At the same time, I've been known to say things like "my heart and soul are in the mountains," and, "Appalachia is an incredibly special place to me," and "I love Sonic." So this (very recent) move to Abingdon brings a lot of excitement as well. We're under an hour's drive from Johnson City, home of the organization that brought us to one another. We're just a few miles from the ASP center where I decided to apply for staff, and where I took my first leadership role within my church. Plus, it's really stinkin gorgeous here. What better place for a full-blooded ASP baby to spend her first formative years?
Let's rewind to the beginning of this odyssey. For starters, you should know that at one point we were legally tied to three different properties. (1) The house on Milne St in Germantown, which we had rented a year ago and fled in August when my pregnancy-induced pity party required that I get out of the city immediately. We found a (slightly sketchy) sublettor, and rented (2) Our apartment in Exton, a nice, comfy one-bedroom with a shaded patio, quick access to Babies 'R Us, and a fantastic pantry, but which we knew we'd only be in for six months while searching for (3) Our house in Abingdon, which we made an offer on and signed a contract for a few weeks back. Land barons, we are.
So the odyssey began with cleaning out our Milne street house, a task complicated by the fact that our sublettors had left several rooms' worth of furniture, clothing, and baking supplies. Some of the furniture was worth keeping, so we loaded it all up in several Jeep runs and cleaned like the dickens. My dad was on hand to help for two days, and I was happy to encourage him to take baby-entertaining patrol for most of the second. Lea was pretty stoked about that too.
Monday, 2/12, should have been a day to start packing, but instead I bummed around with Jenny all day and Brian played some solo Strat-O-Matic baseball, bringing us to Tuesday, which felt successful. We packed a whole lot and cleaned, and it seemed like things were pretty efficient considering it started to snow very hard and we were trying to get all of our personal things transferred to my parents' so we could spend the next day and a half with their house as our base. Anyway-- to get to the point-- we still had a whole lot to do Wednesday morning, when we woke up to lots more snow and the realization that we wouldn't even be able to get our truck until after we dug out our car, shoveled the driveway, and got the go-ahead from the rental company (who, understandably, do not like to hand out trucks during dangerous road conditions).
All of this was achieved by midafternoon, and we still had all of our loading and cleaning to do. Plus, we had all those baby-in-a-snowsuit pictures to take!
We did as much loading of the truck as we could Wednesday evening, awarded ourselves a break to watch Lost (side note: what the...??? I don't even know how to begin to understand what happened last week.)
Thursday was stressful because my mom had to go into work (after Wednesday's snow day, which allowed her to babysit). So we thought it might be a very, very long day until I spotted these words on the crawl beneath Hurricane Schwartz's cute face: "Octorara Schools now closed." Sweet! Approximately three seconds later I had Jenny on the phone, who agreed to watch the kid while we finished packing. It was great to spend time with her on my last day in town, and it helped us a ton. We left town around 2:30, landed in Abingdon after midnight, and crashed.
Friday we became homeowners! The process was pretty simple, and the attorney befriended us when he noticed our political leanings on our voter cards. Plus I met a woman at the attorney's office who had grown up in Chester County and gone to camp Tweedale. Already Abingdon was feeling like a friendly place.
My dad arrived while we were at settlement, and we all started unpacking shortly thereafter. Eric and Holly got into town later that evening, and my mom finally got there after midnight, cats in tow, after a long drive that began with a nightmarish closing of the PA turnpike just minutes after she got on. Everyone was enormously helpful. This computer would probably be under piles of boxes if they hadn't been here to aid in the unpacking process.
The weekend was awesome. I love my family. It's so good to spend low-ley time together, and even better that I get to be related to people with whom the process of moving can feel low-key. It was especially good that mom got to stay an extra day and help us get settled. Plus it's incredibly fun to watch her with my daughter.
Thanks Jenny, Eric, Holly, Dad, and Mom. And thanks to my fellow Camp Tweedale-ite for making me feel like we're not so far away after all. Pictures of the house, and our delightfully Stars-Hollow-esque town, coming soon.
2 comments:
We're happy to help anytime! Especially me, with the packing of boxes. LOVE it. It's a bizarre consequence of moving around a lot as a kid. And of having a very unorganized family (I have to create control by organizing small compartments, like boxes).
I also LOVE the snow suit with the ears -- I saw it on the Ikea bed and nearly cried at how adorable it was. Ears!
Hope the lasagna turned out OK. I forgot to tell you that those reheating directions were for a whole lasagna, so I hope they worked for the mini ones, and I also made it with mild Italian sausage rather than ground beef.
And yes, I found the chicken at Kroger (oh my goodness, please don't call it "Krogers" or "the Krogers" -- it identifies the local yokels, around here, anyway). On clearance, too. Our Kroger for some reason has inventory issues and I often find meat and milk about to expire priced to sell. My gain!
I was also happy to bond with your cats, who'd always kept me at paw's length before.
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