Checking In

All the crazy updates on our move so far…

Ok, so checking in.

We did not manifest our dream home. We got into a place at the last minute which so far has been way less than ideal to rent. The move was the most laborious of any we had ever dealt with. Friends flaked on us leaving us to move alone. The property manager was two hours late preparing our lease and asked us to be on time. So we ended up sitting and listening to her type while we should have been moving. This put Aaron and I finishing up the cleaning of the property at 5am the day we were supposed to be out.

I have had some crazy things happen, like really crazy, during this move which even involved my fairy godmother in law ducked outside at night in the cold and wind behind a police battalion firing line in an active shooter situation, tear gas cannons being shot off and a shelter in place order surrounding the home we moved out of, like 5 doors down. This event took us hours out of our way for a vehicle pick up that ended up not happening until the following day which costed us more time and put one of my favorite people in grave danger.

Then, the first day of the year with really, really wet and heavy snow happened just after we moved in.

Last, a really hard fall a few nights ago that ended in almost zero injuries.

Both of the first two things happened only one day after things were happening where they would have impeded our move. But, on account of divine timing, we seem to have been spared the hardest of the results of these insane events.

I feel like this move could have been a book.

Friends we weren’t expecting nor even very close with up to that point showed up to our rescue.

The kids seem unphased by the chaos.

And my weirdest blessing was that my absolute steadfast certainty lead me on the hardest of days to continue to believe Steve Harvey would show up at my door to give me a lifetime record breaking Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes prize. And even though he didn’t appear, the thought that he might have come kept me uplifted throughout the two hardest days I might have otherwise been very, very grumpy to say the least or seriously depressed. So, just the thought of him awarding me the biggest prize in PCH history became a weird sort of win for me. Lifted me out of some really low places I might have gone in my mind.

We still have so much to do. It has been inconceivably hard. Yesterday, we found the source of a leak that has been going for a long time creating residual serious mold damage. We were offered an opportunity to get out of our lease with a refund of our costs to the leasing company, but that does nothing at all for the cost of the movers, the days we’ve exhausted ourselves cleaning this place, the time we spent searching and not finding a good fitting home.

Tell me if I am wrong, but I said that as long as they can remove the damaged vanity, properly remediate the mold and clean out the HVAC system so the pre existing spores aren’t blasted at us, we will stay. I am too tired to fight the battle of another move right now. I’m too tired to live out of suitcases any more. I’m too tired to pack all this up and shift gears again, back to searching for an ideal property for our family.

The new place was filthy. Things haven’t worked right. The home owner wanted to leave all her broken and nasty stuff she is too lazy to haul off to the dump as if they “go with the house” and are a gift for us. She wanted us to dump or store her trash for her. We’ve spent days working and barely cleaned the kitchen and collected all the garbage she left on the property out to the curb.

I am so tired. We have pulled all nighters to get things done by certain deadlines. We are all fatigued. But somehow, we keep having the strength and energy to keep going.

I will be happy to eventually get everything cleaned and settled. I can almost start to see a silver lining in everything. I am truly hoping for some kind of house miracle. It needs one.