Moving is NOT fun

By Scott

As I write this post I am in my second to last day as a practicing lawyer and Kathleen and I are just 10 days away from our move to the Caribbean. We are now living in an empty apartment with our clothes and stuff we are taking to the Caymans, some TV trays, cooking implements and an I-home for our clock/radio/alarm. On Friday Kathleen oversaw a massive move that involved the complete removal of all our furniture and then a two phase trip for dropping stuff off, first to her parents home and then on to a storage facility. Katie had packed up just about everything, telling me that for the good of our marriage she would oversee everything and do it since we have such different philosophies on moving. She wants to move stuff in a timely fashion where as I want to delay and procrastinate and generally deny that I actually have to move until right up to the point where it absolutely has to be done. It meant that every morning last week I left to go to work and in the evening when I returned another room was completely packed. She did an awesome job and I am extremely lucky that she knew what to do because if it had been left to me we would still be dealing with it. I'm just not good with moving and the process of choosing what to take to Kevin, what to store with Gary, what to put in the facility and hardest of all, what to sell/donate when you have 36 years of stuff is no fun at all.

We spent Friday night at her parents house, which by the way is perhaps the best place in the whole world to do a garage sale. They are right on the corner of a major connecting street in Duncanville so we got a huge amount of traffic. Thanks to Russ and Gail who were incredible not just in letting us use their yard and driveway but also in letting us store stuff the night before, getting us limeaides during the hottest part of Saturday, getting lunch from Whataburger, helping translate and even moving some stuff for us. Thanks also to Stephanie who let us use her room Friday night.

Katie and I got up at 5 a.m. on Saturday and started moving everything out into the driveway and yard. We were selling our entire bed set with the two side stands and chest of drawers, our big couch, our kitchen set, 5 book cases, our patio set, electronics, TV stand and a whole lot of smaller items. We sold two of the book cases at 6:15 a.m. when a nice elderly lady walking by saw us setting up and bought them. She asked if I could deliver them right around the corner since her husband was in Nigeria with Wycliffe (ironically the organization Katie's parents worked for bible translating in Indonesia) so that was an auspicious beginning, except for the fact that right around the corner was really about three blocks and making two trips with the book cases I was winded and it wasn't even 7 a.m. yet our official start time. Traffic was constant all morning and early afternoon. We had placed an ad and I wish we had asked more people if they were drive by traffic or coming from the ad just to know, the ad was only 14 bucks but we probably could have gotten by without it. Some were definitely from the ad as they mentioned things that clued us in to that but most had to be drive by and I think all the big items went to drive by people who saw all the stuff out. We reached our financial goal by noon and still had the bed set. We eventually sold the bed set at a pretty reduced amount from our original number but it was getting late in the afternoon and we wanted to get rid of it. We ended up making enough to pay for our movers and give us some spending money for the Seattle trip coming up. It started to rain around 4 so we wrapped everything up. Russ and I took everything we had left to Goodwill and donated it. After dinner with Russ and Gail to thank them for everything it was back to the apartment for Katie and I and an early bed time for both of us.

When we woke up Sunday morning every muscle in our bodies ached. We had been moving furniture all during the garage sale and used muscles I at least hadn't used in a while. We had slept on an air mattress which is fine for one person but with two every time someone moves the air shifts and the other person feels it, so not the best of sleeps. Sunday afternoon it was back to Duncanville and a Mother's Day dinner for Gail, Russ grilled some steaks and we had picked up some steamed shrimp. A nice dinner that was actually our last Sunday dinner with Katie's family (a weekly event) for a while.

Kathleen has been really incredible getting the move done. I have not been handling it well. I don't react well to change and she has had to hold my hand every step of the way. Once the change is made I am fine but the process is no fun. We picked up a web cam and microphone Sunday and it is up and working. Please email Katie (she is also our tech person) to figure out which service to use (Windows live messenger, MSN. Yahoo etc.) so we can talk online. When we get to the Caymans we will be getting cell phones but International calls are way too expensive so we want to talk to everyone on line.

We head to Seattle Thursday to spend five days visit her relatives and mine. We plan to spend time with family, do some hiking on the peninsula and on San Juan Island and basically refresh and recharge. Next Tuesday we are doing Six Flags and then Wednesday is the catch all day to close out any remaining accounts, deal with any apartment issues etc.

We do still have a couple of government hoops to clear both in the US and Caymans. Our work permits are still before the Caymans Immigration board and awaiting approval. They were to be considered last week and we are hopeful that we get the news soon on those. Ironically it is the US govt and the passport mess that is a bigger concern. We put in the paperwork 13 weeks ago to get a name change (normal processing time is 4-6 weeks) on Katie's passport and still haven't gotten it back. They are so backlogged because of the law change for all people flying out of the country that they aren't even addressing issues until you are two weeks from your date of travel which for us is May 24. So last Thursday Katie called and after several attempts to get through finally got a customer service person and was told they would send an emergency email about our situation and we should call back Tuesday the 15th in the afternoon. They even asked what time we leave on the 24th to see if they could get us the passport the morning that we travel (we leave early so we have to have it by the 23rd). What a mess, but a good reminder to everyone get your passport stuff in now if you want to come visit, as bad as it is this year, it will be worse by an order of many magnitudes next year when it extends to road and cruise travel.

We will try and do an entry while we are in Washington. Thanks again to the Loski's for all their help on the garage sale.