Let me give all of you out there a good bit of advise. Communication is key. I think Patric and I had a slight communication gap on one key piece of planning. I thought we were going to hold on to the keys to the apartment so that we wouldn't have to rush to get everything out all at once that morning...just the main items. It turns out that his plans were to get everything, every little item, out that morning and turn the keys in as we were leaving. Since this was an apartment and not a hotel back home I kind of figured that there would be a whole process to turning in the keys. Patric, on the other hand, thought it would be just walking in, dropping off the keys and saying thank you.
So, after we cleared up the first miscommunication and agreed to get everything out and crammed into the car we realized that it was going to take a little longer than we planned. So our running around got kicked into high gear. There is nothing like waking up early on a Saturday morning and then rushing around like crazy...what fun! But we just kept our eyes on the goal...moving into the house! I really wish I would have taken a picture of the car when we finished loading it. It was quite hilarious!!
On the way out Patric stopped to do the "key drop off". I tried to convince him that it would not be that easy but he just knew it would. I waited in the car for him. Two or three minutes later he came out and got back in the car. He was hesitant but admitted that there was a whole process to checking out - they needed to do a walk through and have him sign off on some paperwork. I didn't want to say it but I was sure thinking it...told you so! Patric one...Jennifer one. But who's counting? =) (It's going to be one of those days...)
We called Shanny to let her know that we were on the way but of course couldn't find the house on GPS. She agreed to meet us at Patric's office since it is only a few minutes from the house. When we finally made it to the house we were so happy to be there. The listing agent was there also...we did not expect to see him. We thought the whirlwind part of our morning was over. Boy were we wrong!!! Patric and I were immediately separated - he went with the listing agent to check off items on one list and I went with Shanny to look over another list. Shanny and I walked (quickly) through the house to look for any defects. As we were doing this the owners of the house showed up - another unexpected surprise! Talk about pressure! I'm walking with Shanny who is already on high speed then the owners are there watching as I'm critiquing their property. Crazy! I don't think I even saw Patric for at least half an hour.
When I finally saw him again it was only for a few minutes before he was pulled away to sign a whole bunch of papers. It was almost as bad as buying a house. One thing I have noticed - since he is the only one working, he is the main one required to sign most paperwork. That is kind of hard for me but it is ok. The owners of the property were very nice! I spoke with the wife who understood exactly how I felt. Her husband worked a lot so she handled most of the business of the rentals so we figured out that we would be talking to each other when it came to issues with the house. Funny how things like that work out!
As all of this was starting to wind down our furniture showed up...no time to breathe! Round one is over...time for round two. There was a little bit of craziness as the agents tried to get the last bit of information they needed from us and the the furniture people started coming in and asking the beginning of their questions. The owners just kept telling us if there was anything they could do please let them know...how nice! Finally the first group left and we were left with figuring out where we wanted the furniture to go. That was when it really hit us that we hadn't had any time to really think about that. We did a quick discussion and agreement then Patric went and unloaded the car so we could get PK in a room that could be shut off (she had air in the car - please, no comments about killing the cat!!!) from the movers.
I'm sure you can figure the day the furniture was delivered it didn't come with sheets and we didn't have the rugs for the floors. The shopping for that is another post...
Once all of the furniture was successfully in place it was time to retrieve the rest of the family. Have you ever seen someone go through withdrawals? Sadly, I have but that is something that we will not go into here. What I can tell you is that I have never seen someone actually have withdrawals over another living thing...until now. I was missing our dogs, very much. Patric was having withdrawals. Once the furniture was done it was all about getting the dogs. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, else mattered. We tried to have lunch but when he found out that it was going to take too long for the lunch to be prepared we left (in fairness this was coupled with the fact that they did not have options for him to drink). It was even difficult to have conversation with him - small talk was wasted and he couldn't focus enough for in depth conversations to be held to anyone's benefit. It was a very sad thing to behold, for sure. I can't tell you how happy I was to arrive at Shayne's house for everyone's sake! We had already agreed that we would pick them up Saturday and she would deliver their very large crates to us on Sunday.
We loaded Duke and Josie in the car and set out for home. Patric was back to normal and the dogs seemed happy to be with us. When we got home and introduced them to their yard they seemed to like it right away. What made them even happier was coming in the house and having us follow them. We walked them through every room, as empty as they were, and let them know that this was home. Then, sadly, it time for us to leave them so we could start getting the necessary things for the house...but that is another post!
See you next post!
Love your posts and glad to see you are now in your new home settling in with your animals.
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