My goodness, it has been a hot minute y’all! But I’m back and we are pretty settled into the new house. The last time I blogged was the day we closed on the sale of our previous home (although I didn’t mention it). We closed on the new house just over 5 weeks ago. We had negotiated a leaseback on the old house to give us time to move, and an early move-in into the new house. We were in NC so long I just didn’t have the time to pack like I should have for the movers and we knew the old owners had moved out 2 weeks prior. This was all happening on Easter weekend. It was a lot. We needed as much time as we could get.
Then somehow (I’m guessing from my realtor to the buyers’ realtor), the buyer of our old house got wind that we were moving in early into the new house and they were trying to get us out sooner, SMFH. Look now, we were not “moving in” to the new house, we were just “moving things” into the new house that I didn’t get to pack up. Mainly loose and decor items like wall art, picture frames, tons of linens I had packed in trash bags, toys, etc. So I told them to hold up. It was not even any of their business. It is Easter weekend. My movers, fragile packers, and pool table movers are all scheduled for the normal times they were before we even negotiated an early move-in to the new house, the Monday and Tuesday after Easter Sunday… so no, we are not “moving-in” early! That annoyed the fuck out of me. We still need the same amount of time we negotiated weeks ago on our contract.
We got the keys on Good Friday and Ryan had to work the weekend so I moved in a couple loads on my own and my brother and sister-in-law helped me take several loads to the new house while my Tia (who was visiting from out of town) watched all the kiddos at my brother-in-law’s place for us! Thankfully the billiard place called and were able to move up the pool table move so that was a blessing. I felt like everything was falling into place.
Sunday was Easter and we had a great time at my cousin’s house. We ate, drank, did age group egg hunts and cracked tons of cascarones on everyone’s heads. We were able to take some good family pics, except for my family, of course. <insert eyeroll here> Between Ryan hating pictures and my girls having sensitive eyes when it comes to the sun, so all they gave me was closed eyes, squinty eyes or complaints… we got like one decent family picture. I really wanted a good picture to print and put in the new house, but nope, it wasn’t even good enough for that.
Anyway, on Monday my fragile packers came. They did my whole kitchen and all fragile decor and bedroom closets. This was our last night in the house. On Tuesday, I got up early and took Erian to school and picked up breakfast for me and Cis. The movers showed up right at 8am and were ready to go. The truck was HUGE! And I was grateful because I didn’t want any extra trips! They took everything apart and packed it in the truck. Even things I didn’t think they would take. When I booked it they said no “loose items” or “unboxed items” would be taken, but they did anyway. Hallelujah! They finished around 12:30 or 1pm and were going to meet me at the new house to off load everything after they went and ate lunch.
Man, it was stressful because I was literally doing everything by myself. If something went wrong it was all my fault. I couldn’t even share the blame with Ryan LOL. Thankfully, my sister-in-law came over on move day as much as she could so I wouldn’t be there alone with the movers. Well, I had Cicely with me too of course. It’s hard to keep a 2 year old happy when there is literally nothing for them to do but watch something on the phone, but I needed my phone too so I didn’t even have that option SMH. But she had my niece with her so she’s always helpful with the little ones. We sat on the back porch for a while just to stay out of the movers’ way. But eventually they had to take that from us too, so we had to move to the kitchen and just stand and watch LMAO. My niece was only visiting and my sister had to take her to the airport, so Cicely went with them while I stayed back to finish up with the movers.
I met the movers at the new house and gave them a tour. They were pretty good with remembering where a lot of things went. I did have to help more now since the floorplan is different and some things had new homes in the house. But they really did do a great job. They broke down all the furniture, beds, bunkbeds, etc. to get it packed in the truck and they put them all back together in the new rooms, so that was super helpful. When they were finished around 5pm I had to get Erian from school and go back to the old house to clean it. I was supposed to have one extra day but as I mentioned, the buyers were adamant that we get out as soon as possible so my realtor said just do my best. I cleaned as well as I could with a dog and 2 little girls running around and fighting in an empty house. But if they wanted to shoo us out they weren’t going to get the deep clean I planned to give them had I had another day, sorry folks. There were a few things left behind and I had to pack it all in the van and even had my brother-in-law come get some things with his truck on his way home from work that wouldn’t even fit. Ryan was still at work and I was fucking exhausted. It was a long ass day y’all and these kids were not making it easier.
So that was it. I cleaned, left all the keys and garage openers on the counter, packed up the girls and Smokey, did one last tour, and we drove away waving, looking back and saying “bye house!”. It was bittersweet. 5 years, 2 babies, countless parties and blessings, and it was no longer ours.
I drove to the new house and picked up dinner on the way, it was almost 8pm, and there we were… home.
