Move Over.

When we last left our team, they were on the brink of devastation. Time and options running out, funds depleted, hope lost.

Or was it?

Our intrepid family never gave up the fight. Rather, they soldiered on, remaining stoic, agile, adaptive and patient. In the end, triumph would shower its splendor on the family and once again prove that good things happen to good people.

Yes, we have our new house.

Things did not go as smooth as we'd hoped, but it is now the Sunday following and we have a great deal unpacked and tomorrow starts our lives again from our shiny new domicile.

As our regular readers already know, Tuesday was stressful. It was the day before closing and we didn't have a number to put on a check to bring to the meeting to pay for the house. The story about Mrs. A's brother and his wife waiting in front of the bank the day of the closing would come to pass for us as well. On Tuesday it was told to us that we'd have to push closing back a couple days, maybe even next week. On Wednesday we were a wreck because all our utilities were switching over and the new people would be in our house on Friday. More on that later.

So on Wednesday I get a call from Mrs. A saying we have to be ready at a moment's notice because we may very well be closing today, but we still don't have a number. After asking if she should just bring her cell phone and wait in front of the bank for the call, Mrs. A was told that wouldn't be a bad idea. For real. These people do this for a living. So 30 minutes before close, they call her and say just bring X amount and the title company will cut you a check for whatever amount over you've paid.

That's right. Change. We got change for our purchase, like we were at Diamond Shamrock buying a Watchamacalit and a bottle of Disani.

Anyway, so Mrs. A has some bank problems on top of that, namely that the amount she required needs a manager's approval and the manager wasn't going to be back until 2:30, half hour after our close. So we ending up getting two checks to break it up so the teller could do it sans approval.

10 minutes to close.

Mrs. A drives as fast as she can to close and when we get there, there's our broker and realtor ready to go, but not the title company. They're still getting things ready. So the broker checks her watch and announces that she can't really wait, she's got to get back to her office so she starts the proceedings.

I'd like to take a break and talk about these two people. First, the realtor was a very nice guy. He did a lot of back and forth and helped us out a lot when we knew nothing about our situation. Toward the end, he went to bat for us quite a bit and got lower prices when needed and dates extended if we were having problems. The broker is a lady we've worked with before, and will again. I think the problems from this go 'round stemmed not from her actions but that of an associate who handled our case right up until the end. At the end, she took the time to come to closing, knocked a bunch of stuff off, waved a bunch of fees and said that when we refinanced she'd do it for free. It almost felt like she was trying to cover for some mistakes that were made.

Because let's face it, if two months isn't enough time to shop around for a lender and insurance and get a good rate locked in, then I'm in the wrong line of work.

So we sign all the papers, but no key. The key is still in the hands of the owners. But we'll get back to that. Time for the big move.

The movers show up at 9:07 am on Thursday, July 21st. We have exactly that day to be completely out of the house, hence the hiring of a moving company. We figure with all the house packed and moved into the garage and most of the furniture already broken down, the move should take maybe 4-5 hours. I'm surprised we thought that. We've done this before and it takes days. That's why you rent a U-Haul for the weekend. Actually, it probably wouldn't have taken that long, but we ran into trouble. The new house people were still in their house. They had to wait for the closing to get money for their new place, so they waited till the 21st as well. Their movers got there at 7, which meant, and they said as much, they'd be out before noon.

Well, everyone was behind a bit. By 11:30 we had our first truck load ready, but the new house wasn't vacant, so we sent the movers to lunch. We had lunch as well then went back to clean a little. At about 1:30 we checked the new house, there was no one in it, but no key and there was a handful of stuff inside. A call to the realtor and he pauses for a moment as says, "You know what? The accounts funded, it's your house now. Do whatever you want. You don't have to wait for that guy." So we were going to have the realtor come out and give us a key when the old owner showed up with his cleaning crew. He was an ok dude I guess, a bit removed and stuffy, but decent. He showed us the speaker system in the house and had some diagrams drawn up for the hookups. Left the garage door openers and all the HOA and manuals in a drawer, like you do. We did the same thing, we left keys, openers, hardwood cleaner, oh and some trash.

But we'll get back to that.

So we unload the first load and head back to get the second, which is all boxes this time. On the estimate, Mrs. A said we had 100 boxes, because really, after about 40-50, who's counting anymore. The moving guys say they stopped counting at 250. So, we're going to get charged more. That's fine. Plus we didn't mention the trampoline, the 2nd fridge, the freezer and a host of other smaller bits. But the movers were great guys, totally took it in stride and were very polite the entire day.

Second load done, movers are sent home. It's about 6pm. There is still a half of a garage full of things at the old house that I have to go back for and fit into one of our SUVs. I get one load done before I'm completely exhausted and have to call it a day. The next morning we get coffee and Mrs. A takes the kids to school while I get the remaining items, including a 3' x 4' x 4' work bench and tool hanging board. Somehow I managed to get all of it into the car. We leave behind two very full trash cans, about 15 flattened empty boxes and a shelf that we didn't want in the garage. The house itself is immaculate inside.

Finally done. All items in the new house, in the garage or in some cars. We give the new owners a call to say congratulations, if you have any questions call us, hope your move is going well. They try to give us the "well you weren't out by the 21st so we're only going to give you $900 of your $1000 deposit back" at which point Mrs. A says, "What are you talking about? We were out last night? You guys aren't moving in yet?" Totally snows him. She's great.

So we're in the new place. First off, there's no gas yet. We don't know this until last night when we're trying to make dinner and the range just clicks repeatedly with no fwoomp sound. Gas company's closed on Sunday unless it's an emergency, so we're fucked for a hot shower until Monday. So Mrs. A calls up and says she tried the stove and saw a shimmer in the air like a puff of gas, but there's no ignition and she's worried. Hey, sudden emergency. Sunday a guy comes out and sets us up.

That wasn't the biggest problem. The biggest issue, the most stress inducing event came from the cable install. First off, the cable company has contractors that do the installations. Not all the time, but some times. Enough that you know it works like that. So our install guy comes out between 8 and 12 on the day of the move, calls first, and we say go ahead if the people moving out will let you in.

They won't, assholes. So he has to come back later when his route is done. He does, works till about 9pm and has to call it a day and come back tomorrow.

Now, when you leave a job and it isn't finished, when do you think you should start on in the next day? Right away or after your shift? I know how these guys work and they put all their crap jobs at the end of the day so they have good numbers for installs. That way they can push off all the problem children till later and still make good numbers. But that's a weird line of work and I'm glad the rest of the world doesn't work like that. "Sorry boss, I know I didn't finish that heart surgery before 5, but I'll get to it first thing tomorrow, after I do 3 kidneys, a bladder and a liver."

So the guys comes back out on Friday in the evening and tries again to get all our stuff hooked up. It's really becoming obvious there's something going on that's preventing him from finishing his job. Either we have the most fucked up pre-wired cable system in the western world or this guy's a giant mook brain. Mrs. A is getting pissed because every hour she's not online she's losing money. She just sent out emails to brides and they have no way to contact her. Her brother was nice enough to put our web server on his network so her site stayed up, but no email. She was getting really out of sorts.

So they tech wraps up Friday saying we have a few options, blah blah blah, he can't make what we want work, even though the previous owners apparently had no problems with it. We say we'll take option A, whatever it was, and he says he'll be back out tomorrow with the needed equipment for that plus his supervisor to assist. So goes another night without access for poor Mrs. A whose about to come unglued. Luckily we had some company and some liquor so she was ok for a while.

Saturday comes around and about noon or so the supervisor shows up and inside of about 15 minutes figures out the problem and in about an hour has us up and running. He does mention that there were a lot of problems and a lot of splits that were screwing up the signal and what not, but I'm still convinced the first guy didn't know beans from bollo ties when it came to cable.

But, we got access, she got her server back, we got it up last night and set the rest of the home LAN up this morning. It's like it was at the old house.

I know, that doesn't really give you an idea of what the house is like, but be patient. It's not like we're moving soon, we've got a 30 year mortage to pay for. I will say that we got the space we wanted and needed and everything just seems to fit really well. Tomorrow after work, Lil Miss Austin and I are going to walk around the house counting light switches, cuz there's a freakin ton of them.