When the Bus Takes a Learning Curve

They say that if you stay in learning mode throughout your adulthood and old age, you can stave off Alzheimer's, dementia and just plain being a boring person who never gets invited to parties. If that’s true, then I’m golden.

The person who moves a lot is in a constant state of learning. We spend the first year doing it wrong, the next year learning how the locals are doing it, and then the rest of the time settling into auto-pilot, until it’s time to move again. And then we have to learn all new bus routes and how to pronounce everyday household objects in an all new way.

Because I’ve lived in the Midwest, the Northeast, the South, the West Coast and the in-a-league-of-its-own-Florida, I’ve spent my entire adulthood learning.

Moving here to California last year, I finally got over my fear of buses. My experience with buses was spotty until then. My only childhood bus ride (besides school buses for field trips) was a trip into Youngstown with my big sister to meet my grandfather. I don’t know why my mom would put us on a city bus by ourselves, but she apparently didn’t have the same fear of buses I had when I was her age. In college, I rarely rode the campus loop bus, because the first time I tried it, I got on the wrong one and ended up out of town at the mall. I explained to my professor that I was sorry I missed class but to make up for it, I would never ride a bus again for 10 years.

What was the learning curve for you during your moves?

But when I moved out here to the city, it made too much sense to take the bus. I had to face my fears and learn how to ride a bus again.

Of course I did it wrong.

I knew where my stop was, thanks to my iPhone GPS. I knew to pull the cord when my stop was coming up. I made my way to the back door, where there was a big sign with red letters that said DO NOT STEP DOWN UNTIL THE DOOR OPENS. The bus driver stopped and then continued on, never opening the door for me to get off.

“What just happened here?” I turned to a woman standing near me. She said, “You have to step down so that the driver knows you’re getting off.”

“But I pulled the thing! It made a ding! And the sign says DO NOT step down.  See? It’s right there.”

“Yeah,” the woman said. “You gotta step down.”

Well that doesn’t make sense. They’re doing it wrong, I thought. But in the end I had to concede that even though I was following the rules, I was the one who was doing it wrong. I learned, though, and now I take the bus often. And bonus - I’m not afraid of any buses now and I never end up at the mall.

There are all kinds of unwritten rules that you have to learn when you move to a new city. Also new customs, pronunciations, and do’s and don’ts. Learning how to ride the bus may have added a year or two to my life of not putting Comet in my coffee and calling my daughter by my sister’s name.

What was the learning curve for you during your moves?

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

That Awkward Moment When Your Bourbon Barrel Won't Fit

Yeah, whatever. I have a bourbon barrel. What about it?

The empty barrel (well, almost empty; it had some aromatic remnants sloshing around in there for the first few months before they either soaked into the wood, evaporated, or one of our teenagers figured out how to put a bendy straw in there) came from Woodford Reserve bourbon distillery in Kentucky. It was a gift to my husband, and like all of my surprises for him, it was awkward.

Getting it home was a feat. Luckily we had a pickup truck (did I mention that we lived in Kentucky at the time?) so I had it loaded into the back and very carefully drove it home. Bourbon barrels are big. And heavy. I had to wait until my son got home to help me get it out of the back of the truck and then we put it on a dolly and took it over to the back stairs to the basement. Then we bumped it down the steps and walked it to the corner of the storage room, where I put the Barbie dream house on it. It remained undetected until his birthday.

The bourbon barrel made two moves with us. From Kentucky to Florida, where it went onto the back patio. The move from Florida to California, however, was another story. The barrel was one of six pieces of furniture (I know, I’m using that term very loosely) that would not fit through the front door and up the main staircase.

Which brings me to today’s moving lesson: If someone tells you that something that you own cannot be moved to your new house, refuse to accept this. Don’t take no for an answer and somehow everything will work out.

In the case of my my move, the six items were: Two box springs, two couches, a baby grand piano, and the aforementioned bourbon barrel.

The confrontation with my moving crew went something like this:

Mover-who-I-nicknamed-Joe Mantegna: “This black couch won’t fit.”

Me: (Nothing) (Not saying anything) (Smile)

Joe: “Yeah, so it gets through the door but when we get to the top of the stairs, we can’t make the turn. It’s too long.”

Me: (Smile)

Joe: “We tried.”

Me: (Smile)

Joe: “Um, yeah, so . . . (Sigh!) Hoo-boy. That’s a tough squeeze there. That is one long couch.”

Me: (Still smiling but my look is becoming a vacant stare. I am becoming bored with this conversation and I’m not afraid to show it.)

Joe: “Yeah, so . . .”

Me: “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”  (Smile) (Return to Bejeweled game on iPad)

And guess what? They did. They brought in a crane and swung that black couch right through the front windows. By that time, they had assembled a small pile of other things that wouldn’t fit through various doorways, stairwells and openings - including the bourbon barrel - and it all worked out. All because I took the position that there was no other option.

It wasn’t until after this happened that I started to read about people who had to sell or give away furniture, not because rooms weren’t big enough or shaped right for the furniture, but because getting the stuff into the house wasn’t going to work. When my sister and her husband moved, my brother-in-law sawed a box-springs in half to get it up a staircase. Then he put it back together and no one was the wiser. It’s that kind of thinking that your movers are going to have to have, if they’re going to end up with nicknames like Joe Mantegna and not Stubborn Weirdo Who I Hate.

I’m not claiming to test the laws of physics; I’m fully aware that two masses can’t occupy the same space (thank you, high school science teacher Mr. Clark) but I also know that during a move, if you refuse to tolerate your movers’ excuses, they’ll eventually come up with a solution.

Because of the crane, my bourbon barrel is now on my upper deck patio, where it holds my glass of wine and my candles from Phoenix. I’d say that’s a successful move.

Other things I've seen on this topic:

The ____ Won't Fit!

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

Take This Job and Move It

I’m putting together some fodder (love that word) for a radio show on work-at-home parents, where I’ll be sharing my wit and wisdom. (Love that phrase - my husband came up with it for me.)

Here’s the thing: If you move a lot - whether you’re a military family who’s PCSing or a corporate relo always on the move or just someone who loves the adventure of living in new places - if you’re the trailing spouse you probably aren’t going to be putting a lot of effort into your own career. Moving for your spouse’s job puts a big stumbling block in your own career path.

I survived several moves during the years in which my husband and I both worked. The out-of-town move that had me looking for, finding and starting a new job was horrible. In addition to the never-ending moving to-do list, I had to buy new work clothes for a different office attire protocol, bone up on required job skills (in my case, page layout. I read two college textbooks on newspaper design and page layout in three days), and work overtime making connections with my new colleagues and community leaders. On the day that the movers were loading our house, I wasn’t even there. I was already at the new place, started my job, and left the moving details to family and friends.

I'd love to hear how you handled a job and a move at the same time.

That move put into motion a working mom hamster wheel for me. The entire time we lived there I felt like I was one step behind in my work, in my child-rearing, in my family obligations and in my personal life. When I was at work, I was stressing about all the things I had to do at home; when I was at home, I was thinking of all the work that I had piling up at my office. It was generally sucky. I blame bad moving mojo.

For my subsequent moves, I was either a stay-at-home mom or working from home or I didn’t mind leaving the job I had. I had to quit jobs because we moved, but I didn’t have to find a new one right away, which put me in unemployment well before our leave date.

I honestly don’t know how the rest of you do it. Moving out while you’re working, moving in while you’re starting a new job - how can you do it? The move itself involves enough challenges to be considered a part-time job. Adding in a “real” job makes it almost impossible.

I can’t think of a better argument for working at home. That’s going to be my message on this upcoming radio show. Being able to work out of your house, wherever that may be, is the mother of all job perks.

I’d love to hear how some of you handled a job and a move at the same time. Did you keep a steady handle on your sanity? Was there any prison time or involuntary commitment involved? Did your boss notice that that piece of strapping tape on the back of your skirt? Or the fact that you were eight weeks past due for a haircut and color?

Let me know. I'd love to go on the radio with your perspective in my tool belt. Comment here or email me at info@homesweethomesbook.com.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

Military Moving Madness

Nobody rocks a relocation better than a military wife. 

I got to see that firsthand this week, when I spent a half hour chatting with Janet and Emily of the Army Wife Network. We talked about moving (PCSing in Army wife lingo), getting kids adjusted to a new home, and some of the funny and not-so-funny things that happen when you pick up and move your life from one place to another.

Some of their experiences moving for the military were not so different from my civilian moves. We all experienced unpacking garbage cans with the garbage still in them (I forgot to mention the time I unpacked an ashtray with ashes still in it), nuts and bolts for beds going AWOL (As I say in Home Sweet Homes what started out as a bunk bed became just a pile of lumber), and having precious possessions lost and broken. The only difference is, these women have done it a lot more than me.

While we were on the air swapping stories about moving, other team members of the  Army Wife Network were busy hosting a Twitter party and taking Facebook comments on the subject. The Facebook convo centered around “the biggest PCS lesson you’ve learned.”

I had to share some of the lessons these ladies have learned. If you didn't already have an overwhelming pride of our military and their families for the sacrifices they make for the rest of us, you will now.

Tracy: Do you have a game plan for your PCS? Great! Now scrap it bc the Army has their own plans and it will be nothing like yours!

Cindy: Biggest PCS lesson: Don't wait until you have paper orders to start decluttering and packing!

Lori: Make sure the dishwasher is empty. Just sayin’.

Cortney: I’ve learned that it is possible to pack 2500 square feet of stuff in one week. Always stock beer and pizza for movers and anyone who helps load. Always pack the safe in the car. A DITY move may be miserable while doing it but, you can use the money from it to get a massage.

Valerie: Never ever PCS without a spool of 550 cord! It makes an EXCELLENT shower curtain ring set substitute when you arrive in a new home but have no way to hang that shower curtain. Can be used to rig up a mattress when the bed slates are MIA. For a pet leash upon discovering the movers packed those. Or a pet tie out too. For an impromptu clothesline when you had to hand wash a few things and now need to dry. And of course to securely strap down all the 'extra stuff' we seem to wind up with after the moving truck has pulled away and now we need to try to stuff into already overstuffed vehicles!  Yup - 550 cord - a PCSing spouses best friend!

Alice: Never let your husband’s co-workers organize and load the truck. They may be able to fit a years worth of gear into a shoe box but give them an empty 26-foot trailer and it is chaos!

Julie: Getting a bigger U-Haul or two big ones next time. We’re a family of 9, yes 7 kids and have a lot of stuff! One wasn't enough! And to try and keep calm n label things during a pcs move!

Joan: Be very nice to the movers.

Terri: Keep the key to the lock on the moving truck in your pocket - Don't hand it to your spouse or anyone else for that matter. You will have NO idea where it is when you arrive and end up having to get a lock cutter only to find the key shortly after you've just cut the lock off.  Also . . . always take pictures before loading and after unloading. You never know what you might find. We don't smoke but our packers did and must have mistaken our tote for garbage.

Rhonda: To remember what is important. Furniture gets broken, household goods disappear, but those can all be replaced. The important thing to me is, if we are PCSing, we are still all together and healthy, planning our next adventure as a family!

Shalee: Make sure you get a big enough truck!!! Had to leave a lot on the curb and a friend had to bring us a truckload. Better to have too much room then not enough.

Teresa: Don’t be shy. Meet your neighbors. They can help you and you might help them. Whatever you're experiencing, your not the first, or the last.

Stephanie: Remember that once a friend always a friend and a lifelong one at that. You may not chat on the phone all the time but when you PCS cross country and need someone to check out a neighborhood for you as they live/lived there once. Don't hesitate to reach out so that you know what you are getting into. We have all been there once and are more than happy to help out.

Sylvia: Make sure that the 'necessities' are really necessities. We had what we thought were just necessities to take with us which was a small trailer with a microwave and our inflatable beds, etc., so that we could cook while we waited for our goods when we finally moved into our home, but it ended up taking up all the space when we finally figured out how much we really could have let the packers take. We thought keeping a 'few things' wouldn't be so much, but it was! So PURGE, PURGE, PURGE!

Julie: If you feed the movers, and give them dessert, they will do anything for you!

Kim: Any sense of control goes out the window the second orders are stamped.

Montana: Thoroughly check your belongings for creepy crawlies, after they've been in storage! A spider bite on your butt is not a welcoming PCS gift! OUCH!!

Kimberly: Always stay at a hotel with a pool so the kids can get all their energy out after a long day of driving towards the new duty station.

Megan: Always make sure you have a pair of shoes! The packers packed all my shoes last time except one flip flop!

Karen: I learned that I have to pack as early as I can instead of last minute b/c then it'll be too stressful on me.

A big thank-you to all who listened in to the show and all the Army wives who participated in the Twitter party and Facebook chatter. You can listen to the show on  Army Wife Talk Radio anytime.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

Get Ready to Be a Tourist at Home

As soon as I get organized, I’m going to start telling you about my Tourist at Home thing. Right now it’s a thing, because it’s too small to be a movement, and too undeveloped to be a project. My Tourist at Home 30-Day Challenge is going to be a blast, as soon as I can stop having so dang much fun myself to stop and tell you about it. To coordinate other people’s fun, apparently you have to stop gallivanting around town yourself.

The idea is to spend 30 days exploring your city, whether you’re a newbie or a lifelong resident, and discovering all the things that tourists find fascinating. Sometimes, especially if you’ve lived in the same town for many years, you might be even less acquainted with what is around you. There is fun and adventure, history and uniqueness right under your nose. Too often, the only people in on the action are visitors and people who have just moved in.

When we lived in New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia, we must’ve gone into the city to see the Liberty Bell at least eight times, not counting the times we took visitors. My next-door neighbor, Gina, would call out to me as we were filing into the mini-van, “Going to the Liberty Bell again?”

“Yep.”

I’d invite her to come along and she’d laugh and go back in the house. Gina was born in South Philadelphia and had lived within a 20-minute drive from Independence Hall her entire life, and she had never seen the Liberty Bell.

“Gina,” I’d tell her, “you realize, don’t you, that school kids from all over the country come here on buses, full of teen BO, spilled juice boxes and tears, just to see the Liberty Bell. Teachers and chaperones risk their lives and sanity to see the Liberty Bell. Hell, even I have to close my eyes and floor it to get into the right lane after I cross the Ben Franklin, just to see the Liberty Bell.”

Gina would look at me with pity and a little derision, laugh and go back into the house.

I was used to teasing for being a “tourist in my own backyard.”  Because we were constantly moving, we saw each new city, in its turn, as an exciting adventure just waiting for us to explore. We would see all the interesting places, start bragging about what a great city we had just moved to, and then the visitors would start arriving. And we’d be in a good position to show them around.

This week our Florida friends came to visit and we did many of the obligatory San Francisco tourist spots. I don’t know who had more fun, our visitors or my husband and I. The giant camera I carry around completes the picture.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll be unleashing my Tourist at Home 30-Day Challenge. So here’s your heads-up: Check out the list and start planning your 30 days of adventure. Post photos on our Facebook page or on Twitter using the hashtag #touristathome. I hope to see photo evidence of your fabulous views, museums, historic sites and monuments. And could someone in South Jersey please go into Philadelphia? I want to see my old friend the Liberty Bell.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

A Little Bribery Goes a Long Way

I heard from a super nice Realtor from South Carolina this week and in telling me about her move from Ohio with two - count ‘em two - teenagers, she told me about the bribes.

We’ve all done it, haven’t we? Worrying about the kids is the hardest thing about a move. If it weren’t for them and their precious stability, self-esteem and security we could rock a relocation, am I right? My concern for my kids during our moves had me a nervous wreck, I have to admit. I was more worried about their first day at the new school, specifically the 30 seconds that they walked into the cafeteria with their tray and stood looking for a table, than I was about the neighbor who may or may not have been a registered sex offender.

So . . . bribes? Heck, yes.

Here’s what Cathy, my new South Carolina Realtor friend, said:

“Oh the bribing that occurred . . . We bought iPods and a souped-up golf cart and even a piercing - LOL! Now looking back it’s comical but it was as stressful as it was exciting.”

What? No tattoos?

I wish I had thought of the golf cart. I promised a pool, then a bigger, better, in-ground pool, both on which I made good. Those were followed by a trampoline and a treehouse, which I backed out on. The trampoline is still brought up by my daughter 14 years later as a sign of my deceptive parenting. The treehouse I had to nix because, while we had a beautiful wooded lot behind our house in New Jersey, that lot was inhabited by black bears, which I was told could climb trees better than a monkey or two middle-school kids hanging out in their cool treehouse.

Giving your child a golf cart or a tree-death-house to soothe the sting of a move is perfectly acceptable. I’m not even sure it counts as a bribe, by definition. It’s more of a prize. Or a reward. Or a get-well-soon gift.

What you’re really doing is saying, “I know this move is going to be hard for you. But there’s a bright side to every life event. In this case, if you weren’t moving, you’d never get this brand new iPhone5!” And they’ll get the unspoken rest of the sentence:  “. . . which you’ll get if you stay positive and don’t whine too much.”

What you want to be careful of, however, is to keep it in the bribe column and out of the blackmail category. I’ve had some tough moves, but I’m proud to say I never threatened to show my kids’ friends their toddler naked bathtub photos if they didn’t help me pack.

Have you ever resorted to outright bribery to get your kids to be happy about a move? Or are you too ashamed to go public with it? Come on! Spill it!

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

Adventures of a First-Time House Buyer

If you've ever gone through the home-buying process, you can relate to the story you're about to read. And if you've ever bought a home, moved, celebrated the holidays with family out of town, gone on a Maui honeymoon, had your car transmission go kaput, and discovered your new home sits on a tree-root-rotting mess - all in about a month's time - then you can really relate to this story.

Lauren and Aaron are a newly married couple whose optimism was put to the test during their home buying and moving adventure. Fortunately, they passed the test with flying colors and can now laugh about their experience.

And you all know how I feel about finding humor in even the worst situations! Here's Lauren and Aaron's story, as told by Lauren, a now-experienced home buyer.

My husband Aaron and I recently bought our first house together! This was icing on the cake after our May 2013 wedding and our scheduled 10-day honeymoon in Maui, which was planned for Dec. 6. We were moving from Seattle to Gig Harbor, Washington, which is only about an hour drive away and we hired a professional moving company to pack and move our things.

It began with a 30-day escrow from us securing the purchase of the house on Nov. 5  at 11 p.m. with a set closing date of Dec. 5, because on Dec. 6 we were already booked to go on our  honeymoon to Maui. We asked the sellers if we could close on the house upon our return and they said no, it needed to be done before we left. The sellers were professional flippers and they had taken our 1980s built house and made it look all pretty  and brand new on the inside in a matter of three months and couldn't wait to get it off their books and move onto the next flip.

Up until 6 p.m. on Dec. 4 we had no idea if the bank was going to approve our loan in time. They had promised they could meet the steep timeline at the beginning of the process, however it required a ridiculous invasion of our financial records, which we have found out is going to now be par for the course when securing a home loan because of the recent changes to the government regulations.

At 9 a.m. Dec. 5 we drove to Bellevue, Washington, on the east side of Seattle, to the title company to sign the papers. I was excited, this being my first home purchase! Aaron was stressed as all get-out and was "done with the whole process" because of all the back and forth with securing the loan.  It seriously started to become a full-time job for him, our financial advisors, bank and Realtor. We sat down in a conference room and were rushed through signing the title documents so they could get it to a courier to drive it down to the county we were moving to in order to file the papers that same day. We kept getting interrupted by a women telling us we needed to hurry up and sign everything, which was super annoying. At the end of the paper signing there was no "congratulations" or hand shake or giving us the keys, just that someone should call us around 5 or 6 p.m. that evening confirming that everything was filed.

As we got in the elevator I started to tear up and was attempting to have my tear ducts re-absorb my tears back into my eyes, but it wasn't working. Aaron hugged me and apologized that the whole process was so stressful. Tears streaming down my face the elevator door opened on the first floor to some huge company having their Christmas party in the lobby with caterers and a barista (Hello - it is Seattle) and there were tons of people looking at me with my puffy, red eyes as Aaron held my hand as walked through the parking lot to the truck. We sat in Aaron's truck and I was able to catch my breath and my sadness turned to frustration at the title document lady for not being more hospitable. Aaron started the truck and put it into reverse to back out of the parking space and nothing happened....the truck went nowhere. Side note:  If you know Aaron you know that he knows the tire pressure in all of his tires at all times and takes AMAZING care of his truck. Confused, he put it back in park and then in reverse again and pressed on the gas and the truck didn't move, it was as if he had put it in neutral. I could actually hear the sound of his blood pressure rising by the millisecond, as he turned the car off and tried the sequence again. We both could clearly hear that the transmission was not turning over into reverse, it would go into drive, park and neutral but not reverse. He immediately cut the steering wheel, told me to stay in the car, and began pushing his truck out of the parking spot.

Meanwhile I am trying to be positive and attempting to make up some car malfunction that would be cheaper to fix than needing a new transmission, and that clearly was NOT helping. He jumped back into the car and I immediately pulled out my iPhone looking for the nearest Chevy dealership. As luck would have it there was one less than a mile away so we drove in silence as the automated voice told us to make a few turns and we pulled into the dealership . We walked into the service center at which point the service guy asked us "how are you doing today?" to which Aaron said, "Not great, I just bought a house 5 minutes ago, my wife is upset by the process, and I think my transmission just went out." They were able to look at his truck that day and they called Enterprise Rent-a-Car for us and roughly 20 minutes later we found ourselves driving a Ford Focus to Denny's of Bellevue to get something to eat and have a chance to sit down and comprehend the morning. We needed to go home to finish packing for our honeymoon for which our flight took off at 8 the next morning.

Around 2 they called and said the best thing would be to get a new transmission. He would have a 100,000 mile warranty on it, and at $3,500 vs $2,900 it was a better value that just trying to fix part of the transmission. At this point we are like "OF COURSE THIS WOULD HAPPEN!" The Chevy dealership said it was fine if we picked up the truck when we got back from Maui in 10 days and we left it at that.

We had an amazing honeymoon in which we didn't think about our upcoming move, the truck or anything else. We enjoyed going whale watching, sitting by the pool and beach, attending luaus and enjoying $5 Bloody Mary happy hours at the pool every day.

After getting back from Maui we had planned two days later to drive the 10 hours to Montana to spend the holidays with Aaron's parents and so we unpacked our bathing suits and shorts and repacked, including things like long-underwear and multiple pairs of gloves and scarfs.

In January we were extremely excited to move out of Seattle and into the 'burbs' where we could have 2,400 square feet of house, beautiful tall fur trees and be able to have a conversation without our neighbors hearing us and inserting their opinions like they were included in the convo. The town of Gig Harbor is an old-timey fishing village that is surrounded by  Puget Sound on almost every side. We are not beachfront by any means but we enjoy a nice ocean breeze from time to time and a peek-a-boo water view from our bedroom.

The movers came on Jan. 9 to pack all our things and stack our boxes to the ceiling and returned on Jan 10 to load the truck and follow me to the new house. Aaron had to be at one of his facilities that day. We parked our cars out of the way of the moving truck so they could pull right up and connect their ramp to the front porch of the house. The movers got all our boxes into the house and beds set up by around 4 p.m., with somewhat minimal scratching of our newly painted walls.

At this time we took a deep breath and looked at the large tasks in front of us of UNPACKING, ugh! We both realized there was so much work to be done and we had no food in the house. Since Aaron works from home 50 percent of the time, his priority was getting his home office set up ASAP. I had no energy to get back in the car and go to the grocery store for the basic staples but with encouragement from my husband and minor amount of whining on my part I took my car and went to Safeway to get Chinese food from the prepared food section, bread, milk, flour tortillas and shredded taco cheese because those are our staples. When I returned from the store it was pouring rain and windy so I pulled all the way into the driveway and as close to the front door as I could get so as not to get wet. Even though the Seattle/Tacoma area is known for rain, it rarely rains hard enough that requires a raincoat or umbrella. Since I had no idea which box my additional sweatshirts were in and the suitcase I had packed with a few days of necessities was blocked by the MANY boxes just unloaded by the movers. I unloaded the groceries, organized the Chinese food at the coffee table in the living room, we ate, and then continued to unpack until roughly 11. As we went to bed I noticed how nice it was to hear the patter of rain on the roof and the breeze in the trees. In our old house our bedroom was in the basement and it was like being in a room on a cruise ship with no port-hole and if you didn't have a clock next to your bed you would have no idea what time of day it was.

We slept great that night and Aaron woke up like clockwork at 7:30 on Saturday morning. The wind and rain had stopped and I was lying in bed enjoying my view of the beautiful green trees surrounding our house.  From all of the windows in our house you look out and all you see is green - it's awesome. It was so quiet in the house until I heard "HOLY S&#%!"and "F*#% Me!" coming from just outside our bedroom door. To be quite honest this didn't even startle me because of the other profanities that had been yelled over the last few days. Aaron ran back into our bedroom yelling that there was a tree laying across our driveway and he immediately picked up his cell phone and ran outside. This made sense since it was windy and there were little tiny trees and brush all over our yard. I got up and looked out the window and was completely blown away with what I saw.

This was not just "a tree." This was one of the largest trees on our property. I went outside to see this massive tree laying next to my car, Aaron's truck, our 19-foot camping trailer, the beautiful rhododendrons lining the inside of our driveway, and the house, all of which had escaped without a scratch. Aaron was already on the phone calling tree removal people as it had blocked both our cars in, making it impossible for us to leave. I grabbed my camera and started clicking away. Aaron was able to reach one tree removal company on a Saturday morning. The owner, Brett, said his crew was on another job that day in Tacoma, but said he would come over himself, so we could at least get our cars out of the driveway. He arrived within a few hours and we ran outside to greet him. (Also, before he arrived we had Home Depot delivering out new washing and dryer). Brett took one step out of his Jeep Liberty and had a huge smile on his face. He was like "this was not at all I was expecting when you said you had a single tree laying across your driveway." He observed the relation to our cars, our new house and camping trailer at which point he said "MAN, you hit the jackpot!!!" He apologized for only bringing one chainsaw with him and that his crew wasn't available today and he immediately got to work cutting up the large rounds in the pouring rain while Megan, his girlfriend and business partner, was keeping the car warm.

We unpacked and watched over the next 2-3 hours while he cut up this 105-foot fur tree. All of a sudden we heard the doorbell ring and it was Megan saying that Brett had taken a wood chip to the eye and had scratched his eye pretty bad and she was going to take him to urgent care and have his crew come back from their other job to finish up at our house. I already felt bad that he was out there in the pouring rain cutting up and hauling heavy logs, missing watching one of the Seahawks play-off games on TV, and now I felt even worse.  We said "don't worry about it, just take care of yourself!" and they pulled out of the driveway. We again said "OF COURSE" this would happen!

Fifteen minutes later another ring at the doorbell and it was Brett. He had removed the wood chip  himself as they pulled into the urgent care parking lot and was OK to finish the job. We smiled and were overly appreciative of his help, kindness, and only charging us $100 to clear the driveway and cut up the tree. We had already established a relationship with this company before we even moved because we had already observed at least 5 trees on our property that were leaving on or near the house that we wanted to have cut down. If you had given me 10 guesses as to which trees would have fallen in a wind storm the tree that fell would not have been on that list so we got incredibly lucky. Bret finished clearing the driveway and we made an appointment for them to come back the next day to give us a quote on the other trees we wanted removed.

The next morning Brett and Megan showed up and all four of us walked around the property and they educated us about the trees native to this area and what we actually had sitting on our property. I forgot to mention that the home owner before the flippers was a guy who walked away from the house and let it go to hell in a hand basket and apparently used to just throw trash in the back yard because it quote "made the animals happy" despite MANY of the neighbors complaining. The brush is so overgrown that the ground can never dry out and the tree roots get so saturated they just breakdown. Apparently the roots of 100-foot fur trees do not spread out at all and are not very wide so can easily be compromised in a wind and rain storm, especially when there is a lot of brush and smaller trees compromising the root structure and hogging all the nutrients. A positive outcome of this is that Bret and Megan are so nice, around our age, and only live about 15 minutes away and through talking with them we have found we have a lot in common. Brett and Aaron have already bonded over hunting and outdoor stories to which Brett responded "oh darn, I guess we are going to have to be friends."

Overall we learned A LOT during this entire process. I have learned the importance of not letting the process of moving stress you out. It can be REALLY hard to do that for some people (my husband) but can be done because it is what it is and eventually a long time from now we will think, "Hey, remember when we bought our first home?"

What's your moving story? Share it with us at diane@dianelaneyfitzpatrick.com.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.