Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Big move is over but we are still in California...for now

The main move is over! The house sold and closed without any problems.  My stuff got loaded into the moving van and unloaded into the shipping container at the new house a few days later.  The moving van had to put the delivery off for a day because of snow but I didn’t get charged for it so it didn’t matter to me.  When I was packing a taped fluorescent green ribbon on the boxes that needed to be put into the shipping container last.  These items included my tool chest, small tools, hardware, the table saw, and other items that would be necessary for helping with the house building. 

Mostly the moving of items went smoothly.  One issue I had was that Salvation Army was scheduled to come pick up stuff and it happened to be on the same day as the moving van showed up.  So I put the SA pile in one corner of the garage and flagged it off so the movers wouldn’t accidently put it into the van.  In the house the SA was going to take the piano and the queen bed.  When they got here they changed their mind on the piano.  I wasn’t going to bring it with me so what was I supposed to do with it?  The new people didn’t want it, as I’d already offered it to them.  They already had a piano and didn’t want two!  I had a little fire pit that cost about $100.  I wasn’t going to take it with me and SA didn’t want it either.  One of the movers asked if he could have the fire pit and I said sure.  Enjoy!

I used Mayflower, yes I am purposefully advertising for them.  They were really good.  They gave me an estimate, which was a couple thousand dollars less than other name brand movers.  But they said that they would guarantee the price, which nobody else seemed to want to do.  Because I packed my own boxes, the other movers figured that I was hiding heavy stuff in boxes that was marked as stuffed animals or whatever.  I guess they couldn’t read the boxes that said “extra heavy” or maybe they thought those were really light.   But when I had Mayflower go over my stuff I told them the piano wasn’t going.  Neither was about 100 pieces of particle board shelving that went with the metal shelves in the garage and house.  I had figured that if I couldn’t stuff them all into my sister’s trailer then I’d just buy new pieces once I got there.  Particle board is really heavy so it would cost as much to get new as it would to ship the old. 

As I was trying to get SA to take the piano, I think they were too lazy to move it because there was about 10 feet of rocked driveway that they had to maneuver through.  Anyway, the Mayflower lead person said that they would take the piano for me.  They also said that there would be plenty of space in the moving van for the 50 or so pieces of particle board that didn’t fit into the trailer.  No extra charge.  I don’t know what they did with the piano.  I don’t care.  All I know is they added the shelving to the load and it didn’t cost me any extra even though it wasn’t on the original shipping list.  And, as far as I could tell, everything made it to Colorado in one piece!  Go Mayflower!

The kids schooling change went pretty smooth.  Boy wasn’t actually able to stay at his old school so he transferred to the local mountain school.  It’s a K-8 with less than 60 kids total.  Not bad for a California public school.  He was able to make a bunch of new friends and now that it’s summer vacation he has kids to hang out with during the day when I’m working.  Girl’s new school was also much smaller.  She went from a high school of 3,000 to about 400.  She wasn’t so lost in this new school. In fact, for her last 5 weeks of school I never got called once and she never got suspended or had detention. She made some friends, although none of them live in our new little town.  That school has kids that are so spread out, one of the friends Girl made lives 1 ½ hours away!  Girl decided that the 6 or 7 kids in our town that also went on the bus with her to the high school are all stupid and not worth her time.  This translates to those kids are all nice and respectful. Oh well.  She has been hiking and started running a little again. She has also played with some of the younger kids, so she’s keeping herself busy enough to not be getting into trouble.

Most of the kitchen things got moved.  This was my plan as we are half-way living off our stored food and using paper plates and cups and all non-electric appliances (other than the refrigerator and oven).  Unfortunately it doesn’t do me a lot of good to have several hundred pounds of wheat with me when the wheat grinder is in Colorado.  The Sun Oven is also in the shipping container.  But the garage is full of food as is the closet in my room.  The fishing gear all got shipped but I’ve rigged up a line and Boy has gone fishing a couple of times.  He can dig up a bug or worm to hook but hasn’t caught anything.  He is learning patience – sort of.

Our new home is coming along.  The bunkhouse is much more complete than the main house/barn structure.  But the main house is partially built.  The barn space is a big dried in area.  The greenhouse hasn’t been started yet but it should go up quickly once it gets started.  All three buildings are going to be heated by a large wood burning boiler with a propane backup. 

I have learned something about future spouse.  He wants everything to look really nice from the outside as well as the inside.  I’m more of a plain, non-showy person, on the outside.  I remember reading one of the Survivor’s series books and one of the characters has a trashy looking car (at least from the outside).  The inside is spotless and modern but it doesn’t give the impression that someone who has money is driving the car.  Our new home is truly massive and impressive.  Because the barn and house are one building it’s over 9,000 square feet (4,500 on each level).  It’s not good if you don’t want to stand out.  It’s going to have to have a real good defense system because it’s so visible.  The entire property has been fenced with barbed wire but that’s all we have so far. 


I am looking forward to our final move from California to Colorado.  It will either happen at the end of this summer or by the end of the year, depending on whether I keep my job or get laid off in August.  I’m hoping they lay me off.  It will be a little harder financially but I’d get a year’s head start on some of my projects that I’ve planned.  If I keep the job we’ll stay in California until the main house is done.  

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