The Move and the Bad News Bears Moving Crew :)

What a roller coaster ride the last few weeks have been! We have been preparing our house for the closing, moving into our new apartment, picking out options for the house we are building and the kids started back to school….all in the midst of Drew’s football every night, Emma’s therapies, tutoring, homework and us working each day. I am ready to collapse.

Last Tuesday I was feeling confident about our moving team and plans. Our “team” consisted of Jon, my brother, my dad, my two brother-in-laws and Jon’s dad. One brother-in-law has a bad back and the other has a bad wrist, but they were both still willing to help out and we were happy to have them. I had the apartment lined up, the moving help, the date was set for Friday and Saturday to move. All was well with the world……which most of the time means there’s a big, red, ugly flag somewhere lurking in the distance. (INSERT SCREECHING HALT SOUND-EERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR).

It started last Wednesday, the day after I felt confident about our move. My brother ended up having emergency surgery to remove his gall bladder. I was worried about him and I’m so thankful everything went well. He was a big part of my moving team (since he is a strong, strapping young man) so we were down one man. Of course, his health is the most important but I still had to consider the fact that we were going to be short a person. I am off on Wednesdays so the plan was to finish packing but I was at the hospital instead. Don’t get me wrong, that is exactly where I wanted to be. It just became comical to me that every time I had a minute to make progress, something stood in the way. Like I said though, I was right where I wanted and needed to be.

And then it was Thursday. Thursday was definitely one of those awful, nightmare-ish, can’t believe this is happening, oh my goodness kind of nights. After dinner, my parents and I went to take a few things to the apartment. Remember my previous post about the apartment complex and how people there were laughing at how we’ve never embraced “apartment living” before??? Could it be that they were laughing because there were ROACHES in the apartment???? Yes, r-o-a-c-h-e-s. I noticed the unwanted visitors had already beaten us there. Now, I don’t consider myself high maintenance (some may disagree, but hey, we all have our limits), but I had no desire to share my living space with these nasty bugs. One of us was going to have to go. My mom and I had the same thought (get out…and quick!) while my dad was trying to convince me it would be okay. About that same time, I got a text from Jon- who was playing in a softball game. “I am hurt. It’s my left shoulder and right knee.” (Insert screeching halt again). Is it bad that my first thought was “What??? Oh great, moving man #2 is down AND we have roaches in our apartment!!” I’ll answer my own question, yes it was bad. How could this be happening? What was I supposed to be learning from this experience? I went into immediate “damage control” mode. I decided to graciously concede to the roaches, grab the few things we had brought to the apartment and bolt. Met Jon at home and the poor guy could hardly walk. He told me he hyper extended his leg coming into home plate and thought it was broken at first. Thankfully, he was able to get up and walk on it after it happened. A few hours after being home he started complaining quite a bit with his shoulder hurting. He actually winced in pain all throughout the night. We started to wonder if his shoulder was broken. I barely slept that night.

Friday I took the day off work to finish packing. Of course I had to find a place to live so packing was going to have to wait…yet again (lol). I called the apartment manager. I told her I thought the roaches wanted that place more than I did, so they could have it! She graciously let us out of our lease. After I hung up the phone so thankful that I didn’t have to go through a battle to get out of that situation, I quickly realized we were then homeless and had people coming 8 hours later to help us start moving. You can not imagine the stress. I could not imagine the stress. It was awful. We were homeless, losing our moving help one by one, Jon possibly had broken bones and there was still a lot of packing to do! I frantically made many phone calls looking for an apartment and hours later found one. I couldn’t believe it, but praise the Lord. Jon went to the doctor at 3pm to find out he had sprained his ac joint in his shoulder and his knee could possible have an ACL tear, but the hope was that it was just a sprain too. They gave him a knee brace and he will return for a follow up appointment to see if he needs a mri for his knee. Out of doctor by 3:45pm, signed the lease at new apartment by 4pm and had the keys in hand ready to start moving by 6pm. Nothing like coming down to the last minute. Of course the downside is paying more, but those roaches were worth every penny! The kids love it (there’s a great pool), it’s an awesome location and perfect for us! Of course I knew that the Lord was in control of everything. It all worked out the way it was supposed to.

We spent all weekend moving with our “bad news bears crew” (because almost everyone had some sort of injury). They all worked so hard and got it all done, even my nieces and nephews helped out! And yes, Jon was right there in the mix going up and down steps and lifting heavy things. A HUGE shout out and many thanks to our family for helping us move Friday night and Saturday and for keeping my kids. We could not have done it without them. We are so blessed to have all of our family right here together and it sure came in handy because we had a lot of stuff to move! My friend Samantha blessed us with an awesome meal Saturday night, which came at the perfect time. Thanks Sam! Carolyn, Tanya and Tracy also blessed us with a yummy ham dinner the other night. My poor family- it’s the first cooked meal they’ve had in a while. It was delicious! Now…everyone has some time to rest up before our next move. Haha!

The last few days were spent cleaning the old house and more damage control with some bumps in the road regarding closing, but again, everything worked out. God is good.

We closed on our old house this morning (yay!). Now it is time to embark on the next leg of our journey, building our house. But for now, I think I could sleep for days!

PS- if you are wondering, you can live without cable and internet for a week. We have done it since last Friday. Drew thinks he is in the midst of punishment without it, but he has survived!

A closing request- please keep Emma in your prayers. She has had a delayed adjustment reaction to all her new surroundings (school, apartment etc). She is having a rough time…worse than I’ve ever seen her. She is very weepy, having some separation anxiety, misbehaving at school, getting up several times a night, and repeating things and asking the same questions over and over (having a major OCD flare up). I pray this will pass soon. Pray for guidance for me as I try to help her. I know she has had a lot thrown at her at once. My heart is heavy for her right now.

Until next time…

Happy Friday!