New arrival

It's been a crazy week--on Sunday the eldest went to school camp, on Monday the middle child started at her new school, on Tuesday we moved, on Wednesday the youngest started at his new school, on Thursday the eldest saw the house for the first time, and on Friday another child moved in.

We had been planning on taking in an international student--it was the only way we could afford such a nice house--but we'd been so stressed over the move, we hadn't done a thing about it. We were quite concerned that we'd missed the boat--with school starting that week, students would have already been assigned to a homestay. Then on Tuesday, in the midst of moving, the girls' school sent out a blanket email to every parent saying they had a problem with one of the homestays and urgently needed to relocate a 16 year old Chinese student! We called straight away, they interviewed us on Thursday and Stephanie (not her real name) moved in Friday morning.  You could not have planned it better.

Of course, after the death march leading up to the move date, we promised we would take it easy and slowly unpack the house.  That plan went straight out the window, as we needed the house sorted for the interview! Of course, having that incentive was great, and we had almost everything unpacked apart from the (many) boxes of books and wall art.  The house really came together beautifully and everyone felt at home right away, which was better than we could have hoped for.  The living room is warm and sunny (half the ceiling is glass!) and we have the sofas and dining table there, plus it's open to the kitchen, so we're always in that room.  The study has the piano and fireplace but is currently hosting all the unpacked boxes so hasn't been used much.  The girls bedrooms are downstairs, along with a small rumpus area, and the youngest--who is still a bit unsure about monsters--loves that his room doesn't have a closet.

Stephanie's English isn't great but she's very sweet and gets along brilliantly with the kids. It's a 10 minute walk to school for all the kids, and they've all made several friends plus have been playing with two boys from Hebrew school who live just around the corner. (We're going to their house tonight for "movie night.")  We got a family pass for Zealandia, a bird sanctuary, that is literally a bike ride away.. 

Now that we've got the move, the new schools and the new student sorted, the only thing left is to tell the kids about their mom's new job.  Today is Saturday; she starts Monday!

The remains of the day

The movers were supposed to arrive at 730, but they didn't show up until 915. Thank goodness! We were up at 6am, scrambling around trying to finish packing. The rumpus room, cleaned two days ago for the photographer, was again a rat's nest. The office wasn't finished, the pantry was untouched, and while I had boxed the "non-essential" kitchen items, there was still a heck of a lot of "essential" items.

Fortunately we only had one child underfoot--one was at school camp and the other spent the previous night with a friend who lived near the school, so we didn't have to drive an hour and a half to take her to school that morning. (We'd already done it twice.) The third child has a "sensitive disposition" which is PC for "worry wart." He worries about everything, and so trying to deal with moving to a new house (that he hadn't even seen!) in a new neighborhood and a new school was a bit much, and he spent a good deal of the morning hiding in his closet.

Taking advantage of the movers' delay--and no longer worrying about whether or not something should be packed or discarded--we made good progress, and things were starting to look up when the movers arrived. (I say 'arrived' but they actually got lost, and I had to go find them and lead them back.) We gave them a quick tour and the boss said we'd need a second truck.

This was after we'd just spent two months thinning it down!! But of course he was right; we actually filled both trucks and had quite a few things left over (including the kayaks, the entertainment centre and a desk). Imagine if we hadn't gotten rid of so much stuff. :-(

The movers were great, even though the second truck--and two extra men--meant we spent almost twice as much as we had hoped. However, it needed to be done, and nobody else would have been cheaper, so we were happy to have had it finished in one day. And what a day--after getting only 4 hours sleep the night before, we finished unpacking the trucks at 530pm, then I had to set up three beds! We had Domino's pizza for dinner (they are only 2 minutes away!) and got to bed around midnight.

I had also been responsible for moving the cat. I put her in the cat carrier, but she was meaning so much that I let her out, hoping she would lie down in her bed. Instead she climbed in my lap, while I was driving, and refused to budge! Thank goodness we didn't have an accident, but being with the cat set off an asthma attack, rendering me almost useless.

So now we're just going through the mundane task of unpacking and putting our lives back together. Both kids are happy with the house--the third one gets back from camp tomorrow--which is the most important thing.

Shattered

Tuesday is moving day. This has been a death march for nearly two months, since we first decided to move into town. Of course, we could have just packed everything (or hired someone to pack everything) and avoided all the stress and conflict, but that's not my way. So instead we jumped in--first in waders, then in scuba gear--through 15 years of history, squirreled away in small baskets, hidden in the attic or the back of the closet. Of course, as a guy, my preferred method of organising is to take everything out, sort it in little piles and then pack it. As you can imagine, this makes a hell of a mess, but it is effective.

We sold a lot of stuff on the local equivalent of eBay, which was further complicated because much of it belonged to the children, who didn't understand why they couldn't keep a shirt that was three sizes too small, or a toy they hadn't played with in 6 years. This meant a lot of subterfuge to keep things out of sight (and therefore out of mind) although occasionally we were caught out. One time we sold a small fridge and we had the kids when we went to deliver it. They demanded we keep it so they could put it in their dad's garage when he turned into a band room. (I should note, their dad has been making promises like that for 14 years and has never kept one, but God bless them for being so optimistic.)

Anyway, fast forward two months and we've sold a lot, thrown a lot away, filled a double garage with boxes (not including any furniture) and the house was still littered with piles of stuff! That wouldn't have been a problem--the plan was to move out before putting the house on the market--except that while we were looking for a place, we realised that photos of empty houses looked awful! So last week we met a realtor who absolutely agreed we should take photos before we removed the furniture, and scheduled a photographer for today.

My girlfriend's job was to clean the entire house, whereas my job was to sort out a single room. She finished in four hours; it took me five. To be fair, that was the room that had become the primary staging area, and you could not walk through it for all the stuff.

Of course, this was not packing, this was just clearing up for the photos, and while I was shovelling things in the garage, my girlfriend was throwing things back in the closets, cupboards and drawers that I'd already emptied! At the end of the day, I felt like we'd taken a giant step backwards.

Then after dinner we took another step backwards, as one of the kids is going to school camp tomorrow and not only had she not prepared, but she put out much of what she needed to be packed! As a result, we had to go through the garage and open several boxes to find everything.

Of course some of the boxes had to be shifted, and a couple ended up outside the garage. I should have put them back straight away, but I had a hundred other things to do and so I left them out for about an hour. Needless to say, after the driest January on record, with no rain at all in the last three weeks, it chose that hour to rain and the boxes were ruined. (Thankfully it was all camping gear and so was not affected by the rain. Can you imagine if it had been a box of family photos?!)

So Sunday and half of Monday are exclusively devoted to finishing packing, and Monday afternoon we'll get the keys to the house and move a carload of breakable items. Tuesday the movers arrive at 730am, and I hope they bring a very big truck! It's going to be full-on until we unpack and settle in on Wednesday, and then I can start job hunting again because I need something less stressful in my life. :-)