It's been a long time...

since I posted here. Much water has gone under the bridge.

In a nutshell:

We received an offer for our Florida house which we accepted. Unfortunately, they were first time buyers and nervous as hell, and they drove us nearly around the bend. Up until the day before our 11/21/08 closing, we still weren't sure that they would close!

On Wednesday the 19th, the movers came. We'd received a reasonable estimate which was supposed to include a small but significant amount of packing - our dishes, pictures, lamps, clothes hanging in our closets. When they arrived - 7 hours later than promised - they were NOT prepared for ANY packing. The 5+ hours that followed were a nightmare of listening to their complaints and watching them pack things in jerry-rigged boxes because they didn't have the promised wardrobes, etc. It was horrendous. I'd tried to make clear that some of the items were to go to the house and some to the storage unit, but they paid no heed to my suggestions, and just tried to fit it all in. And to top it off the guys were thugs - really unpleasant, angry people who yelled at each other and complained and back-stabbed. I left on Friday morning, driving all the way with Chino and Roxy, and arriving completely exhausted, with the beginnings of a cold, to unseasonably cold weather!

The movers arrived Saturday morning an hour earlier than predicted - 8:00 a.m. It was freezing cold, in the single digits, and with a biting wind blowing. Anthony was still on the road from Columbia, where he had spent the night. It was determined that most of the stuff needed to go to the storage unit, we went there first. As I had feared, things that should have gone to the house were all mingled with storage-unit items. We had to look INTO unlabeled boxes (packed but not labeled by the movers) to figure out which was which. It took them 6 hours to unload, first into storage, and then at the house. I absolutely would NEVER recommend FATHER AND SONS MOVING to ANYONE! The fellow who gave me an estimate was completely inaccurate in describing what we wanted and the supplies we'd need, and even his co-workers were furious with him.

When they had finally driven off, we were left in our single-wide that was so jammed with boxes we could barely move from one end to another. I was feverish by then and feeling dreadful. But at least, the thugs were gone. I decided I could live with what was broken, and we could finally "relax." HA! With all those boxes everywhere, we couldn't relax. There was no PLACE to RELAX. But we were at least HOME in our new place. Thank heaven for small favors, as my mother used to say!