A Thousand Apologies! A Moving Tale.

I didn't mean to duck out on you all.

Wonderful Daughter was scheduled to move house on the 22nd of May. However, she got really really sick in the weeks leading up to it so I ended up going to stay with her to help out with the boys and her overall life.

Her internet had been cut off too early so I had no way to post and no time or energy either, truth be told. I really don't know how she does it all. More on that later...

She is now staying with her grandparents for the short term while trying to get into more affordable housing. Yes, that's right...she is living in the home of the Heinous MIL. The good news is, MIL is still in Saskatchewan, or back in Saskatchewan, depending on how you look at it.

However, her Heinousness did phone home earlier this week and inform WD she must insist WD answer the house phone. Which she declined since A) she is not a secretary, B) is already usually busy answering our business line and C) reserves the right to screen calls, mainly from guess who?

Then, the Royal Heinosity informed WD she would like her to go choose some nice earth tones and paint all the interior walls in her home. Why not, right? I mean all Wonderful Daughter has to do with her life is raise two little boys, drive one child across the city each morning to be in school for 8 a.m., run our business, work at some cleaning jobs, plan and cook all the meals, clean the house for herself, her kids and her grandfather while also maintaining her attendance at 5 meetings for worship each week and having a semblance of a social life. Painting an entire house isn't really too much to ask now, is it? BTW, Wonderful Daughter also is paying rent and buying her own groceries while she is in residence so it's not a free loading type of arrangement.

Back to the Move:

The packing and moving went well and we accomplished a lot in between her bouts of nausea and other stuff I am probably not supposed to mention. She has never been so ill in all her life though. We had all our plans carefully laid and lots of people lined up to help out. Penelope was even going to bring some of her fabulous baking for a coffee break.

Then... Grandpa got involved in the move. First, he decided he and the Nameless Man should take all the stuff WD and the boys needed at his house over there on Thursday evening. No problem, makes sense.
Then, he decided the two of them should take all her boxes to the storage facility on Friday morning, instead of leaving them for the 4 strong young university students WD had hired for Saturday morning. So, they did.
However, once they got to the storage facility, they decided the unit WD had booked was too small so they upgraded to the largest unit (at twice the price).

Then Grandpa decided they really needed to put her furniture in first, so they must move everything on Friday, during the day without the huge moving truck and also, without any strong young helpers.
Did I mention he is well over 70 years old and although the Nameless Man works out and is pretty strong, there is NO WAY we wanted him to move all her stuff. Not to mention, those students had been booked weeks in advance and given up Long Weekend plans to make some extra money. WD and I LOATHE it when people cancel on us at the last minute and now, we were about to do it to them.

We quickly made some calls, looking for last minute help to come and load the pickup truck and van we had but funnily enough, everyone we know was working on a Friday. Desperately, we tried to come up with an alternate plan since Grandpa would not take "No" for an answer.
Wonderful Daughter and her friend quickly threw the last items into any available box while I quickly went down to our local Cash Corner where all the city's great unwashed and unemployed hang out hoping to pick up a day's labour.
It was nearly 1 pm by this time but I was "lucky" enough to get two smelly, toothless, practically homeless men to jump into WD's car with me and come back to move furniture. While I was gone getting help, Grandpa managed to fall backwards off the front porch while carrying furniture.

It was the most interesting move we have ever been involved in.

Now that the dust has settled we keep telling ourselves the important thing to bear in mind is, "we are done".
I woke up Saturday morning with a strain of WD's illness that kept me in bed for the rest of the long weekend. However, today we finished the move out cleaning and on a brighter note, the weather has been nice enough for WD to keep the car windows unrolled so, 5 days later, the smell of the Cash Corner Gentlemen is nearly gone.

Final Tally:

We lost out on Penelope's baking, having my little sister come to help and WD's boys getting to play with her youngest son who we had asked to come and babysit while we worked.
The student movers got stiffed since there was nothing left for them to move. The Cash Corner guys got a slap-dash lunch and one kept his second sandwich for dinner that night. (We offered to make him more, he declined) Grandpa got a bruised hip but also the pleasure of knowing he saved WD nearly $50 by not having to hire movers. Too bad the larger storage unit will cost an extra $100 each month.

But, "we are done" and from all accounts, WD and her little boys are settled in and Grandpa loves having them there. We'll see what happens when the Heinous MIL comes back to town in mid June.

I'm certain I will have much more material for some great rants, erm, posts.