Our First Week Here

My last post detailed moving day.  Today, I'll tell you how our week has gone; it's been chaotic.

The Old House

We returned to the old house to clean it up.  We didn't want to leave it all trashy and a draw for pests because we actually like a few of our neighbors.  I ended up taking two more trips to the dump: one to take old cardboard boxes to recycling and another for general trash.  I also cleared rooms, vacuumed the entire house and did some basic cleaning in the bathroom and kitchen.  Meanwhile, Scott took at least three trips back and forth, and I filled up my car for the drive home.  The kids did their best to entertain themselves in the empty and cold house while they waited, though I did put the older two to work a little bit.  That took up most of the day.  We ate out again, did some more unpacking, and collapsed on the couch to watch some Netflix late in the evening.  Right about bedtime Sam started vomiting...great timing.

The Money Pit

Remember that movie from the 80's where the couple buys that gorgeous home and everything breaks on them?  Well, this home has reminded me of that.  Fortunately, it isn't our responsibility to fix everything, but I have spent a lot of time emailing, texting, and calling the leasing agent and working with repair people. 

Our dining room light/fan wouldn't work.  The repair guy they sent over couldn't figure it out either.  Finally, by accident, we figured it out.  There's a switch in the garage for the fan that must be on for the switch inside the house to work.  Plus, the inside switch was sticky and had to pressed just so to work.  He ended up replacing the indoor switch, and we have to remember to leave the switch just outside the garage door on.  Of course, that defeats the entire purpose of having a switch in the garage because when we turn it off at the indoor switch, we can't turn it on from the garage when we enter the house.

And speaking of switches.  After a couple of days, we figured out that the hall way light is the same way.  If you have the switch near the living off, the switch at the other end won't work.

Scott discovered a urine stain/smell coming from a spot on the living room carpet.  We've tried spraying enzyme stuff on it and cleaning it with our shampooer and some pet odor carpet shampoo.  It still smells.

The dishwasher didn't drain the first time we tried to use it, leaving it full of nasty water.  Four days later, they finally got a plumber over to fix it.  Turns out the owner didn't rinse their dishes well enough because it was simply clogged full of food.

The kitchen light fixture was broken and had to be replaced. 

The wood stove cannot be used until the door gasket is replaced.  It hasn't been swept in two years so that has to be done, too.

Oh, and the washer faucets leaked so we couldn't do laundry for four days. When we finally got that fixed, the dryer didn't work.  It turned out that the circuit needed to be tripped and turned back on.

But other than all these little things, we really like the house.  We'll be very happy here once they get it all working right.

Sick Kids

Through all of the unpacking and following repairmen around, the kids have been sick. Sam started it with throwing up Sunday night.  Then Madelynn ran a 103.3 degree fever Monday.  Then Josh came down with a fever and threw up all over his bed, which we couldn't wash because of the dryer.

In the middle of all this, I've been trying to unpack.  I'm finding the kitchen isn't designed for someone who actually cooks.  I've had to put up some shelving for my baking supplies because there's no room for them in the cabinets.  I'm still short space so I'll be using one of our old bathroom cabinets for food storage, as well.  It's been interesting trying to figure out where everything will go.


Neighbors

The neighbors are great, though.  The day we took position, the neighbor to our left came over to introduce himself and explain that a pipe in the garage had a leak he is suppose to fix for the owner.  I'm glad we didn't find out about the leak the hard way.  One of the kids on the other side came over to ask if Mika could play.  Unfortunately, their home's owner let it go into foreclosure so they have to move.  They introduced us to two other girls who live right around the corner.  One is a year older than Mika and the other is a year younger.  I met the mom, we exchanged phone numbers, and the girls all played on their trampoline.  We also met another neighbor across the street from the opening of our cul-de-sac, and she was really nice.

It's been an eventful week!

Our Eventful First Day at the New House

It has been entirely too eventful of a week here; it's our first in the new house.  I'm looking forward to things settling down so we can get back into our normal swing of things.  Here's a blow by blow of the moving day (rest of the week to follow):

Saturday

Saturday was moving day.  We got up early and got the last of everything packed up.  I took the kids to a friend's house 30 minutes away and picked up another friend who was planning to help us move (she was at our friend's house).  The movers, whom we were paying by the hour, arrived half an hour early.  This was not okay with me because we had a bunch of friends arriving on time to help, which we expect to greatly reduce the amount of time it took to move, thus reducing how much we had to pay the movers.  They worked out a flat rate with DH and started loading up.  Meanwhile, our friends arrived, and we set out loading up fragile and odd shaped things into cars, leaving the movers to do pretty much everything else on their own.  After a while, I left to open up the new house and start unloading the cars.

At the new house, my friend opened up the back of my van and our microwave plate rolled out and landed in the driveway, splitting into four pieces.  In the process of picking it up, she shaves\d part of her finger off, and proceeded to bleed for the next hour and a half.  It wasn't a lot of blood, but it just wouldn't clot.  Once I was finally able to leave the house, I ran her to Walgreens, and we got the bleeding stopped in their bathroom with a variety of products.  After that we headed for our friend's house so she could go home and I could pick up the kids.  Meanwhile, Scott was setting up our internet and TV and discovered urine smell coming from the living room carpeting.  Once he finished the setting up, he went back to the old house to get our pets. On the way back to the new house, I got a text to head to the old house instead.  Scott was there trying to get the animals (one of them got loose), and we have too many odds and ends that didn't make it in the truck so we needed to fill my car.

At the new house, we unloaded and ate dinner out before Scott headed back to the old house for more stuff and the last cat.  Fortunately, he was able to nab the cat and made it back to the new place with another load.  We made the beds on the floor and relaxed for a bit with Netflix before crashing for the night.