Closing Day (on the house!)

M-Day. Moving Day. C-Day. Closing Day?

Whatever you call it, it was time. Carrie and I packed up our cars one last time (excluding whatever we forget). Grandma and Grandpa left first. They went to closing at the title office in Richmond. 

Carrie and I left after. We went to a Publix in Richmond to get septic safe toilet paper (It had to be written on the bag or Carrie would not allow it in the car or house) and then to a U-Haul office in Charlottesville.

I thought it was a derelict building. I've driven past it for years and wondered when it would be demolished.

The inside wasn't much better.

By the time we left I was surprised the building and the business hadn't collapsed. Shows the power of the U-Haul business model in some ways. It was the cheapest and most effective way for us to move.

Carrie drove the 26' truck.

The location couldn't be beat. We were tenths of a mile from our storage unit and then a straight shot south most of the way home.

It was hot and there was a lot of stuff to move.

We had to carefully unpack to get at the large items, so that we could pack around them in the truck. It was hot and sweaty Tetris.

I sent Carrie on a Wegmans run to get hydration supplies and cool off once some of the biggest things were in. Then I went full wrestler. I ditched my shirt and sweat my butt off. Carrie was ready to go before me, but I didn't want to quit until the whole unit was loaded.

We got 85% of it before I relented.

Never used the dolly. Could have saved $7 on that one.

It turned out we were both right. Carrie had been scanning the skies and worried about rain. The rain hit a few minutes after she got me to quit. We hadn't even turned out onto the road, so I got a picture.

Carrie is the CDL qualified driver of the family. She's driven much larger rigs than the U-Haul and handled the journey with aplomb.

One of the first things I did when we hit the house was grab shoes.

When we had been leaving Grandpa's, Grandma insisted Carrie take tennis shoes. She didn't want Carrie moving heavy objects in flip flops.

"That's a wise idea," I thought.

Then I looked down at my own feet. Flip-flops.

We'd already dropped off the boxes with shoes at the house!

I wore flip-flops for the first load or two at the storage center before I ditched them and went barefoot. The house driveway was gravel and beyond what my callouses could comfortably handle.

Carrie was on the phone shortly after we arrived. The roof of the barn appeared to match the siding. She suspected the builders used the metal for the siding on the roof by mistake.

There wasn't anything I saw I could do in that moment, so I did what I find works: I said a prayer, kept my peace, and focused on what I can do right then.

Which was moving. I was still in wrestler-mode (AKA "Do it until you can't.").

Carrie rebounded to help and forced me to take a cool-down break.

We unloaded the whole truck by 7:30 PM. It took about 5 hours of moving with a 40 minute drive in between.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to spend the night in our new house. The county had not issued a certificate of occupancy yet. I was ready to sleep on the aerobed and assume that the police weren't going to patrol new construction to see if people were sleeping there. If they did I would have said we weren't "living there yet," but were on a rest break after working through the night.

Carrie and her parents didn't agree. Grandpa had points for hotels that were expiring and got us a free night in a local hotel instead. We left around 8:30 PM to make the half-hour drive back into the city. We grabbed dinner at Wegmans as they were closing their food court (9 PM!?) and then checked in to our hotel. Carrie was thrilled to see Twister on the tv and we fell asleep dreaming of a continental breakfast.