Our neighborhood

 

Hello swing

"I'm not sure if I'll like this."

"Whee!"

"Again, again!"

"When can I play over there?"

Reviewing our move: (Most) of our stuff arrives

About a week ago, the movers finally brought our stuff. 

Hubby and I were excited to unpack and put things away.  But then we started noticing that some boxes  looked a bit different than we remembered:

I don't remember packing a concave box...

or a crumpled box.  Hmmm...

We also noticed some of our furniture got chipped and cracked:

And where are our headboard, bed frame, foot board, box of tools, and car trunk cover?    Apparently still in Chicago.

So now we're contacting the company and waiting some more....

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.