2 for 1 Deals by Karma

Well, my parents still haven’t visited. This past weekend (attempt #2) was thwarted because Stepdad caught what Mom had and was also on his death/sick bed.

Again, having another weekend with no plans, F and I went to work on combining our houses. We are industrious little ants, aren’t we? All day Saturday we went through what remained of my stuff and ended up finding another 2 carloads of crap to take to Goodwill. We also had 2 more carloads of stuff to move into F’s house, which we did, and put away. We realized at that time that all that was left in my house was furniture – some designated for Goodwill and some designated for F’s house. We made some calls and luckily found out that U-Haul is open on Sundays AND that we could rope a friend of F’s from work into helping us (I may be scrappy, but there are limits to my strength).

Sunday morning we rented the U-Haul, met F’s friend and started loading furniture from my house into the U-Haul to take to Goodwill. Alright, the guys did that, and I basically just watched. I like to tell myself that I was at the ready to dial 911 lest one of them get injured. I also provided water when needed and the occasional direction (“No, not that table, this table”). Goodwill was happy to see them pull up and actually helped them unload the truck. Then we loaded the truck with my “keeps” and drove over to F’s house. Again, I mainly stayed on the sidelines (“Left bedroom for this, right bedroom for that”, “Would you like another water?”).

After F’s friend left, we dusted everything down, set everything up, arranged things where we wanted them, and even hung things on the walls (you know my taxidermy fish survived the purge!).

So now I’m living at F’s house for reals. I’ve changed my mailing address with lots of places (but not all of them yet). You can send me mail there, too. We haven’t cleaned out my townhouse, yet, though. We’re going out of town this coming weekend, so that’s being put off until the weekend after. Should be a pretty easy job: mopping floors and vacuuming, a little light dusting on the windowsills, cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen.

I did call my property manager and filled her in on the haps. She said she’d slip a “move out checklist” in my door for when we clean and that she’d make a note that I should be out by the end of April so they can let prospective renters know that they have a unit available for May/June. If they find an early renter, they’ll reimburse me some rent. Once I turn in my keys I can turn off my utilities, too.

Let me tell you, it’s been nice not having to pack a bag to stay at F’s house, and vice versa for him. I still spin around now and then in the kitchen as I try to remember where to find certain things. I still do a bit of a double-take when I see my clothes in my half of the closet. Overall I’d say the blending of the houses went better than expected. Our furniture matches each other – nothing looks hodge-podge or out of place. The house looks “homey” now, warmer than it was. And we have a great guest bedroom set up. We figured it out – with the guest room + the kids rooms and sofa sleepers we could “comfortably” sleep 9 in beds. Not sure when that occasion would ever come up, but if it does, we’re ready!

Karma strikes!

I’m without much blog fodder today because Karma struck. Struck my Mom and knocked her on her ass. See, Mom decided she wanted to skip out on a Forced Family Fun Function on Easter by *pretending* to be sick. It worked, she and Stepdad got to spend the holiday together, all was good. Then a couple days before coming to visit me and F, Mom *actually* got sick. Sick with a plague that sounds a lot like what I had in March (for most of the month of March – resilient little bug it was). Consequently, they didn’t make the 5 hour drive to visit us. And believe me, the prospect of getting re-infected with Uber-bug didn’t thrill us.

They’re thinking of coming this weekend instead, but right now they’re scrambling to find someone to watch the dog. Apparently the kennel is closed this weekend. We’re banking on the neighbor for now, but I’m not holding my breath.

So instead of entertaining my parents for the weekend F and I were busy little bees. We got to work going through the stuff and crap at our respective houses and dropped off FIVE carloads to Goodwill (cumulatively). I’m so proud of us, mostly me (3 of those carloads were my crap). F is a pretty sparse/minimalist-type of guy (to a point). I, on the other hand, have been burdened by guilt-laden attachments to cast-offs, hand-me-downs and other detritus from my parents and their kin for YEARS. I’ve carried this stuff from apartment to apartment in Cleveland, and then finally here. It was time to stop the madness. It felt so good to finally rid myself of these things that I will never use.

Granted, we still have to go through my garage, but we made it through the rest of my townhouse and it’s looking pretty good in a half-moved-out-but-not-quite-yet kind of way.

Mom seemed a little put-out to hear about this drastic purging on the phone last night, and I can only think of 3 reasons why: 1) being a hoarder herself, she doesn’t like to see me leaving the fold; 2) she actually thought all of that stuff was valuable and I should have rented a storage space to keep it; or 3) she has doubts about F & I and didn’t want to see me lose my stuff lest we not work out and I have to move out and just buy new stuff. I’m hoping for options 1 or 2. Maybe I’ll find out.

No, my lease isn’t up until the end of June, but we wanted to get a head-start on things. With spring and summer coming up, our weekends are getting more and more full. Those of you who have helped to move me know how daunting a pile of stuff I have/had. We figured it would take us at least 2-3 weekends to accomplish what we did this past weekend. Plus, if we can continue to be this productive, I just might be able to get out of my townhouse by the end of May and get out of my lease a month early. We’ll see how well we do and what my Property Manager says.