Every year, my children mourn the end of summer and dread the start of school, lamenting,
"We didn't even DO anything this summer!!"
in their best feeling-jipped-voices. Which really means they didn't do a million, ba-jillion, totally outrageous, much-too-lofty-of-a-plan, EXPENSIVE, UNREALISTIC things. Like go to Legoland, Universal Studios, Disneyland, Knotts Berry Farm, The Grand Canyon, Seven Peaks, Timpanogas Cave, the Taj Majal, MLB games, Florida, Texas, New York, Minnesota, Oklahoma, Washington, Canada AND Mexico at least once each. And that they didn't go to Boondocks, swimming, Dairy Queen, Galaxy, the zoo, Classic Fun Center, mini golfing, bowling, gymnastics class, to the movies & museums, boating, hiking, to the beach, and parachuting at least once a week.And they LOOK OVER the ton of "other things" they DID do!
It never works -- I never have felt sorry for them!
UNTIL THIS YEAR.
Because, THIS YEAR, when they say, We didn't even DO anything this summer.....it's pretty much true!
As far as the traditional SUMMER-ISH FUN that is supposed to go on.
I even bought a pool punch pass and declared, This summer we are going to have "Water Wednesdays" which means we will go swimming every Wednesday.
We went once.
I'm joining the "feeling jipped" members of my family now.
Matt & I even missed our August date....and we were doing SO WELL - DANG! But, we're in San Diego together right now, just the two of us, does THAT count?!? ;)
Instead of the "Lazy Days of Summer" we've:
- Sold our home -- TWICE! (The first people cancelled after a couple of weeks)
- Signed, dated, scanned, and emailed back and forth 14 addendums for the sell of our home. (Our realtor joked with us that he should start taking a higher commission on offers that go past five!)
- Which also meant I had a continual stream of phone calls and texts from the Realtor
- AND we kept showing our home until we past the "Due Diligence" period with the buyers.
- Built a new home
- Made 1,000 decisions on brick, paint, tile, floorboards, door knobs, driveway and walkway shapes, trex decking color, lights, woods, closet layouts, faucets, stucco, windows, trim, size of patio, banisters, patterns, doors on the left or on the right?, plug outlets down low or up high or somewhere in the middle?, If I should UP my anxiety meds or keep them the same.....
- AND then made many of these decisions AGAIN when the bids came back TOO HIGH or TOO LOW (who am I kidding? THAT never happened!), or my selections were OUT OF STOCK, or the granite slabs I had picked out BROKE the day before they were to be delivered & installed.
- Called the builder way too many times MORE than he wanted me to.
- Babysat the builder.
- Made the builder fix way too many MORE mistakes than he wanted to.
- Fought with the builder.
- Started the loan process with a lender for our new home.
- Completed tons of paperwork and scrounged up all kinds of info they wanted about past names, drugs taken, jobs, income, marital status, insurance, residences, driving record, credit scores, best recipe for chocolate chip cookies, etc.
- And then the underwriters came back with a list a "conditions" and we had to send them a butt load of other things; copies of account statements and down payment checks and employment verification and my mammogram results....(just wondering if you're still paying attention!)
- All the while fielding 10 calls/texts (minimum) a day from the lender with updates and requests -- one of which I was not able to take because I had just gotten rear ended on my way back from picking out my granite the second time at the warehouse too far away from my home!
- Closed on our home - and became renters of our own [well now THEIR] home. We paid more in rent than we did our mortgage pymt - so sad!
- Packing up our home
- Gathering boxes from all sources: KSL.com, Walmart, friends & family, the Liquor store (it's TRUE - they're great for our canned foods/food storage)
- Packing up
- Packing
- Packed some more - it just grew! When I thought we had done a ton - there was still a ton to do!
- Moved the majority of our things into THE GARAGE of the new house (we hadn't officially closed & it wasn't ready yet) because our buyers were taking possession of ours SOON!
- Shop for and buy beds & bedroom sets for the kids who were changing their sleeping situation (going from a shared room to an own room, going from a toddler bed to a "big girl" bed, etc.)
- Packed up the "essentials" we had kept with us at our home, including my work office stuff because I worked up until the last day we lived in that home.
- Moved the rest into the garage
- Cleaned & did paint touch ups at the old [empty] home -- thanks to my VT, brother's family, and MIL for helping us with this trying-to-beat-the-5PM-deadline-to-be-out-EFFORT!
- Signed closing papers on the new house
- Got frequent phone call updates from the lender who "camped out" at the title company for two days making sure that our case was getting worked and pushed it through.(thanks to him!)
- Then when we got word that the house was officially ours, we moved AGAIN. We could move the things from the garage into the new house. Word came in the late afternoon, so we didn't have anything set up to sleep, so we stayed at our brother & sister-in-law's house that night.(thanks to them!)
- Unpack the new house
- Move things in from the garage to the house
- Put everything away
- Forgot where I put it away
- Unpack some more
- Put together beds
- Unpack
- Hang butcher paper in the windows (after I got tired of crawling around on the floor below window level) so the neighbors don't "get more than they bargained for."
- Unpack
- Called all the Utility companies to stop service at our old home and start at the new one.
- No one knows our address exists, so make several other phones calls to resolve this....still not sure if it's totally "resolved."
- Call for Internet
- Comcast won't serve my "area" - yet the homes on all the streets surrounding me have it - am I not in their same "neighborhood?"
- So desperate for internet use, set up an "Internet Cafe" on my in-laws porch and "tapped into" their wireless internet.
- Call another company for Internet - they can't come out for another week.
- Begged and bargained with my co-workers to cover my shifts since I didn't have the capability to work from home without internet
- The internet co. came out and couldn't find a ground wire --then they do -- but the main cable has been spliced (inadvertently?) and they can't get anyone out for 4-5 days to fix it.
- Went over to my neighbor's to use her internet --Since when did we become so dependent on The Internet????
- Had to drive out to the [way too far away] JetBlue office to work (due to no internet and phone at home) when I couldn't get shifts covered at 2:45 in the morning - yep, just me and one semi on the road at that time!
- Unpack
- Meanwhile, we haven't received mail for 10 days - after 3 trips to the post office, we start getting our current mail, but no one knows what happened to all the mail BEFORE she "found" us!
- Unpack
- It takes a couple of phone calls to get new garbage cans delivered, so we have tons of garbage bags piling up. THEN once they'res delivered, the garbage man passes us by - he can't find us either?!? This warrants a trip down to city hall myself to get this straightened out. WHEN YOU'VE JUST MOVED, YOU HAVE TONS OF GARBAGE and we can't be skipped!
- Hire someone to install cold storage shelving
- Get a water softener guy to our new house -- hard water and oil-rubbed bronze faucets and fixtures DO NOT GO TOGETHER!
- Go up and down the stairs 25+ times a day - needing a shower by the end of the day from all the sweating I'm doing. I've lost 5 lbs. in the last three weeks. It's called the packing-moving-unpacking diet!
- And I managed to get Ryan registered for High School (his Junior year!) and Kyle registered for Jr. High (an 8th Grader!) WHAT?!
- And we went school shopping - four different days for four different children. I realized, girls are FUN to shop with - BOYS are not.
Next up:
Window coverings
couches
Bonus room organizational system - I don't know what to do! Suggestions?
yard
other furniture
TV(s) (that's only on Matt's list) :)
So, we're FAR from done. WAAAAAAAHH!
BUT, to make up for everyone's "LOST SUMMER" we've got a Fall Family Vacation coming up that we have been saving for and planning for years......
It will be a nice break from all the selling/buying/moving WORK we've spent the summer doing. :)
