After my sister-in-law, Jessie, and I moved everything into the huge trailer last week something dawned on us. It wasn't gonna fit! Confirming my worst fears, I was forced to admit that we have too much crap to fit in a tractor trailer. I blame the children, of course. Because the Army isn't paying for me to move to Virginia, we had to move ourselves. This means no help packing, and no big, burly movers to lift everything for us. Jessie's husband was injured in a car accident years ago and is in a wheelchair. He helped watch the kids but moving furniture was obviously not something he could do- and their 13-year old son is sometimes a help and sometimes like having a seventh child. Although I will admit that when I yelled for him to help, he usually came and saved me before I was buried alive beneath a ginormous dresser.
Because everything didn't fit into the truck, I rented a uhaul trailer to drive the rest up myself. On Saturday I drove up to VA with the loaded trailer. It took 12 hours because I had to stop and rest when I was falling asleep. The next morning I unloaded the trailer and drove back to GA.
Unfortunately the uhaul trailer (and my trailer) still could not hold everything so tonight my mom will drive down to GA after work and tow another trailer up tomorrow with me. That's right- 4 different trailers of varying sizes. Like everything in my life, it's complicated.
This morning I fed my kids granola bars for breakfast. Our kitchen cupboards are bare. I won't even tell you what I ate this morning. (Ok, it was Red Bull and Rice Krispy treats- the essentials. I never, ever eat that crap but desperate times call for desperate measures. Thanks for bring that over Christen!) Last night we had pizza. We'll be eating lunch out today. Who knows what we'll eat for dinner? But the kids are loving it as they have consumed more fast food this week than in the entire lives previously.
I am positively pooped.Last night I had to run to Home Depot to exchange 2 sets of doorknobs. We bought them last year and they had a lifetime warranty but one lock broke. After a phone call to the manufacturer (Home Depot) they sent me to the store to repair or exchange the lock. I then had a hassle getting the lock off of the door. My neighbor Ernie even came over to help. He couldn't get the stupid thing off either! In the process of trying to remove the blasted thing I got locked out of my house. No problem, I thought I'd just use my garage door opener. Well, it was working the night before but it picked that moment to run out of batteries. And they're those special batteries so it's not like I had any sitting around. To make things even better my shoes and purse were in the house so I drove to the store and pulled pennies out of my van cup holders to pay for the battery for the garage door opener. Then I was able to get into the house. But it gets better!
I get to the store and tell them I can't get the doorknob off. The dept. manager says to get it off however I can (even if it gets damaged) and they will exchange it. I get to the store (at the kids' bedtime) and the assistant manager was such a jerk! He was very condescending and was downright snooty when he spoke to me. He was probably younger than me too. He thinks he's hot stuff because (as he pointed out) he's been a retail manager for 9 years. Woop-dee-doo! I was a retail manager for 5 years but apparently I learn faster than him because if a customer came in with a defective product that was under warranty, I'd let them exchange it. And he wouldn't. And he was rude. And if I hadn't had a child standing 6 inches from me, it could have gotten nasty. But instead I got in the van and drove across town to the other Home Depot.
The manager there was happy to exchange the defective doorknobs, but not before I had a mini-breakdown and started babbling on about my 6 kids and husband that left me with these crazy, broken locks! I know they thought I was positively insane and quite ready to be institutionalized. I didn't care, I had doorknobs. (And did I mention that I left my house with no doorknobs on the front or back door? Thankfully we live in a great neighborhood because you could have just walked on in and it'd be that easy!
In addition, my week was complicated by the kids getting sick or something. No VBS for us! They went on Monday and were fine but on Tuesday Leila spiked a fever at VBS and I had to pick everyone up early. I decided to just keep them home all week. So much for my "break!"
After a day of intense heat and humidity today I returned home to finish packing and was informed that my mom won't be coming down after all. I couldn't even finish writing this post before she had changed her plans! So I'm renting another uhaul and driving up to VA tomorrow, then back to GA on Sunday and then up to VA again on Monday. Yes, that's 1500 miles in 3 days. But I did 1,000 miles in one day so I guess it's ok. But I'm teetering dangerously close to the point of no return. You know, when you go so crazy that the men in white suits show up at your door?
Uh oh, my door bell just rang...
