Matt and I and the older three kids spent the 4th of July weekend packing and packing and packing... while Jared and Max were in St. George with Grandma & Grandpa. We couldn't have accomplished half as much without that help so I offer a BIG thank you to Gma & Gpa! The boys even behaved themselves really well, so that's another thing for which I'm grateful.
We had a hard time finding movers who weren't already booked for that weekend, so we went with a company that had an early afternoon opening on Tuesday, July 5th. They were supposed to be finished with their morning move and ready to transport us by 12:30, but 12:30 came and went without any movers.
They didn't arrive until 4 pm (already tired from a long and hot day of work.) Their boss told them to do one load and unload of the truck and come back on the next day to finish. Even with one load, it was a loooooooooong evening, with lots of scrapes and scratched to my furniture.
Wednesday was seriously problematic. Matt was left to direct the movers while I drove the kids North for their Grandparents weekend on Matt's side of family. Their trip was really important! This was the carrot that we'd dangled in front of Lauren, Zach & Gabe during the 4 days of endless packing (with NO 4th of July fireworks or fun.) Matt was still trying to field phone calls for work as he directed the movers, and it wasn't pretty. Boxes and furniture ended up in the wrong rooms or worse - left behind at our old house with no means of transportation. I came home to chaos... well... mass chaos on top of the normal moving chaos.
I then I spent Thursday morning completing my last Webelos activity and packing so I could leave that afternoon for a trip with my mom and sisters that's been planned for months. To say that I was tempted to cancel the trip is an understatement. Matt insisted I go, in spite of the week's difficulties and the fact that I was leaving him and Jared with an utterly dysfunctional house. I'm glad I went. My body was so worn down, I had developed a nasty cold, was having painful Braxton Hicks, and spent one night of the trip with the stomach flu, so I don't know that I would've been much good at the house any way. I LOVED every minute with my Mom and Sisters, and I realize now how desperately I NEEDED those three days of rest.
I came home with a renewed determination to make this house a home before the baby arrives in mid-August, but moving is just hard work! It's the little things that get you. I woke up Monday morning and spent to first half of the day just trying to eradicate "The SMELL," which turned out to be three SMELLS... the garbage cans, the molding laundry, and the pile of dishes in the sink. In a functioning house, such problems would be easily handled, but when you've just moved, you have to FIND the dish soap, FIND the laundry soap, and FIND the garbage bags... oh, and you have GET THE APPLIANCES HOOKED UP AND WORKING - the washing machine faucet had a leak, which Matt was finally able to fix. Matt had packed up the kitchen and labeled things differently than I would have, so it's taken me FOUR DAYS to find a single kitchen knife! I've been working from sun-up to sun-down and I still feel like this move will never end!
Throw in the fact that Jared has had a fever for 3 days and is terribly clingy and miserable, we've been making trips back and forth between the old and new houses to transport all those things that were left behind, we've been cleaning the old house, and scheduling a General Contractor for the repairs on old house and the stress level around here is rivaling Mount Everest. Changing the utilities deserves it's own segment because of one problem... my expired driver's license.
Who seriously looks at their driver's license and counts the days until it expires?! I didn't. I learned that mine had expired in mid-May when handing it over to the TSA agent in the airport and he said, "You know your license has expired don't you." I was filled with indescribable panic as I thought he was telling me I couldn't board the plane. Because it had expired only two days before this incident, he said I could travel, but I needed to renew the license ASAP.
After our trip, I knew we were determined to move soon, so I thought I should wait to renew the license until I had my new address. I took the kids to the water park the first week in June and was driving down Center Street of the neighboring town without realizing it was a mere 15 miles per hour. I was going 25 mph. The Police Officer who pulled me over also noticed that my vehicle registration had expired 4 days ago, and then I showed him my expired driver's license. I shudder to think of the cost of that ticket for all three infractions!!! But either the panic on my face, my pregnant belly or the 5 children clamoring in the back seat filled him with compassion and he only gave me a WARNING! May God bless Officer Friendly #1.
The next day I had the van lubed, oiled, inspected and registered! I got myself all gussied up for that dreaded driver's license photo and marched myself down to the DMV. How could I not realize that the DMV is only open Monday through Thursday, and I had the nerve to show up on a Friday morning. Curse the DMV! I went back to my original plan of waiting for my new address before renewing the license.
So now we've moved I began the process of changing the service address for all of our utilities. I thought I could call all the utilities as my sister and I drove out of town for our trip, so I started with the city (that's water, sewer and garbage service.) I was told that I needed to complete the online forms and then bring in a VALID driver's license to complete the service changes. Almost all services were like this, so everything was put on hold for the weekend because there was nothing I could do. On Monday morning, I intermittently eradicated "The SMELLS" and spent the day contacting all the utilities, most of which require that you to complete online forms on websites that crash or give weird error messages so that you have do everything twice or spend hours "on hold" on the customer service lines, waiting to talk with a human being.
So I come back to the Driver's License Dilemma. I made my second trip to the DMV late Monday afternoon with only my expired license and debit card in hand. I SHOULD HAVE CHECKED THE REQUIREMENTS! Apparently I needed the following: two forms of identification - birth certificate and social security card along with two utility bills with my new address on them. Now, I've had a driver's license in this state for 20 years, and my birth certificate and social security number haven't changed in all that time, so why they need to see them again for a renewal is beyond my comprehension! And I certainly didn't have utility bills with my new address, because I'd spent the morning updating them and in the case of the city utilities... I can't update those without a license and the DMV instructions say they won't give me a license without my utility bill!!! Now we meet officer friendly #2. He works at the DMV (no doubt as a bouncer for disgruntled "customers") and after I explain my dilemma to him, he informs me that I can simply send myself two pieces of mail and bring those in as proof of my new address. Well, why didn't the DMV instructions SAY that I only needed two pieces of mail instead of saying I needed utility bills?!?! I HATE the DMV.
So I filled out two empty envelopes to myself, stamped them and dropped them at the city post office. I then waited two days for them to show up in my mailbox. I went to our safe, in which I keep sensitive documents like birth certificates and social security cards to find that Jared had been playing with the buttons again and had locked the key portion of the safe, so I couldn't open it by simply typing in my code. Did I mention how long it took to find the knives? Well, it took two days to find the key to the safe.
I woke up early the next day to get presentable for the third time to take that blasted driver's license picture. I wanted to arrive at the DMV first thing in the morning to avoid long lines, and this time I was armed with my two letters, two identification documents, and my old license. I stood in line for approximately 90 seconds. I plunked my papers down on the counter where the attendant took 10 seconds to look at them, I sat in a chair with a stupid grin on my face for that photo, and then I was sent to the "seating area" to wait for my number to be called. I'm thinking, "Well, the third times the charm! This is going well." My number gets called, my documents get reviewed for another 10 seconds and I realize I left the house without one crucial piece of this maddening puzzle.... MONEY.
Aaaaaaaaarrrgggggh!!!!!
I was cursing myself at this point and pleading with the attendant to let me run home to get my debit card and not have to do the WHOLE process over again. He takes pity on me as well, finishes scanning my documents and tells me to come right back to his desk when I arrive with the money. FOURTH TRIP to the DMV... I wait for the blessed attendant to finish helping the military man wearing fatigues, and then I paid my $25 and was handed a print out of my temporary license.
I drove straight to the city offices to get those utilities in order, and of course, their whole computer system is down. Sigh... The nice lady copied my shiny new driver's license printout and wrote some notes about what we needed changed with our service and said that she'd take care of it when the computers were back online. I think I need to go back to the city office because we still don't have the garbage cans we ordered. Bigger SIGH.
This morning we had a visit from a counselor in our new bishopric. Jared's second dose of fever medication hadn't kicked in yet so he was crying and miserable as we tried to make conversation. The counselor came to say "Welcome to the ward" and extend a calling to Matt and I...
Nursery Workers.
Now, I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and I believe in serving where I'm asked to serve, so our answer was "yes." But my second thought was, "Making friends in this new area just got TEN TIMES harder!" And to a woman whose husband travels so often and is about to have her 6th c-section, that's a tough pill to swallow. I had to stay home from church with poor Jared, and I found myself stewing about this new calling. My thoughts bounced around something like this...
Pros | Cons |
I get to work with Matt - love it! | It will be so tough to get to know people and for them to get to know us. |
A Sunday calling works really will with Matt's schedule. | I will seriously miss the spiritual nourishment from Sunday School and Relief Society. |
This is an easy calling to work with a new baby. | Oh, Horror! I'll be taking a newborn to the most germ-infested calling in the church! |
I’m sure the Lord knows what he’s doing by giving us this calling. | I just plain feel like I’m being shipped to Siberia without a second thought! |
CHANGE IS JUST PLAIN HARD!
I keep looking ahead to envision some point when I'll feel settled and "normal" again, but I just keep seeing more changes and the need for more work. I know that's not a bad thing. It's usually great in the long run, it's just exhausting in the present. I have A LOT to be thankful for. Even in my trials, I've been blessed by compassionate cops and clerks and family members and new neighbors who bring treats and offer to watch kids. I'm so grateful for a new Bishop who felt inspired to talk with Matt today about our new calling. Did I mention that the kids are making great friends here already - I'm THRILLED about that! Some of the kids in the ward even go to their charter school. I think I just needed a place to mentally unload the trials that have been weighing me down, and remind myself that you can only climb a mountain one step at a time.
Thank you to those of you who bothered to read this 'til the end. I really appreciate it. And tomorrow I'll lace up those proverbial climbing boots and tackle the next few steps on my never-ending "To Do" list. Maybe I should start chanting like with the little engine who could...
"I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...." ;D
