I know that statistically, TFMD and I are still on the young side of midlife, but we like to joke about being old and crotchety. Turns out, a move that would have taken twenty hours had we attempted it the old fashioned way (and resulted in none of our friends ever speaking to us again) was done in less than nine hours and spared us both our bodies and our friendships. It wasn't cheap, but it was well worth the expense, especially since we now get to unpack boxes and rearrange furniture until the cows come home (something that would've been impossible had we done the major moving ourselves).
We unpacked just enough to find some clothes and toiletries before rushing off to Bellingham for the weekend. The first public performance of Buzzkill Bride was, appropriately enough, at a wedding. Without electricity. Fortunately my gigging weapon of choice is a nice loud Ovation, and the woman has a fine set of pipes. So we were set. And because the DJ could not play the processional music, I just strummed a few bars of the song we sang later in the ceremony.
It was apparently well received, and we got lots of nice comments. Not a bad debut. Followed by a vegetarian buffet by lantern light, and, once the power came back on around 9PM, some drunken booty-shakin'. The weekend seemed to be crammed full of small annoyances that, when lumped together, made for a kinda cranky time. But I think it was a good reminder that we have each other and not to sweat the small stuff.
We got back home to await the arrival of our realtor with the new house keys. In talking with the neighbor just to the south of us, we discovered that the two neighbors across the street are both fellow Twelfth Nighters. Small town, West Seattle.
And thus begins life in the new place. My stepmom came over last night and helped organize the pantry, while Rae and I walked down to the new QFC at the Alaska Junction to get dinner stuff. Made a nice meal of soups (butternut squash, chicken noodle), salad and rosemary bread. If I'm not home unpacking, I'm running to the hardware store or Target for storage options. Today someone is supposed to come check out the leaky washer downstairs (we need clean clothes!), and tomorrow the cable guy comes to hook us back up while the contractors start framing a wall and door for Tyler's room and running a new water line so we can move the fridge.
We just need to have the rewiring done before the wedding. Heh.
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moving. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Pre-Weekend Update
Well, here we go. Another plunging hill on the roller coaster of life. Put your arms up and scream like a girl.
We have made the house beautiful and pristine. I think the last time it looked this good was just before we moved back in after the reconstruction. It simply sparkles. Ron came by on Wednesday and shot pics, and emailed them to the agent last night. She will come by this morning and have me sign off on the last of the listing paperwork, and then the sign gets stuck in the front yard. Bam! - house for sale.
I still have a few cosmetic things on my punch list. I have a few scuffs on doors and baseboards to paint. I have to get up on the roof and sweep out the gutters. The landscapers are here, chopping up everything and making the yard all pretty. What sucks is that I woke up at 1:30AM and 3:30AM, and the second time I never got back to sleep. Too much going on in my head.
Some good omens this morning have put me in a positive mood. Let's hope it carries through. Maybe I can catch a nap later.
Weekend ahoy!
We have made the house beautiful and pristine. I think the last time it looked this good was just before we moved back in after the reconstruction. It simply sparkles. Ron came by on Wednesday and shot pics, and emailed them to the agent last night. She will come by this morning and have me sign off on the last of the listing paperwork, and then the sign gets stuck in the front yard. Bam! - house for sale.
I still have a few cosmetic things on my punch list. I have a few scuffs on doors and baseboards to paint. I have to get up on the roof and sweep out the gutters. The landscapers are here, chopping up everything and making the yard all pretty. What sucks is that I woke up at 1:30AM and 3:30AM, and the second time I never got back to sleep. Too much going on in my head.
Some good omens this morning have put me in a positive mood. Let's hope it carries through. Maybe I can catch a nap later.
Weekend ahoy!
Monday, July 20, 2009
First Time For Everything
Sure, I've moved before. Heck, when I was a kid, we moved every three years or so.
I feel a story coming on. Might want to go get a refill of whatever you were drinking.
There you go. Comfy?
After my parents' divorce, we moved every couple years (sometimes more). Once I moved out with Samantha, we spent 6 months in a Mountain View apartment - then she went to San Francisco State and I studied animation at Mission College, so I got a room in a friend's house in San Jose for 6 months, a sort of bachelor pad situation. Moved back to my dad's for a year while I went to school and worked, saving up for the family trip to the Caribbean in 1989, and shortly thereafter moved back in with Sam and another couple in Fremont. That lasted a little less than a year, and Sam & I moved into our little 500sf apartment on the Mountain View/Sunnyvale border (which we christened with the extremely geeky epithet The Keep on the Borderlands), with the Slumlord from the Lower Circles of Hell.
We survived the 100+ degree summers in an upstairs sauna with no air conditioning for two years before we finally snapped. All we wanted was "reasonable". And the Bay Area had ceased to deliver "reasonable".
Once we hit Washington, it was two weeks of couch surfing at our friends' place in Bellevue before we got a nice apartment in Renton, where we were for a year and a half while we got established (we had the "Cascade" two-bedroom floor plan). Sunnyvale Slumlord kept our deposit, by the way, knowing it would be too inconvenient for us to come back to California and take him to court. $500 was not insignificant to a young married couple who'd just moved out of state.
While in the Renton apartment, we befriended Buffy, who was NOT a vampire slayer, but rather a sweet young Bohemian girl who was the perfect friend and roommate for a sweet young Bohemian couple, all of whom had embraced the granola and flannel Seattle "scene" in the early '90s. Ever see the film Singles? More accurate than not.
Anyhoo, we were looking at sharing a place in the city, and West Seattle was a sleepy little community of artists and musicians off the beaten track. We ended up renting a huge Craftsman house on the main strip of California Ave., just above a custom auto parts shop - a storefront that would become the Nail Time salon. The rent? $625. A hundred bucks less than our first apartment in Mountain View.
When we arrived in West Seattle in the January of 1993, I had no clue what twists and turns were in store, both for myself and the neighborhood. On the downside, there was a Denny's. There were two gun stores and a porn shop on the Ave. On the upside, we were a block from Jefferson Square and could walk to the store for groceries. We had a view of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains from our living room window (a view that was replaced in recent years by high rise apartments). There was a mom & pop cafe and a brew supply store across the street, and when Ron and I launched The Gamut (the hobby store now occupied by a Garlic Jim's pizzaria) that summer, I could walk to work.
Buffy roomed with us for a year, keeping up a close friendship afterward. In fact, she was present at Tyler's birth, acting as my sanity check (gophering and making sure we both kept hydrated). Buffy was followed by Erica, Samantha's manager at Pegasus Book Exchange and a regular at The Gamut. Erica shared the house until Tyler was about 3 months old, then Tyler moved into the second bedroom and we occupied the enire house by ourselves - a complete family unit - until we found this little updated Craftsman just off Westwood Village. We bought the place for under $100K and moved in on March 1st, 1995.
With the exception of living across the street during the post-fire rebuild, this is the only home I've lived in ever since. It's the only home Tyler can remember. It's the only home Kayleigh's ever known. It's been through flood and fire, and rebuilt to a magnificent state. And it goes on the market this week.
[blink, blink]
It actually came about pretty suddenly. Raechelle and I (and the kids) have been house hunting for over a year. But we found a good opportunity to move in a good direction within West Seattle, and we made an offer. And since the offer is contingent on selling this place, we now have to make that happen.
So suddenly I'm boxing up extra stuff and getting a storage space, and cleaning out the garden window in the kitchen, and recycling a bunch of leftover Deep7 books I had in the carport.
And getting ready to sell my first home.
There's a lot of memory and, yes, some baggage in the last 15 years. And while I'm absolutely thrilled to be embarking on a new adventure with my family and the woman I love... yeah... it's a bit heavy, sure.
TFMD and I were the first ones to ask ourselves if we were just a wee bit loco to be trying to move four months before a wedding and honeymoon. And given other circumstances, that's probably very correct. But this was an incredible opportunity - a situation that would not be present had we waited until next year to continue hunting. We'd have been crazy not to give this a shot.
So, while nothing is final yet, we need to get this place all prettied up for Baby's First Listing. This move will be the physical representation of Life 2.0. I'm excited and terrified and sometimes a little sad, but I ultimately feel very peaceful and serene about this new chapter.
Yeeeeeehaw, my homies. Yeehaw.
I feel a story coming on. Might want to go get a refill of whatever you were drinking.
There you go. Comfy?
After my parents' divorce, we moved every couple years (sometimes more). Once I moved out with Samantha, we spent 6 months in a Mountain View apartment - then she went to San Francisco State and I studied animation at Mission College, so I got a room in a friend's house in San Jose for 6 months, a sort of bachelor pad situation. Moved back to my dad's for a year while I went to school and worked, saving up for the family trip to the Caribbean in 1989, and shortly thereafter moved back in with Sam and another couple in Fremont. That lasted a little less than a year, and Sam & I moved into our little 500sf apartment on the Mountain View/Sunnyvale border (which we christened with the extremely geeky epithet The Keep on the Borderlands), with the Slumlord from the Lower Circles of Hell.
We survived the 100+ degree summers in an upstairs sauna with no air conditioning for two years before we finally snapped. All we wanted was "reasonable". And the Bay Area had ceased to deliver "reasonable".
Once we hit Washington, it was two weeks of couch surfing at our friends' place in Bellevue before we got a nice apartment in Renton, where we were for a year and a half while we got established (we had the "Cascade" two-bedroom floor plan). Sunnyvale Slumlord kept our deposit, by the way, knowing it would be too inconvenient for us to come back to California and take him to court. $500 was not insignificant to a young married couple who'd just moved out of state.
While in the Renton apartment, we befriended Buffy, who was NOT a vampire slayer, but rather a sweet young Bohemian girl who was the perfect friend and roommate for a sweet young Bohemian couple, all of whom had embraced the granola and flannel Seattle "scene" in the early '90s. Ever see the film Singles? More accurate than not.
Anyhoo, we were looking at sharing a place in the city, and West Seattle was a sleepy little community of artists and musicians off the beaten track. We ended up renting a huge Craftsman house on the main strip of California Ave., just above a custom auto parts shop - a storefront that would become the Nail Time salon. The rent? $625. A hundred bucks less than our first apartment in Mountain View.
When we arrived in West Seattle in the January of 1993, I had no clue what twists and turns were in store, both for myself and the neighborhood. On the downside, there was a Denny's. There were two gun stores and a porn shop on the Ave. On the upside, we were a block from Jefferson Square and could walk to the store for groceries. We had a view of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains from our living room window (a view that was replaced in recent years by high rise apartments). There was a mom & pop cafe and a brew supply store across the street, and when Ron and I launched The Gamut (the hobby store now occupied by a Garlic Jim's pizzaria) that summer, I could walk to work.
Buffy roomed with us for a year, keeping up a close friendship afterward. In fact, she was present at Tyler's birth, acting as my sanity check (gophering and making sure we both kept hydrated). Buffy was followed by Erica, Samantha's manager at Pegasus Book Exchange and a regular at The Gamut. Erica shared the house until Tyler was about 3 months old, then Tyler moved into the second bedroom and we occupied the enire house by ourselves - a complete family unit - until we found this little updated Craftsman just off Westwood Village. We bought the place for under $100K and moved in on March 1st, 1995.
With the exception of living across the street during the post-fire rebuild, this is the only home I've lived in ever since. It's the only home Tyler can remember. It's the only home Kayleigh's ever known. It's been through flood and fire, and rebuilt to a magnificent state. And it goes on the market this week.
[blink, blink]
It actually came about pretty suddenly. Raechelle and I (and the kids) have been house hunting for over a year. But we found a good opportunity to move in a good direction within West Seattle, and we made an offer. And since the offer is contingent on selling this place, we now have to make that happen.
So suddenly I'm boxing up extra stuff and getting a storage space, and cleaning out the garden window in the kitchen, and recycling a bunch of leftover Deep7 books I had in the carport.
And getting ready to sell my first home.
There's a lot of memory and, yes, some baggage in the last 15 years. And while I'm absolutely thrilled to be embarking on a new adventure with my family and the woman I love... yeah... it's a bit heavy, sure.
TFMD and I were the first ones to ask ourselves if we were just a wee bit loco to be trying to move four months before a wedding and honeymoon. And given other circumstances, that's probably very correct. But this was an incredible opportunity - a situation that would not be present had we waited until next year to continue hunting. We'd have been crazy not to give this a shot.
So, while nothing is final yet, we need to get this place all prettied up for Baby's First Listing. This move will be the physical representation of Life 2.0. I'm excited and terrified and sometimes a little sad, but I ultimately feel very peaceful and serene about this new chapter.
Yeeeeeehaw, my homies. Yeehaw.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Moved.
The nice thing about helping friends move is that it obligates them to help you when it's your turn. Since the dawn of time, friends have helped friends move, paid in pizza and beer. And the cycle continues.
It was great to have Dan, Trish and Raff show up to help with Rae's move. The weather was 31 flavors of suck, pelting down rain. I made sure to have a coffee in advance, and I brought a box of donuts to keep the quick carbs and sugar readily available.
We picked up the truck and headed up to Ballard to find the most organized, orderly apartment ready to go. TBGE had labeled everything with the area of the house it was intended for, and had stacked everything by zone, most of it in her living room, ready to go. What's more, she had printed out a load-up chart for the truck and posted it by the front door so we would know what got loaded in which order. The sun broke and the clouds parted for exactly the time it took to load up.
We loaded the contents of Rae's apartment and storage area in 45 minutes and headed back to West Seattle. Raechelle stayed behind to vacuum and drop off her keys.
The kids helped us with the unloading, so we had a few more hands. It had rained on the way back, and I was thinking it was probably silly to expect any more good luck than the sunbreak we'd just had.
Then we pulled up to the house, and it stopped raining.
We got to unloading the truck, and finished just as Raechelle got there. Total time to move my girlfirend from Ballard to West Seattle: two hours flat.
Dan and Raff came with me to drop the drasser and file cabinet off with Shandalla. She wasn't home, but left us a six pack of Red Hook ESB. It was a fair trade. Actually, she's buying the dresser from Rae - the beer was for delivering it.
We stopped by Taco Del Mar on the way home, and fed our worthy crew. Our helpers left, and Rae and I started unpacking the bedroom stuff (since you have to sleep there, it's arguably the most important room to do first).
We could have worked late into the night unpacking, but fortunately we had the distraction of Jamie's cocktail party at Theo's, a chocolate factory up in the Fremont. We got gussied up and went early to help set up.
All gussied.
The catered food was unbelievable, and Rae and I ended up behind the bar so that Jamie could mingle. Came home at about 10:30 and crashed out.
Now we have a house to reorganize, some football this morning, and the Jason Mraz concert tonight. Look at us being busy!
It was great to have Dan, Trish and Raff show up to help with Rae's move. The weather was 31 flavors of suck, pelting down rain. I made sure to have a coffee in advance, and I brought a box of donuts to keep the quick carbs and sugar readily available.
We picked up the truck and headed up to Ballard to find the most organized, orderly apartment ready to go. TBGE had labeled everything with the area of the house it was intended for, and had stacked everything by zone, most of it in her living room, ready to go. What's more, she had printed out a load-up chart for the truck and posted it by the front door so we would know what got loaded in which order. The sun broke and the clouds parted for exactly the time it took to load up.
We loaded the contents of Rae's apartment and storage area in 45 minutes and headed back to West Seattle. Raechelle stayed behind to vacuum and drop off her keys.
The kids helped us with the unloading, so we had a few more hands. It had rained on the way back, and I was thinking it was probably silly to expect any more good luck than the sunbreak we'd just had.
Then we pulled up to the house, and it stopped raining.
We got to unloading the truck, and finished just as Raechelle got there. Total time to move my girlfirend from Ballard to West Seattle: two hours flat.
Dan and Raff came with me to drop the drasser and file cabinet off with Shandalla. She wasn't home, but left us a six pack of Red Hook ESB. It was a fair trade. Actually, she's buying the dresser from Rae - the beer was for delivering it.
We stopped by Taco Del Mar on the way home, and fed our worthy crew. Our helpers left, and Rae and I started unpacking the bedroom stuff (since you have to sleep there, it's arguably the most important room to do first).
We could have worked late into the night unpacking, but fortunately we had the distraction of Jamie's cocktail party at Theo's, a chocolate factory up in the Fremont. We got gussied up and went early to help set up.
All gussied.The catered food was unbelievable, and Rae and I ended up behind the bar so that Jamie could mingle. Came home at about 10:30 and crashed out.
Now we have a house to reorganize, some football this morning, and the Jason Mraz concert tonight. Look at us being busy!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Movement
One more smooch for the girl. Raechelle left work early to sit with me in the doctor's office while a readheaded Amazon irrigated my ear canal with a huge syringe of warm water and peroxide. After she'd flushed the gunk out, the nurse's assistant was able to detect signs of an infection of the ear canal - which is preferable to an infection of the inner ear.
Armed with antibacterial ear drops I get to use 4x to 5x per day, I left for home and Raechelle went back to her apartment to pack for the weekend. By the time Rae arrived and we'd shopped for french bread pizza makings and gotten into our PJs, we were exhausted - it had just been that kind of week. We watched The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, one of my favorite little coming-of-age tales. Then we put in a few episodes of Freakazoid until it was late enough to justify going to bed.
Slept like a log until almost 9AM, then grabbed a quick latte before heading over to Dan & Trish's former apartment to help them load up the truck. Their new place is in South Seattle, almost directly across the Duwamish from us. It's a gorgeous townhouse on a quiet street, and I think they will be very happy there. On the way to the new place, we found ourselves in the middle of a police escort for three massive buses full of the St. Louis Rams, in town to play the Hawks tomorrow. Ordinarily I'd say something like "We're gonna kick your asses!", but not with the way our boys have been playing their season so far.
Came home and swapped some wet clothes for dry, then met DJ to look at three houses. The second one was almost a keeper, if not for the lack of a bedroom they listed was there. Otherwise beautiful and perfect for us. Just one bedroom short. We returned home (Tyler and I locking horns left and right), and Raechelle prepped to leave for her girls' game night in Covington, which she found out was canceled after she'd made it a few blocks away from home. We're pretty tuckered out from moving Dan & Trish, so I think we're gonna hole up in our jammies again (it's nice and rainy outside - perfect for that), have some wine and watch some movies. I might also have to sit in the jet tub... you know, for the ol' achey "moving" muscles.
Armed with antibacterial ear drops I get to use 4x to 5x per day, I left for home and Raechelle went back to her apartment to pack for the weekend. By the time Rae arrived and we'd shopped for french bread pizza makings and gotten into our PJs, we were exhausted - it had just been that kind of week. We watched The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys, one of my favorite little coming-of-age tales. Then we put in a few episodes of Freakazoid until it was late enough to justify going to bed.
Slept like a log until almost 9AM, then grabbed a quick latte before heading over to Dan & Trish's former apartment to help them load up the truck. Their new place is in South Seattle, almost directly across the Duwamish from us. It's a gorgeous townhouse on a quiet street, and I think they will be very happy there. On the way to the new place, we found ourselves in the middle of a police escort for three massive buses full of the St. Louis Rams, in town to play the Hawks tomorrow. Ordinarily I'd say something like "We're gonna kick your asses!", but not with the way our boys have been playing their season so far.
Came home and swapped some wet clothes for dry, then met DJ to look at three houses. The second one was almost a keeper, if not for the lack of a bedroom they listed was there. Otherwise beautiful and perfect for us. Just one bedroom short. We returned home (Tyler and I locking horns left and right), and Raechelle prepped to leave for her girls' game night in Covington, which she found out was canceled after she'd made it a few blocks away from home. We're pretty tuckered out from moving Dan & Trish, so I think we're gonna hole up in our jammies again (it's nice and rainy outside - perfect for that), have some wine and watch some movies. I might also have to sit in the jet tub... you know, for the ol' achey "moving" muscles.
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