Settling In

Well, we're in our new house now .  There are several difficult stages of moving:

1.) Having to leave your original  house/neighborhood/state/country.

2.) Getting everything packed in boxes and on a truck , as well as stuffing your car(s)  to the brim.

3.) Having to possibly stay in a hotel for part of it.

4.) Getting all your crap into the new house .

5.) Having to deal with said boxes for the first few weeks in the new house.

6.) Unpacking and memorizing a new map of roads in your new town/neighborhood/state/country.

We're in between stages 5 and 6 right now.  The new house  has its upsides and downsides.  Mom assures me that it'll all be much better when we unpack and get rid of all the boxes.  I keep forgetting how much trash  moving generates.  I keep feeling like I'm drowning in all the packing paper whenever we unpack delicate, breakable stuff.  Then I feel better when it's all stuffed into trash bags  and hauled out.  (The local recycling company's gonna love us for all the paper we're getting rid of). 

My room is smaller than the one I left behind, and it's stuffed to the gills with boxes.  I seriously  cannot work like this, so I'm moving everything out into the hall and garage before setting up the place.  It's ridiculous, really. 

The last week and a half was hectic.  I really didn't want to go to my grandma's birthday party because of several reasons.  Most are personal, though the least of the worries included cutting into our time to pack before the moving truck showed up.  We stayed in a hotel because the house grandma shares with my aunt and uncle isn't very big.  Oh sure, it's near the ocean :bademoticon:, has a beautiful garden , and has lovely decor inside, but those are its only good qualities.  Pretty much, almost all our relatives from out of town (including us) stayed in hotels nearby.  What was super-annoying, however, was the fact that it was Memorial Day weekend , so our hotel was stuffed to the brim with other guests.  Seriously, every room was being used, and if mom hadn't called  ahead for reservations a few weeks in advance, we would have been S.O.L. for the weekend.  For the first two days, I was in a very foul mood over the whole trip (this was about as far from a fun trip as you can get), and the full hotel just aggravated my feelings.  I was this close to going postal  at breakfast our first day there because there were 60-some, noisy people in the continental breakfast room, and I had to wait in a line worthy of a Disneyworld ride to get a frickin' omelette .  Even the cafeteria in my high school was quieter than that place!  No amount of threats, lectures, or demands of taking my medication from my parents could make me change my attitude .  That is, until we dropped mom off at my aunt's house.  Then I started to feel better .  Dad finally was able to cheer all of us up by taking us to his hometown nearby to see his mom and we went book-shopping  (my fave activity). 

Thankfully, grandma's birthday party  went without a hitch.  I guess God was being kind and put us through a "best-case scenario" when it comes to a family gathering.  We took family pictures , sang grandma's fave songs in the old sanctuary of the church she goes to, regaled the audience with stories from her 4 grown children (mom had them riveted with the story of getting her first traffic ticket when she was 16), ate a delicious chocolate cake  with pink flowers on top, and ate a yummy dinner at my aunt's house.  I got to see cousins I hadn't seen in years, and meet some of grandma's friends.  So that went well, at least. 

The day after grandma's birthday, we went to church, and our family and friends did not fill up one, but two pews, much to grandma's delight.  (She wanted us all to go to a church service with her like that).  We then surprised grandma by taking her to her favorite restaurant by the ocean :bademoticon:.  Their theme was sailboats, and we got to eat at a big table next to some huge windows overlooking the nearby warf  and bay.  I love the ocean, so it was quite a treat.  It was especially fun seeing people doing water sports out in the warf, like kayaking , boating, and standup paddle-boarding.  A few of my relatives claimed they saw dolphins  leaping in the water, but I didn't see them.  I ate a seafood Cobb salad, and it was the first time I'd ever eaten scallop clam , calamari, and shrimp  all together.  (I think they slow-cooked the calamari, it was actually good and not super-rubbery like some people say it is).  One of my other uncles was sitting near me and ordered a casserole with mussels, and he didn't expect them to serve it with the mussels standing up in a crown around the plate.  I half-expected them to jump up and sing to him .  Grandma ordered a dessert :bademoticon:, but it was so big that she ended up sharing it with all of us. 

We then drove home after that, though it was quite a drive back.  We didn't even have time to change, so we just drove home in our Sunday clothes.  What was great about this trip home was no giant traffic jam on the way out of the city .  (We've had that problem twice now when visiting grandma). 

Then for the next week we did nothing but pack boxes.  I'm amazed, after all the moves, that mom hasn't gotten a kit put together.  We've almost got it down to a science, much as we loathe the activity.  This is the 10th one I've done in my life.  Worst part is, it won't be my last.  Now there are benefits to packing your own stuff instead of hiring strangers to do it for you. 

1.) You save money doing so.

2.) You can do common-sense packing instead of just throwing random crap into a box.

3.) You get to label the danged thing accurately, rather than what's on top like a hired mover would. 
(Mover's tend to throw as many random items into a box, and then write that it's full of whatever is on top when you open it).  

4.) It's in your handwriting so you can actually read what the heck it says (unless you have crappy handwriting). 

We had a nice group of 6 young men help us out when the day came to move out of our rental home.  I liked them much better than the crew that helped us move from our last state back in 2012.  They spoke some of the filthiest Spanish  you ever heard, should you have any knowledge of Spanish cuss words.  With this group, I didn't hear one "ch" word.  Heck, I didn't even hear any English cuss words, much less Spanish ones.  We told the crew how grateful we were about that . 

Domino didn't want to leave.  Our poor husky :bademoticon: has abandonment issues, and he didn't like the boxes around our house any more than we did.  We now suspect that one reason he became a stray back in 2014 was because the family that owned him moved out and left him behind.  I cannot imagine what kind of callous, cruel, selfishness it takes to do such a thing to a dog.  The least they could have done was take him to the SPCA before leaving.  All week Domino was very anxious and pacing the house, pestering all of us even after we fed, walked, and let him out each day.  Poor doggy .  So when I took him to my car to take him to the doggy hotel (we didn't want to give him the opportunity to run away with all the doors open) he didn't want to get in.  I had to lift him bodily into the front passenger seat so I could get us going.  When we got there, I gave him a pep talk, looking him right in the eye and telling him that we loved him far too much to abandon him.  I promised him we would come back and take him to his new home, and we kept that promise a day and a half later.  I'm not sure he understood my words, but I think he understood the gist of what I was telling him.  So then, mom and I retrieved him and took him to the new house the day after we got all the boxes in.  I said to him as we came through the front door, "Domino, welcome to your new home!"  He's much happier :bademoticon:now that he knows we're keeping him.  He's adapted well to the house and has had fun exploring our huge backyard.  However, he doesn't like the giant monster cactus  plants any more than we do, and like any sensible animal, has been avoiding them. 

So now we're settling in our new house, though it hasn't been easy.  It's always tough adjusting to a new home , but we'll manage.