Feeling Better

Well, I’m feeling a lot better now. With the help of our friends and church members we got the moving truck packed last night and Michael and I have worked hard the last few weeks to cross most of the things off of our To Do list (at least most of the things that really have to be done before we move). We used the ABF moving company, where you pack the truck, they drive it across the country, and you meet them there and unpack it. When Michael reserved the moving truck they estimated that we would need about 12 linear feet out from the back of the truck, but we knew that for each foot more you use over the 12 feet you have to pay an extra $140 (and for each foot less you get an extra $140 taken off of the cost). So, we were very pleased that after much rearranging of the boxes and furniture in the truck we were able to get it down to about 8 feet and save several hundred dollars. They picked up the truck tonight and we still have to wait until Tuesday afternoon when Michael will be done with work here before we can get on the road. (The moving company required a certain number of days in order to guarantee an exact arrival date, so we decided it would be better to send off our stuff early and live out of suitcases here at Grandma’s house where we have furniture, dishes, etc. than to get out to the new house and have to wait several days for our beds and stuff to arrive). So we are now living out of suitcases, and all we have with us are our clothes and little things we need on the drive out there and any breakable items that I have wrapped in blankets to put in Michael’s car (that we will be towing behind the van) on the drive out there.

We got a couple of repairs done the other day on the van, and now it is in great shape for our long drive. And I now have almost all of the major cleaning and little repairs done here at Grandma’s house (except I am waiting to scrub the dining room floor and put Grandma’s rug back under the table until right before we leave because I don’t want the kids getting the floor and rug dirty). Grandma’s hard drive crashed again (this is the 3rd time since we have lived here this year, on her 2nd computer in that much time – I don’t know what’s causing this problem, but I am getting pretty quick at opening up her computer and replacing the hard drive by now). I installed her latest hard drive replacement today and am now finishing uploading all her programs and saving all of her backed-up files back to her computer for her. While I’m typing this I’m just waiting for iTunes to finish converting all her music so I can upload her songs to her iPod for her too.

Michael’s continued to have a pretty rough schedule at work this month, and I doubt it’s going to get much better before he finishes on Tuesday, but at least he only has 4 more days – although tomorrow is another overnight 30-hour shift (*note to all of our med school friends: try to get an elective your last month of your internship year if you will be moving for residency, and try to take your vacation week the very last week of the month if you can so you can have more time to pack and move). We are so close to having a dermatology schedule, though . . .
We have almost all of our utilities set up for the new house, fixed the break light on the car tonight, are getting last minute things figured out for the closing on the house, set up a bank account for New York, and finally received the check for the van from the insurance today, so things are going pretty well. After a long month of surgery call nights, stressing about the insurance, packing at the last minute, and feeling like I didn’t even have an extra minute for anything that wasn’t productive; I now feel like I can breathe again. We still have to get across the country, but it feels like we’re pretty close now.

I even had time today during the boys’ naps to work on a fun project I started a few months ago for the new house. We are planning on having the boys in two bedrooms and having an office/craft room/library/guest room. So, I think we’ll have Kolby and Camden in the bedroom that is currently painted white, and they will be in the bunk beds. And Eli and Isaac will be in the blue bedroom – Eli in the bed that Grandma gave us that used to belong to my dad, and Isaac in the playpen at first and then in the toddler bed later (or maybe we’ll switch him to the toddler bed when we move, we’ll see). And Courtland can continue to sleep in the swing until he grows out of that and then we’ll decide which bedroom he can be in (in the playpen – the good old crib that was used by me, my four siblings, and my three oldest boys was in hard shape and we had decided not to take it with us when we move, and it actually collapsed today). So, I am so excited to actually decorate the boys’ rooms when we move. Keeping in mind that we know we will be selling the house in a few years, I’m going to try to use shades of paint that aren’t too taste specific. So, for Kolby’s and Camden’s room my mom gave me some of the Noah’s ark decorations from my brothers’ room when they were younger, and I have used my birthday/Christmas money to get a couple more fun things for the Noah’s ark theme, and I want to paint that room some shade of green – haven’t quite decided on that yet. And they will have the bunk bed and matching dresser that my parents gave us. And then in Eli’s and Isaac’s room I want to do an airplane theme. So I’ve gotten a few cool antique-looking metal model airplanes at Ross and painted them with blue, tan, and white. I also found a cool photo on the internet of clouds and I blew the photo up, cut it in half, and printed each half on separate pages and framed them so we can hang them next to each other on the wall. I also found a couple cool old black and white postcard photos online of biplanes and printed those put for a double frame my mom gave me. And on the last airplane I got there is a really nice color of light blue on it that I am thinking of having matched to paint that bedroom. I have three airplanes now and am planning on getting at least two more and hanging them from the ceiling so it looks like they are flying. (I’ve taken photos of each plane before and after I painted them, so I’ll have to post those sometime too). And in that bedroom there will be the bedroom set that used to be my dad’s and the toddler bed. So, we’re actually all set for furniture for the entire upstairs of our house (except one dresser to go in the master bedroom). Well, if you can’t tell, I’m really excited about this house, and I could go on and on about my plans for it, but it’s almost 1am and even though this iTunes thing for Grandma isn’t even close to being finished (and I really wanted to get it done tonight so I didn’t have to spend time on it tomorrow when the kids are awake) I think I’d better get some sleep (and turn off the tv and go wake up Michael who is sleeping on the couch and get him down to bed too before his long day tomorrow). Goodnight.