CRAZY SUNDAY
Sundays are for special breakfasts and for relaxing. Though I wished I could have made a special breakfast as I have in the past, today it simply was not possible. With the movers scheduled to arrive at 08,30 and possibly taking up most of the morning, there was no time for anything special nor was there any relaxing today.
They arrived on time. I was already at the old place trying to get whatever else of the little stuff I could grab to take to the second garage. It’s always the endless little things that bog us down. As I looked around, I wondered if I would be able to get this all emptied by Wednesday. When the two movers drove up with their van, I went through the rooms and let them know which items they would be taking and which they would leave behind. All of the furniture that I could not move by myself would be moved by them.
The timeframe that I had in mind for the move was no more than three hours. One of the movers tried explaining that this was too little a time for so many pieces of furniture but that they will try their best but will not be able to wrap up everything completely. Later I saw him outside talking with his boss and explaining the timeframe, no doubt trying to figure out a way for me to see how impossible this was going to be.
The property manager was already getting impatient with my endless requests but I still believed this move to not be any fault of mine. I also felt that giving me a $300 credit towards rent would not be enough. This is the amount I told the movers they had to work with until I saw how crazy that was. I told them to take their time wrapping up the furniture properly and that I would call the property manager to ask them to cover the entire cost of the move. After I left them a message, as they were not open on a Sunday, I wrote an email explaining how the movers would need closer to six hours to move everything since there were three flights of stairs involved.
At one point as I looked around the apartment at all of the pieces of large furniture, I felt defeated. I was no longer certain that all of the furniture would fit into a smaller apartment, even with an extra garage. But there was no turning back now. Frustrated and close to tears, I asked the movers if they needed me for anything before I returned to the new apartment. They assured me that they were good on their own and I returned to see what the children were doing.
All three children were lounging on the floor and on the lone mattress on the floor watching their devices in the larger bedroom since the movers would need access to the other bedroom. They wondered when we would be able to eat breakfast.
‘Can I eat ice cream’ asked Saffron. ‘Sure’ I gave in. What else was I to do, I wondered. I couldn’t start making a special breakfast whilst waiting for the movers to start placing all of the furniture in the living room.
After two hours packing up at the old place, the movers started their difficult journey up the stairs. ‘You have some nice furniture’ one of the movers commented. Based on the sounds that came from the staircase, I knew exactly when they were carrying the tall red bookcase, certain they were cursing it with every step they took.
In the midst of the move came a Fed Ex man at the door, leaving a tall box at our door. The package my son had been looking forward to for the past week. The box which contained his violin. Since the original violin I ordered would be on backorder until sometime in August, I decided to upgrade to another violin which was also made in Romania.
The sales lady at the music shop let me have the same discount I had with the lesser model and also appeared to have rushed the shipment with no cost to us since she told us that the violin would take 3 to 4 business days to arrive. I let her know that my son was leaving on Wednesday and had hoped to have the violin for a few days before going to spend the summer with his father. I was grateful for the music shop to have done that for us and look forward to learning to play the violin as well during the time my son would be away.
As I waited for the movers to be finished carrying up all of furniture, I washed some dishes and wondered when this would finally be over. It was a most difficult day and I wanted it to be over soon. When the last of the items were out of the truck, other than the dryer, I headed over to my larger garage so that they could take out the bunk bed and put in the dryer. Then they drove back to the apartment around the corner and carried the two sections of the bed into the girls’ room.
Close to five hours later, they were done and ready to be paid. As I had only $400 left on one of my credit cards, I started to stress about being able to pay the rest. I handed over a second card for the remainder of the payment, not knowing if there was enough credit to cover it. There was not. The card was denied and more panic set in. I then handed the mover another card and held my breath in the hopes it would clear payment. To my surprise, that was denied as well. I was puzzled until the guy let me know that he entered the number incorrectly.
As soon as the movers left, I washed what floor was not covered by furniture and waited for it to dry so the girls could move into their room and Sage could open the violin box. During the time the kids were in the room, Cinnamon came up with her own set of ‘Who Knows Me Best’ questions for another game of Kahoot. This also required going to Target to buy a prize for the winner. As much as I dreaded having to go anywhere at this point, I agreed to take her. She promised that she and her sister would help pack up the remaining items at the old place for an hour a day until Wednesday if I took her to Target.
The prizes she bought had a certain winner in mind. She never thought her brother would win so she concentrated her efforts on a first prize with Saffron in mind. Cinnamon was clearly upset when Sage won first prize, claiming that he did not really know her. I was the second place winner and gave the kids the Mamba and M&Ms to share from my prize winnings.
After the game, the kids got a head start as they left for the pool whilst I took out the garlic for the pasta sauce for dinner. Though I wanted to stay home, I knew that I needed to use the time I had left of this crazy Sunday to spend time together with the kids. I spent some time lounging by the pool, watching the kids play. Then I went home with Sage and made pasta sauce for the spaghetti which we enjoyed later that evening on the balcony with a healthy salad. Our crazy Sunday was over and we survived another day of this most tiring move.
