The Process of Moving

I seriously thought this summer was going to allow us to get back to normal.  I knew life would never be normal but it seems like something we don't want to happen always happens at the wrong possible time.  We just could never get ahead.  Over the past three years we've had to deal with a lot of stress, heartbreak and worry.  It was really wearing on us.  I felt tired all the time and just wanted a routine, something constant.  I had finally gotten a permanent full time job, Ben finally got some more hours and was bringing in more money, we had gotten rid of a dead beat roommate, Erika moved back in and was helping with rent and bills and it's been about 8 months since we lost Grammie.  I never knew what loss and grief actually felt like until that day.  I would trade my full time permanent job any day if that meant Grammie could be here with us still.  Realistically, I know that isn't possible.

April 29th I went to work and at lunch time I received a text message from Ben.  It said, "give me a call when you get a chance please.  I have some news to share and unfortunately it's not good news either.  It's not anything to do with work.  It's about our living situation."  I didn't get the greatest service inside the building so I went outside to talk to him on the phone.  He explained that we would have to move by June 30th because our landlord wants to move back into her house.  I was so upset.  That meant we had to find another place to live, spend a whole hell of a lot of money to move (fees, rent, move-in costs, deposits, pet deposits, gas) and I just hated life the rest of the afternoon.

For two weeks we painstakingly looked for a new place to live based on our criteria.  We needed at least a two or three bedroom with two bathrooms, pet friendly (for Calvin and Emmett), a fenced in yard (for Emmett), something not super far away from work, required no freeway to get to work and I preferred a place not next to large trees.  Ben found a few places but those agents for some reason didn't want to get back to us or the listing was old and someone already lives in those houses.  I was getting frustrated.

We finally got lucky and an agent finally got back to us.  Ben drove me over after work one day to go see the place.  It was larger than the house we had to leave, it had four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large garage, a fenced off yard, it was at the end of a cul-de-sac, the washer dryer hook up was in the garage (which was weird), hardwood floors and the driveway was flat.  It even came with its own crop circle in the front yard.  I liked the place and saw the potential in it.  Ben really wasn't a fan but he would learn to like it.  He called and asked when we could move in.  She said that the could prorate us if we wanted to move in on May 10th.  We explained our situation to them.

Ben had called ReMax to find out if we could move our move out date up sooner because we found something.  She said she can see what she could do and talked to the landlord.  The best she could do was June 15th.  We were all going to lose so much money but June would be prorated.  Luckily, we had been saving up money to pay for all of it.  It was a huge hit to all of us.

We technically moved in on May 10th after our walk through but didn't start living there until Memorial Day Weekend.  Everyday after work I would load up stuff and drive it over to the new place.  It was mostly the bins in the garage and the other stuff we weren't using currently.  I took all the stuff off the walls and took it over, a lot of our towels, pillows and blankets were crammed into the Escape and brought over.  Over the next couple weeks we managed to take at least two car loads of stuff over.  We would need help with the beds, the couch, the dressers, desks, the fridge, the shelves, etc.  Basically, the large things we can't get in the cars.  I set a date for people to come over and help us.  I chose Memorial Day weekend because it was a long weekend and I knew people were not going anywhere.

May was a really long month because it marks a year since Grammie had her stroke and we were forced to move and it wore on us.  I was thankful that I had family to help us along the way or it would have been very hard to get everything done before June 15th.

Next Adventure:  Skamania Stone House, Columbia Hills State Park, Rowena Crest and Fall Creek Falls