Reviewing our move: Arriving at our new place

After days upon days of driving (ok, it was only two days, but it felt like forever), we finally arrived at the promised land our new apartment.  When a couple of days passed and our stuff still didn't arrive, we got worried and bombarded our movers with numerous voice messages and emails.  A day or two later, we finally reached an agent who said that he was "unable to locate our belongings" but he guessed they were "probably still in Chicago."

Grr.

After some more discussion we then found out the company could probably locate our stuff and probably deliver our stuff within a week... if we paid an extra fee. 

Double grr.
Darn you, movers!  I bite my thumb at you!

After agreeing to pay the extra ransom fee, I tried to make myself feel better by cleaning.  (I know, it sounds strange, but whenever I get stressed I like organizing and cleaning things.  Maybe it helps me to feel like I have some sort of control over things?)

Baby Chuck must have been stressed too, because he was also really keen on cleaning. 

Nice job!   Stress, be gone!

Reviewing our move: The pickup fiasco

What's wrong with this picture?  (Photo sneakily taken via iPod.)

Hubby and I found several moving companies online and ended up choosing a company that seemed to give us a good deal.  We chose to use professional movers to alleviate stress.  Instead, our movers caused us tons of anxiety and grief.  They seemed like nice guys, but they weren't dependable, didn't take good care of our belongings, and didn't communicate with us at all. 

The trouble all began during the pick up stage.  They were scheduled to come between 3 and 5pm. They actually arrived at 8pm and didn't leave until 1am. 

We lived in a two bedroom apartment and had all of our stuff packed.  Why did it take them five hours?  Well, first of all,  they didn't actually start loading our stuff until 9pm because they had to readjust other peoples' items.  Baby Chuck and I watched them work and we were shocked.  They tossed boxes out of the truck and onto the ground.  They stood on furniture.  They also crammed large boxes into too-small openings.

Then, they didn't bring the right tools for the job.  They couldn't take apart the bed and crib, so they asked hubby to go out and purchase the right tool.  Poor hubby had to drive out to Meijer at 10:30 pm to find what they were looking for. 

Sadly, they also didn't have have enough room in the truck for our stuff.  Instead of calling another truck to come, the movers just tied the remaining items onto the back of the truck with rope. 


While watching my bike and our mattress precariously dangling off the side of the truck at 1am, hubby and I said several silent prayers that our belonging would make it safely to our new apartment.   

Reviewing our move: Packing

Hubby and I finished unpacking the majority of boxes this morning.  Hooray!  Right now we're acclimating to East Coast living by eating delicious ethnic food and learning how to drive more aggressively.  We're also reflecting on our moving experience, so I figured it would be nice to write a couple of posts about that. 


We packed for days and days.  Although we donated and sold a lot of items, we still had a ton of items to pack.  I packed most of the rectangular items and left hubby with the easy task of packing oddly shaped and fragile things.  (Hee hee, I'm such a good wife like that.)     
 

A couple of boxes here and there slowly grew into tall unstable towers.  Soon we were surrounded by our very own city of stuff.

While we packed, life still went on.

And wouldn't you know it?  In the midst of everything, Baby Chuck began crawling forward for the first time.

Whoa.  Not so fast, spider monkey.

Goodbye Charlie

Hi everyone, it's been awhile since my last post. Our family experienced a lot of changes these past weeks.  We left Michigan, drove across country, and moved into a new place in New Jersey. But the biggest change in our life has nothing to do with our move, it has to do with Charlie.

As many of you know, Charlie has been part of our family for six years.  We adopted him from an organization in the East Village that rescues dogs on death row.  Although we were hesitant to adopt an older dog (he was eight years old), we fell in love with his sweet and spunky nature.

Last week, hubby and I made the hard decision to put Charlie down.  It broke our hearts to do so.  He was sick before we left Michigan and his health got worse after our move.


Charlie was a wonderful dog and a wonderful friend.  He loved to nap, eat cheese, and lick people's toes.  He also loved to sleep with his head on my stomach and bark at ghosts.  We were so lucky that he chose us to be his family.   

Charlie- We miss you so much.  You've left a dog shaped hole in our hearts.