Adventures In Moving

One adventure that everybody tries to avoid is moving. Soon or later, you have to move. The main problem with moving is that the longer you stay in one spot the more junk you collect. This means more junk to move.

Recently, I sold my house. I have been trying to sell my house for a couple of years and finally I got a good offer, which I accepted and had to find a place to move. Therefore, I started looking. I should say I am looking for a place to rent. I would like to buy some land and build my dream home in the near future but for now with my old home sold, renting will do for a year or two.

Finding a suitable place to move to is hard enough by itself. My parameters for a new home were simple. I wanted a house or an apartment; reasonably priced, in town or very near, with air conditioning, a place where I could hook up my Dish Network; available hi-speed Internet availability and allows pets (I have two cats).

After looking at dozens and dozens of locations and I was surprised at the lack of quality of the places I saw. "You will love this place," I kept hearing time and time again. I looked at some of the places but most of them I drove right on by without stopping. However, there were a couple of locations to note.

One particular house that was highly recommended but a little above my price, but to spend they said it was great. "You will love it," they said. They gave me the address over the phone and suggested that I drive by. I drove by, did a quick look and kept on driving. Oh, I did stop by the curb and look at the house for a few seconds. What I found concerned me. First, the front porch, which ran from one side of the house to the other, was at least 1 foot lower on one side than the other. Then I looked at the house. Yes, the house was leaning about 5 degrees. Enough of a lean to be noticeable and enough that I was not interested. I do not want to be in a house when it finally folds over.

I got back with the property owner and told her about the leaning house. She said, "It is an optical illusion. The house is on a hill. Go back and look at it again." Therefore, I went back and stopped. The house was still leaning. I positioned myself so I could line up the sidewall of the house with the sidewall of the house behind it. When the bottom of the side walls were together the tops were a foot apart. Yes, the house is still leaning. I drove off to look at more locations.

Another house was on the low end of the price range because it had hardwood floors and no central air conditioning. Not my choice because of the lack of air conditioning but I would consider it. This house had a full basement but a quick drive by of the house showed me that it the foundation is pushing in on the sides. Mark that house with the leaning one. I do not want to be in a house that has its foundation collapsing in waiting for the house to fall into the basement.

I looked at one 3-bedroom apartment where the master bedroom was about 10'x11' and the other two bedrooms were 8'x8' square. This is a very small apartment. The only bathroom were barely big enough to turn around in and the shower stall was one of the smallest I have every seen. I looked at other apartments that needed at least a coat of paint on the walls. I even looked at an apartment that needed more that a coat of paint, possible an "Extreme Makeover" starting with a bulldozer.

I finally decided on a nice 3-bedroom house across from a small park near the center of town. The house is in a nice neighborhood with lots of kids and families. Finding a place to live was only a part of the adventure. Knowing me, I had to complicate things.

By sheer luck, I had my 2-week vacation scheduled for the time I had to move. My vacation schedule worked to my advantage. I had to schedule my vacation back in January and it is now October. My employer wants all vacations requests for that calendar year turned in by February. How did I know I would sell my house now? I am glad my vacation scheduling worked for me.

Two weeks before I found a place to stay, I had already accepted the offer to sell my house; I decided that I needed to rent a storage garage. At least I could move most of the stuff I have, especially the unnecessary stuff, to my storage garage as I looked for a place. I had a plan. I found a storage place, rented it, and started to move as much stuff as I could before I found a place. You would be surprised at the amount of stuff you have that you do not need right now.

Having a pickup truck is a blessing when you try to move. Each morning I loaded the pickup truck with boxes and stuff that I would not need for while, and headed to town. I packed all this stuff carefully into the storage location. After four days of doing that, and not finding a place yet, I decided to enjoy a day or two of vacation. Heck, it was my vacation after all. This was a week before I selected a place to live. For fun, I went Geocaching. If you do not know what Geocaching is, then search the Internet. You can also visit www.geocaching.com.

The next morning I went off into the woods at a new geocache site listed nearby. Down the trail and towards a riverbank I went. About 200 feet into the woods my hand held GPS told me I was real close. Since I was under the tree cover, I knew my GPS may be off a little bit because of the leaves, so I moved away in a different from the possible cache location back and tracked a course back to the location. After multiple tracks, I confirmed that my GPS was close to accurate under the tree cover. Now, I know where the cache site is and all I had to do was climb halfway down the riverbank to get to the site. Before I started down the riverbank, I turn and look for an easy way down. As I turned I slipped off a rock, hidden in the leaves on the ground under my foot and twisted my ankle. Boy, did I twist my ankle. It hurt! I was done for the day. I hobbled and almost crawled back to my truck and drove home. Hopping into the house, I put some ice on the ankle and sat down for the rest of the day. With my ankle hurting and covered with ice, there was no more moving today.

At this point, I had 3 weeks to get out of the house and I still did not have a place to go. In addition, now I was walking around on crutches (I just happen to have a pair at home). I did consult my daughter, who is a nurse in training and almost has her RN degree, for medical advice for my ankle. Fortunately, I was already doing what she had recommended.

The next morning I still had a lot more stuff to move and no place to move. I did have a storage garage to put things. The house I am selling is about 15 miles from town, so I tried to keep my trips back and forth to town down to a minimum and since I am moving, every trip means a truckload of stuff to load, transport and unload. Besides eating up a bunch of gas driving each way (a gallon each way on the average), it took about 30 minutes each way. After a couple of trips you eat up a lot of time, time which could be been spent on other things. Therefore, I loaded up another truckload of stuff for my daily trip. That was comical to watch. Fortunately, I did not have an audience, but if I did, everybody would be laughing all day.

A normal person would take a minute or two to grab a couple of boxes, carry them to the truck and load them in the back. The truck is backed up to the front door and the boxes could be anywhere within the house but the overall distance between the box and the truck is short. With my sprained ankle, I was a sight to see. Using a hand truck, I put two or three boxes on the hand truck (or dolly as some people call it), tipped it back, and tried to move the hand truck with one hand while trying to walk behind the hand truck with one crutch. This adventure took me about 15 minutes each trip to the truck.

My daughter told me that if I had stayed off my ankle for a week or two, I would be better and the move could go quickly. Not me, I am too stubborn to wait. I knew I had to move. Besides, the more I move now, the less I move later. Therefore, I took my time. However, that did not help my ankle. It still hurt.

To make a long story short, what should have taken three or four days, has now dragged on for almost three weeks. I have one more load to move as of this writing and we hope to be done tonight.

In the middle of the move to the storage garage, I did decide on the 3-bedroom house near the park. It took a few days to get the approval and the utilities turned on. With the help of a borrowed utility trailer and a few people (my daughter and her boyfriend, thanks to both), I got the furniture moved to the new house.

Do I want to move again? No, I do not, but I know I will move again. When and where is yet to be decided. Until then I hope to throw as much junk away that I possible can because I DO NOT WANT TO MOVE THE SAME JUNK AGAIN.