The Move From Hell Part 1--In Which We Get the Brilliant Idea to Move!

Anyone who knew me growing up knew that my family moved a lot. I lived in two countries and had been to three different high schools in three years by the time I graduated. And with the exception of the last high-school move, I was pretty positive about the process. I liked to travel, to see new places, to meet new people, etc etc etc.  My husband, by contrast, lived in the same house his entire life and his first move was clear across the Atlantic from Europe to the U.S., which--if I understand him correctly--was a bit of a disaster wrapped in trauma and topped with a dollop of frustration. In other words, he wasn't too keen on moving after that.

Old apartment, Christmas 2010

The apartment that I had been living in for the past three years, and my husband with me for the last one year of those three was a pretty comfortable 1 bed-1bath deal north of the city. For a woman living alone with her cat, the place was downright spacious, and with the two of us it was still pretty cozy. It WAS an older building with all its old-building foibles, but those aside it was a pretty nice place.






Then, this past year, we decided that we should probably start thinking about moving. It was a pretty ephemeral idea at first--more space? Better parking? Shorter commute to work/school? Hmmmm.
And THEN over the winter circumstances occurred that led us to an irresistible offer: a 2 bed-2bath apartment right in the heart of downtown, with garage parking, for unbelievably affordable rent. Were we interested? Hell yes, sign us up!
This past week we boxed up all of our things with a plan to move on Saturday, with help from my parents and siblings. That is, until we got a notice from this new building that we could not move in on Saturday, that the building did not allow move-ins on the weekend. Okay, we said, we will move in on Friday. One day earlier, a bit more frenzied packing, but that's cool, it will give us the weekend to unpack and sort everything, right?
Right. Except for the fact that we ended up not moving in on Friday, either.
What ACTUALLY happened was we moved OUT of our old apartment on Friday, got to the new place, got told off and scolded for being too late to move IN to the new place, and basically told we were out of luck til Monday. In the meantime, all of our stuff was stuck on a moving truck and we had a bag of dirty laundry, an obscene amount of wine, and an air mattress (but no pump) in our car to tide us over til Monday.
To say we were frustrated was an understatement. We were both supposed to work on Monday, so I called my boss, who was kind enough to work some schedule magic that allowed me to close Monday night, rather than work my midday shift.
We went to Target to pick up some things we knew we would need over the next two days (air mattress pump, cat food, popcorn--yes, we needed it, SAYS ME) then went for dinner, picked up the cat (who we had left at the old place under the assumption that it would be easier for her if we unloaded the moving truck first and then came back for her that evening. Alas) and went back to our new, very empty abode.

And that was when things took a turn for the truly annoying.

More on this tomorrow! For now, sleep must happen so I can get to work on time tomorrow morning.

Katherine