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!