Too much water

Yesterday as I was unpacking, I noticed what I thought was a wet spot where Liam had spilled some water. But it came back after I dried it. Then it got bigger. By the evening we were calling our landlord about a suspected water leak. I wasn't worried.

This morning it was still there, plus a funny smell. The landlord sent over his handyman, who said it could either be easy, or terrible. He checked the bathrooms, the sink, the fridge, the swamp cooler... all were fine. So it pointed to a burst water pipe under the concrete slab. THAT would be the terrible one. He said he couldn't fix, so I waited several hours for the Roto Rooter guy to come.

MEANWHILE, Liam was being clingly and refusing to eat, John was whining about everything, I was trying to unpack my kitchen, the smell around the leak was growing, and I was hot, sweaty, and tired. I imagined them chopping the concrete under my hallway into pieces while I had to repack everything I had just unpacked and find somewhere else to live. The hole got big enough to necessitate new carpet, tile, walls...

And then the Roto Rooter man finally came, 3.5 hours late. He found even more water -- in John's room, seeping up over the kitchen tile... After drilling some holes through the concrete below the carpet, he determined the leak was not nearly so dire as I had been imagining. It was from the fridge after all.

I hope to see no more water on my floor in the next week!!

Now that was just ONE of the exciting incidents that have happened within a week. The other involves water, too. The Provo River -- it contains more water than my floor did today, but at least that water is supposed to be there.

Moving On

Monday, July 26, 2010.

This has been a very busy week. There is even an entire incident I'll have to save for another entry!

After a six-day stay in a hotel, we drove up to Moab, Utah for a quick visit to Arches National Park. We stayed the night in a hotel and drove into the park the next morning. It was my first time being there, and I alternated between admiring the awesome beauty and trying to figure out how the formations were created.

That afternoon we continued our trip up to the Salt Lake area where we had a reunion for Jeremy's mother's side of the family. I got to see most of my brothers- and sisters-in- law and nieces and nephews, some of whom had never seen Liam before. We all had a really good time.

It ended too soon, and we drove the eleven-hour trip back home yesterday. We slept on the floor last night (except for lucky me who had a nice camp pad).

Today the movers came with all our stuff, bright and early at 8 am. Jeremy had left at 7 am for his first day on the job, so that left me here with the boys, directing the movers. Not a difficult job, but I must have been on my feet a lot – they and my legs are sore.

Now the house feels more like ours, with all our stuff in it. I can see on Liam's face when he recognizes something he hasn't seen for a couple weeks, and it makes him glad.

We found this house about a week ago. It has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room (which we won't be dining in) and a family room. Oh, and a garage! Grass here is extremely expensive – from a water-supply point-of-view – so our medium-sized yard has none. Just rocks, bushes, trees, and dirt. The house is old, and rented homes tend to be on the neglected side, so we'll have a lot of work to do (if we choose) to make it look nice. This afternoon I was scrubbing dirty kitchen cabinets!

Come on over and pitch in a hand! We'll even give you juice and pizza.

So, Here We Are

So, here I am in a hotel in Albuquerque. The kids are asleep, so Jeremy and I are confined to the half of the suite containing our bed and the bathroom. It's a nice hotel that Jeremy's work is putting us up in -- and a nice room -- with the usual pool and exercise facilities. It has a great breakfast every morning, and since it's an extended-stay hotel, dinners for three nights of the week. I can cook simple things in our little kitchen the rest of the time. The boys think it's a blast. So it's definitely not my lodgings that have me in a melancholy mood.

More likely it was going to church today to see not one familiar face, and missing my old ward terribly. Thinking about a project I wanted to try, and that so-and-so or so-and-so could help me with it... wait, they're all the way over there and I'm all the way over here. Driving around looking at all the apartments and houses and feeling so much stress about needing to find the "right one" -- quick, before we leave for a too-soon family reunion.

I'll probably realize eventually that this is just a short transition period, that it's supposed to be hard, and that I should look for my new opportunities here. But maybe I'm just not ready yet.

Moving

So tired now. For more than a week, we decluttered -- removing car loads of stuff to goodwill, the dump, recycling, etc. that we just didn't want to move across the country. Then we spent four days going through the house identifying all of the following things:

1. Things that we wanted to take in the car
2. Things that the movers can't take (liquids, aerosols, etc.)
3. Things we need to leave with the home (paint, fix-it supplies, etc.)

Yesterday we did several loads of laundry to clean all of our clothes one last time before our washer and dryer are taken away.

Tonight we went through everything one last time, did a final dishwasher load, and disconnected some equipment for them to take.

The movers arrive at 7:30AM tomorrow morning. Some great friends from church will have John and Liam so that they aren't under foot. I'm taking the car in to get the brakes tuned at the same time. Monday evening we plaster holes in the walls and touch up paint (with some friends from church). Tuesday we clean, clean, clean (with some great sisters from church). Wednesday I drive off into the sunset. Thursday, Heather and the boys fly out and (hopefully) I arrive in Albuquerque.

We sure will miss Chapel Hill. It's been our home for seven years. There have been so many great things that have happened. (Let's forget the other stuff.) We've made so many friends. We will really miss so much. But Albuquerque is closer to family, has the best job, and is Where We Should Go.

Chapel Hill, thanks for the memories, friendship, and love. Go Heels!

Fine.

My friends have informed me that I need to update my blog. It was news to me that they were even checking it, and I had given up on it -- for the second time.... But since we're moving away soon, I say,

Fine. I'll try again. But only because you're making me.

So it's been more or less crazy since April. Jeremy graduated, so we had his Mom out and threw a big party -- he applied to jobs all over and we didn't know if we were leaving NC or staying -- then we thought we were going to live in Pittsburgh -- then we thought we were going to stay here and I couldn't bring myself to start packing or selling the house -- then it turned out we were going to New Mexico (a "what...?" moment). Jeremy and I took a tiring trip out there where we tried (unsuccessfully) to find somewhere to live. -- Then we started getting this house ready to sell, and I think we (knowingly) gave ourselves less time than usual to do such a thing. Now here we are and think my head might fall off.

We have a few more days to get the house looking like someone would want to buy it. On Tuesday, I take the final which will complete one more class of my BA.

I can tell the stress and/or fatigue is getting to me because my fingernails are all bitten, my stomach frequently hurts, and I'm having some insomnia. I just have to plow through it all until it's done!

Right now I really, really, want some dessert, so it's a shame that I finished off all the brownies last night at 12:30. I dreamed that I found three Hershey chocolate bars in my house, and it was wonderful.