We have been moving.
I was going to hire a U-haul, chuck everything into the back and go, but oh nooooo, hubs had to jump in with why to you want to waste money like that when X has a perfectly good pick-up and has offered? My response was, "because we have lived in the
same place for 26 years and have a gross ton of stuff",which he took as justification for not hiring a truck because it would take a couple days to get everything anyway, and then we would have to sift through the remains for treasure to boot. I
honestly have quit banging my head on my desk, truly I have, mostly because my desk is still back at the old house. Because his plan worked so well. Next time I am back there (probably today) I want to get a whip and start cracking to just for the love
of deity get some stuff done!
Of course there are some mitigating circumstances, every single time we have moved large objects it has started to snow. In fact I now have people calling me to find out if we are moving anything today, so they have early warning of lake effect snow.
We tried to do it all on one day, but we got smacked with a blizzard. Literally, a freaking blizzard hit while my mattress and several other things were in transit from there to here. The same darn thing happened last time we moved. Fortunately the
people helping us are better than my idiot cousin who was supposed to be helping us last time.
At least I won on the hiring a dumpster issue. I expect I will feel a surge of pure joy when the horrific couch and chair the man brought home from a thrift shop goes in there. In brief, four cats, a family of 5, one of which is a disabled teen, and a
couch and chair set that is not just old, but cream coloured with a print pattern of little green flowers. There is now a rule at my house that says he may not buy furniture without me present.

Just as the cherry on top of our amazing moving adventure, I had called the shop I bought our cookstove from to see if we needed help in changing from natural gas to propane. Oh no I was told, these days the set up is all the same it should hook right
up no problem. Really they should invent a phone with an auto-warning that tells you when you are talking to an idiot. So the day before Christmas eve I am calling the store back and telling them that I had been misinformed by someone in their employ.
I explained the problem, and that the stove had a pocket on the back with all the parts that were needed, and a complete set of instructions. I also explained that since the instructions were chock full of words like "dangerous", "flammable", "poison",
and "explosion", that we would much rather that they send somebody who knew what they were about to set us up. They said they would send someone as soon as they could, which turned out to be the 28th. So I told the crew (my turn to stay home with Ash)
make sure you get the hot plate I use for batik out of my workroom this trip, as well as the microwave, the crockpot, and the electric kettle. They remembered the hotplate, which promptly died in the midst of pancakes. Our moving friend took pity and
tried to help. They brought over a camping "thing". DH was certain I would have some idea what to do with it, since I had been camping a lot as a child.
Sadly Civil War reenactors do not generally use propane a lot, so I was clueless. Give me a fire, a flat rock and some time and I could probably make you pancakes and eggs, eventually. An enormous set of concentric circles on legs that is somehow hooked
to a little propane tank? Uhhhhh...
They were going to set it up in the kitchen to play with it. I didn't just put my foot down, I put both feet down (DH says that sane people call that "jumping up and down") The heck if I was going to let a pair of maniacs (aka mad scientists) burn down
my new kitchen very first thing! So they carried it out to the porch grumbling all the way. Yes it was cold, it was snowing, the wind was blowing, and that made it hard to get the thing going and generated many complaints about freezing body parts off.
My kitchen did not burn down! It took them six hours to make ramen noodles, and they thereafter abandoned the contraption. So we had cheese and fruit and bread and boughten cookies for Christmas dinner. My kitchen did not burn down!

NightMist

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NightMist,

How did the move finally go? I have been lurking and thinking about you.

Jean in Atlanta (Wellington New Zealand right now)

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Oh my! Are you any closer to being done? Sending prayers and hugs!

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Oh, Nightmist,
How i miss your stories! Where did you move to that didn't provide a real stove? Although i am glad your out of the house with the awful landlord you had before.
Hope you got settled ok.
Thinking of you, and happy new year!
Amy in SoCal

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Well we got all our stuff moved, though we are far from organized yet.
We did not clean the old place as much as we would have liked because the plumbing went from bad to worse and we had to turn the water off to avoid flooding and electrocution and badness.

The horrible couch and matching chair were hauled away in the dumpster. A fellow in another group informs me that dumpsters are called skips in the UK because of the little dance you do when you chuck something awful into them. Considering the gavotte I
performed with DD when that couch and chair went in, I Believe!

Originally there was a stove, fridge, washer and dryer that were supposed to go with the house, but when she got less money than she wanted Lady decided to keep them. That pleased me very well because then I didn't have to figure out how to get rid of
them. With the possible exception of the fridge all mine were better, and she did not take the dishwasher because it is a built in. The dishwasher has been a learning curve because we have never had one that was not a daughter. I have been thinking
about naming it Genavieve just so I have something easy to call it if it makes me cranky.

The internet connection has been a treat to get going. It was driving the company nuts because it would just stop for several hours and then start up again out of the blue. Finally they just replaced the new modem with another new modem, and that seems
to have done the trick. I will be getting credited for the outages on my bill. My proper computer has not been set up. DH has been trying to talk me into a laptop. kiri's mum is a muckamuck in the IT department where she works, she was allowed to rescue a pile of laptops that were doomed for the recycler. She gave us a bunch, DH
has rehabbed most of them, and is trying to convince me to replace my tower with one because the laptop insides are mightier than the tower's. Problem is, every single one he has tried to hook me up with malfunctions. The one I am on now works, so long
as you position your cursor
carefully on the menu bar and click your application without moving the cursor at all. Also you have to power button out rather than doing a proper shutdown. He says we just have to reinstall the OS, I'm telling him that a fourth reinstall probably is
not going to fix anything, and it is probably a cranky intel chipset, and please can I have my AMD processor back?

My sewing machines have not been set up yet. I will probably set the Pfaff up downstairs and work from there while the rest of the machines languish in the attic room until the time comes to refurbish that room for textiles.

Pertaining to the attic, we found a secret door. There is a panel in the bathroom laundry side closet, you tap along the edge to find the spot, then press down and slide the panel sideways, then behold! a stairway up to a trapdoor into the attic. A
scarily badly maintained stairway mind you, it will need to be sturdied up, but an access other than the lost door (the door hanging in space in the wall over the regular stairs).

We have been warm! (break for happy happy dance)
The furnace is a beast, and possibly the most efficient wood burning furnace I have ever encountered anywhere. I've ordered a cord of hardwood, that has been delayed in delivery because I ordered from a fireman and there was an enormous fire in the
middle of the town he serves. We have been getting by on scraps, both from here and a small load from the baseball bat factory, and we have not been cold. We will start fetching our own in (we have a lot of downed wood out back including some hornbeam)
but that will not be fit to burn until next year at soonest. I am planning on planting with a coppice in mind, but that will take a few years at best. Fortunately by my best estimate we will be able to heat the place with 2-3 cords of decent wood a
year. Between our own resources and getting downed tree reports from the state forest guys we should be able to do that no problem.

DH had a wild hair and installed a bidet. Yep you read that right, a bidet. It is an inexpensive sort, it attaches to the stool and you adjust for either ladies, or regular, pull the lever to start the water, and let go of the lever to stop the water.
I thought he was bonkers. Now I think it is possibly the best $60 he has ever spent. We just have to either replace the seat (which is a $5 wally world special anyway), or get a taller bumper for the front, so that one does not pinch one's leg when
ascending the throne.

We have a barn cat. We had a discussion as to what to do about that. You don't want an animal living in your buildings that you take no responsibility for. However if we just trapped it and took it to the humane society we would just have another one
lickety split. That is how barn cats work. Besides there is no sign of mice or rats anywhere, not in the house (she(?) seems to have a way into the basement, but is gone in a flash when we go down there), not in the barn, not in the hay shed. So the
barn cat is very very good at being a barn cat. So I called the humane society and asked if there is a program for such a situation. I found out that for $45 I can get barn cat spayed or neutered, plus get him or her a rabies shot and a distemper shot.
Sounds like a deal. We do not need a flood of kittens, and the shots just make sense especially with the abundance of wildlife we have. Now we just have to figure out how to trap a semi-feral cat and transport it safely and cleanly. I have to wonder
if the people we bought from just moved without the cat. it is awfully sleek for an animal that has been living rough, but then it is a mighty hunter. We feed it at least once a day, because that just seems like the right thing. We have seen it on the
porch a couple of times, it took a bit before the lure of food overcame the fear of the motion sensor light flicking on. It is a little black cat that looks all around it every time it takes a bite. We are working very hard at not naming it.

NightMist

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Hello Nightmist,
I usually move about every 5 years and give as much as I can away before moving. My biggest problem is cloths as I am a cloth horse with every closet stuffed. I finally made myself turn loose, if I wasn't going to wear it with a year out it went to
Goodwill. This goes for books too. Can't tell you how many boxes of books went too.
I can understand what you are going through and wish you luck.
Sandy$

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I have seen in a rural store where there are cages that trap small animals
that can be turned lose later. So maybe you can look and maybe buy a small trap to catch your kitten to take it to the vet.
Just trying to be helpful. Barbara in Florida

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