The Move

Time. That is what I needed to put between this blog entry and our move. Time brings healing and I needed a lot of it – physical and emotional. I can write this entry now.

I knew that the physical act of moving would be painful. I knew I would feel immense emotion as well. And since that is what I manifested, that is what I got! The days blur in my memory now. But this I remember – our last week in Minnesota was full.

On the Wednesday before our move and Thanksgiving Day, we moved Chris’ possessions into a storage locker. On Friday we drove two cars to Moorhead. My Beetle Bug stayed behind, to live with Brittany. We delivered the trailer to Don and Gloria. Saturday was Matt’s moving day and it took the entire day. I didn’t realize the guy owned so much! Oh wait, he didn’t, it was all the stuff I unloaded on him… Sunday morning we moved more to Chris’ storage locker and then moved Chris to his new home. With each goodbye my heart ached, but I knew the kids were on their own adventure now too. I shed my tears and then moved on.

After months of not being able to see the garage, we were surprised by the amount of stuff we had in the garage that needed to be dealt with. We had no time to sort – everything would go in boxes to be gone through later in Arkansas. It was close to noon on Sunday and we had received several cancellation calls - I wondered if I ordered too much pizza and if we would be able to get everything done in time.

At noon, Gerry, Patty and kids were the first to show up to help load the U-Haul. I was overwhelmed by the magnitude of what we had to accomplish with so few and went into overdrive. By 1:00 more family and friends began to show up and I breathed a sigh of relief. Our closing was set for Monday at noon – we had less than 24 hours to pack up all our possessions and clean the house. And then there was the garage...

We ordered a 24’ truck; God delivered a 26’ truck. We were supposed to pick up the car carrier at the same time, but a last minute problem at U-Haul meant we would have to go to Prior Lake to pick it up. We decided to do that on Monday on our way out of town. As it turned out, we never picked up the car carrier. By 6:00 p.m.the truck was almost full – but we still had furniture in the house and boxes, tubs and garbage in the garage. Jack began giving away tools, ladders, furniture, toys, what ever he could, to get the quantity down. As darkness fell, our family and friends left carting off their new treasures, I shed more tears with each goodbye. At 10:00 Jack closed the door of the trailer and we still had a huge mess on our hands. I shed more tears, said a prayer and went to sleep – I knew we would find a solution on Monday morning.

What a blessing! The spare queen bed didn’t fit in the truck so we slept on it Sunday night. We woke bright and early on Monday morning – fully rested! By 7:00 a.m. we were on the phone with U-Haul and they had a 12’ x 6’ trailer in Bloomington waiting for us. We just had to get there – during rush hour – in a 26’ fully packed truck. You have guessed the implications of this decision, right? There would be no car carrier behind the truck. I would now be driving the car while Jack drove the U-Haul and trailer. Neither one of us was happy about this little twist but we knew it was our only solution.

Jack left to pick up the trailer. I stayed behind to vacuum, clean and finish in the kitchen. Our dear Colleen showed up at 9:00 a.m. and helped us with last minute packing and loading the trailer. We were so thankful for her help as we only had three hours to pack the trailer, clean the garage and get to our closing. At 11:50 a.m. the trailer was packed to capacity – nothing more would fit! We had 10 minutes to get to our closing.

After sending the trash and my wheel barrel home with Colleen, we loaded the cats into the car and headed to the closing. On the way we got a call from our Realtor – the holiday had delayed the closing papers for the buyers and our closing was moved to 2:30. We were anxious to get on the road as we had a long drive ahead of us. Our Realtor made a phone call and arranged for us to sign our portion of the papers, early. By 1:30 we were no longer home owners - it was done. After a quick lunch, we swung by the house to get the truck and trailer. As I climbed into the drivers seat, the cats were moved to the passenger seat. Jack climbed into the truck and started it up.

We simply drove away. No regrets. No tears.

Just terrorized cats. And that – is a story for another day.