Then John noticed that the glass shelves that go in the china cabinet aren’t there.  We still have some hope they are in one of the boxes in the garage.  (They left all the boxes they unpacked and the tape pieces and everything in our driveway in the rain, by the way.  Are they supposed to do that?)
We still have work to do on the transition.  Our old furniture is sitting outside our bedroom door.  Some of the things that came still have stuff in the drawers I haven’t gone through.  John is impatient and wants to open all the boxes RIGHT NOW and I am trying to stop him.  We spent several hours last night going through boxes of books that we removed from the garage and now have many boxes to take to McKay’s (the used book store).
So that’s how I spent the past four days.  Not stressful or anything.  And it’s not like, you know, it’s two weeks until Christmas or anything like that.

Emily models an umbrella hat

Just a sample of all the fun things we will be unpacking in the coming days!