Move-in Day

This is a week overdue, but it's been a very hectic and busy week. I hope everyone is enjoying the "calmer" weather - 20s and 30s and sunshine is a nice break from below zero and snowing all the time.

Last Sunday, the snowy, cloudy day of 02/17/2008, was move-in day for Erin. Erin had been living with the Caldwells for almost 3 great years, but after 1 year and 8 months of being together, we decided it was time for him to move in with me. A little exciting (and scary) but the actual day itself was an "interesting" story.

Erin had started packing the prior Friday night. But having to work most of the day Saturday, still had some packing left to do Sunday morning. I decided to sleep in a little longer and let him finish packing, and then head over. I probably should have gotten going sooner as it started snowing around 10:00am, a bit before I left. With Starbucks white chocolate mocha in hand, I headed over to the Caldwells house. They live kind of out of the city a little bit, and their driveway is a big long curvy hill - a neat place with a lot of privacy, but rough in the winter, especially when it snows. In the old days when I had my 4x4 pickups, the hill would have been no problem, but now with my front-wheel Saturn Vue, well I didn't make it. Which has happened before, so I backed down the hill. But I decided I'd try one more time, backing up to get a running start. Didn't make it the second time, so decided it was time to admit defeat and back down and just walk up the hill (it isn't that far, and I should have just done this the first time). I've backed down that hill many times, but for some reason this time I did it wrong, and spun myself off the road and got stuck. Knowing that the Caldwells had a pickup and a winch, I should have just stopped at that and walked up and got help. But (despite my YEARS of living on a farm and knowing better) I decided to try and "rock" my way out. Being on a hill, it actually was working, except for the tree that finally got in the way. NO, I did NOT hit the tree - I did brush it a little bit but no damage done. But it did stop me from trying to "rock" any further.

Decided that since I had GM Roadside Assistance included in my Saturn warranty, I would call them - towing service is covered for things like this. So while eating lunch, I called the number, they hooked me up with a local towing service, and told me the approximate time they'd be there (it only took about 20 minutes for them to get there, fairly impressive). The guy assessed the situation and said this wasn't just a "regular" tow, since they would have to side-winch pull me out (because of the hill and the trees) and that I would have to pay the extra. At that point I couldn't really argue, and so they went ahead. It took them less than 2 minutes to pull me out, and it didn't look all that hard - I guess I'm still glad that they did it knowing I could have damaged something trying to do it myself, but it sure didn't seem like any more work than a "regular" tow.

After all that, Erin was finished packing and ready to load up the trailer. We loaded all his stuff, Erin gave the Caldwells some replacement towels as a going-away present, we took some pictures (and had a few tears) and were ready to head out. Carrying one more box out to his car, Erin banged his knee really hard into the trailer hitch (OUCH!) but after a few minutes was well enough to drive.

The roads were pretty bad by then, even though it had stopped snowing. Being an open-air trailer, by the time we got to my house, most of the stuff had a nice gray slush glaze on it. But we managed to back the trailer in (my farm backing up skills are second-to-none!), clean stuff off, get it all unloaded, and by about 4:00pm Erin was starting the long task of unpacking. But he was moved in - hooray!

We're still getting things organized, but we are successfully sharing a closet (fortunately it's a big closet) and have gotten most of the kitchen in order (Erin has probably more than tripled the number of kitchen items I had). We have yet to organize all our books, and more importantly our video game collections :) Also, if anyone has any advice on where to look for lamps, we are looking for a matching set for our bedroom endtables.