The Final Push

Tonight is our last night at #17.  Tomorrow, we head out on the open highway and by Tuesday, almost all traces of our time here will be erased when the movers and cleaner come, the septic and leech field guys do their thing, and we close this chapter on our lives.

The last ten days or so have been incredibly stressful.  We hosted a huge moving sale last weekend, and I thought we had gotten rid of everything there was to get rid of.  Little did I know!  Thankfully Greg's mom and dad were able to come up and provide much needed organizational support--I had thrown everything in a lump on the garage and it was all chaotic and disorganized.  Greg's dad did a lot of moving, his mom was good at categorizing and organizing, and then I was able to go through when they lost steam and price everything.  Good teamwork!  Once the sale was done, we took our leftovers to "Aunt Dorothy", a local woman who runs a huge sale every year to benefit the local nursing home residents.  And all week, we've been bringing her things.  It's wild. 

On Monday, we took Greg's car in for service, which wound up needing an extra day due to some repairs, which meant we were a one car family for several days, because after we got his car back, my car went in.  That meant driving both Greg and Leah to school and back, as well as trying to navigate pick up of the cars.  

Also Monday was our last Lion's Club meeting and I will miss those people so much <3  It was the first club I joined after I got home, and I was welcomed with open arms.  I have enjoyed serving with them and spending time with them, and I hope to keep in touch with many of them even from afar!

Thursday morning, my car was still in the shop, and I had to travel to nearby Carthage to sign the sale papers on my house, so I had to get my dad's car, go sign the paper work (40+ minutes each way for an 8 minute appointment!), pick my dad up, we drove to get my car, and then finally home.

On Thursday evening, our moving company called to say they couldn't do our move after all.  This left us 72 hours to get ourselves together and find a new way of moving our gear.  We ultimately found another moving company, only to have the charges declined on Greg's card.  He called his card company, and they have placed a 7-14 day security hold on his bank card, which meant having to use other funds (which we had available, thankfully!) to pay for the move.  UN-fortunately, however, we won't get the points from his card for our honeymoon next year!  Doubly unfortunately, our gear will not arrive for 4-21 days.  Anyone care to guess that ours probably won't arrive for 21?  So we had to scramble our packing plans--we'd gone from "Pick up Sunday and deliver Thursday" to "Pick up Tuesday and deliver sometime before mid-June".  

On Friday, both Greg and Leah finished school for the year.  Greg graduated with his AAS in land surveying technology.  Leah is no longer a sixth grader.  Leah also finished the sixth grade production of The Wizard of Oz, in which she had the lead role of Dorothy.  I'm so proud of them both.  It was a tough year for Greg especially, and I know Leah is sad saying goodbye to the kids she has been friends with for the 3 1/2 years that we have been here.  She had the benefit of a small school and a small group of kids who welcomed her into their midst so warmly.  She has had a great time at Clifton-Fine, even if I wasn't always satisfied with the way things were being done. haha

So to celebrate, on Friday night, we sparked up our fire pit and roasted hot dogs and marshmallows, chased each other with the house, sword fought with sticks, and generally let out a lot of emotion. 

Sword fighting and fire in the yard--we live on the edge!

So then, I finally had some help getting packed.  And we had 48 hours to pack, because despite the moving snafus, we still have to leave tomorrow morning because of our closing on Thursday morning on the South Dakota house.  And because I didn't correctly estimate how much stuff we actually owned, our bill shot up a few hundred dollars, and we've been trying to cram as much as we possibly can into our cars, while leaving Greg plenty of open space for the cats, who are all traveling in style in the Gregmobile.  

Today was a whirlwind of packing--we had a massive mountain of clothing.  So much so that we actually donated eight giant trash bags full and still have filled a bunch of space bags and suitcases!  We sat down to dinner at 8pm, sandwiches from the local convenience store, and ate on 'the good china'.  I can't even remember the last thing I actually cooked here!  

Dinner on the 'good china' our last night in NY

My dad has wanted to spend as much time with us as possible, and we've been without basic supplies or food, so we've been running up and down the hill to his place to eat meals, watch football (SDSU was in a championship game of some sort but lost by 2 points :( ), and play games. We've also had people in and out to get furniture, much of which we wound up giving away, and a cleaner in to give us an estimate because we won't be able to clean after our stuff leaves.  Plus friends and neighbors have come over to say goodbye.    It's been an absolute whirlwind.

That's the mechanics of our last week in NY.  The emotions I'll cover in a second post...  Because I have a lot of them.  I've been waiting for this weekend since the end of March when I went to Pierre.  Now that it's here, I can't believe how much we've had to do!  Holy smokes, it's been crazy.  I can't wait to get out there and maybe be able to relax a smidgen--albeit on the floor as we'll have no furniture.   But we'll be there, and that's what will matter.  See you all from SD!