Moving

For the sake of Katie's grandmas, aunts, mother-in-law, etc, I'm giving a report.

Gary, Paul, Andrew, Maggie, and I arrived Thursday morning to help carry boxes and furniture. Rachel had arrived a little earlier. Nathan and Katie hadn't wanted to impose by asking for help loading the rental truck. But when he saw how long it was taking him to move the pile of boxes outdoors, and how fast that pile zipped outdoors after The Help arrived, they were glad for the family who'd invited themselves over to assist.

Nathan learned that when they say you should use small boxes for books, they really mean small.

Gary and I were very impressed with the packing job the kids had done. They had nearly everything loaded into boxes and organized before we got there. For a first move, they sure had their act together!

Most of the family went home late Thursday afternoon. I shampooed the carpet and Katie thoroughly cleaned the place; she wants the whole security deposit back! We left about 8:00 and stopped in northeastern IN at a hotel. We drove the rest of the way to Fort Wayne on Friday morning.

I learned that stopping for food is more important than diligently loading a truck. And I learned that stopping at the grocery store to grab some fruit and lunchmeat should take priority over unloading a truck, even if you have to get it back to the rental facility.

We took an interesting little detour through Ft Wayne in the moving van. I did not realize that Katie and Nathan had rented the place, site unseen. I thought he was headed in an odd direction through town, but assumed he knew where he was going. Turned out that he was waiting for me to tell him which roads to take. Well,... we managed to get wherre we belonged by blundering our way through town without a map, just by the "feel" of the roads and going on intuition and a little bit of what I remembered from driving around the Fort when I've been there for symposium.

I can't even count the number of times Nathan exclaimed, "This is so great. It'll probably be the nicest place we'll ever live!" The complex is nice. The apartment is nice. Both bedrooms are about the size of our bedrooms here. The living room is about the size of ours. The kitchen is much smaller, but has as much counter space and cupboard space as my kitchen (maybe more). Katie is excited to see a full-size fridge and a full-size stove. The bathroom has two sinks and a washer-dryer. One bedroom has a walk-in closet. There's a nice little patio for sitting and/or grilling. It's just a very nice place. What blows my mind is that the apartment complex probably has more homes and a higher population than any of the villages near us.

The kids had heard that the apt complex is nice, but that sometimes it can be very rowdy, with loud neighbors. I think they aren't going to have a problem with that. It looks like there are groups of college kids in other nearby buildings. But their row of buildings seems to be populated with senior citizens and young married couples. About 15 minutes after we arrived, a fellow of about 70 meandered out of his apartment, took up residence on his patio, and kept an eye on our unloading. Some of his buddies showed up and watched the entertainment too. All I can hope is that these guys continue to prove themselves to be like my dad; if so, Katie and Nathan will have good grandpa-neighbors around!

The biggest problem of my weekend was figuring out whether I wanted to be at the kids' apartment or at Jane's house for the homeschool-mom party. I much too thoroughly enjoyed whichever group I was with at the moment!

When it was time to go on Sunday morning, I said farewell to the kids and started to choke up. Gosh, it's harder to leave them when they're 225 miles away than it is when they're 50. But Melody and Wendi (with whom I was riding back to Illinois) were with me, and there was plenty of chattiness going on in the car, and I managed not to cry over leaving them.