Yeah, it's been awhile. But I have a good reason. A couple actually.
Back in March, my stepdad passed away. He and my mom had been married for 35 years, so he'd been in my life more than out of it. After he died, once a month I would travel the 6 hours to my mom's house and stay with her for a week. It helped her from being too lonely and as I can work remotely, I didn't need to burn vacation. And then my mom decided she wanted to be closer to us.
So that led to the wife and I doing the house-hunting chores. My mom doesn't move around very well, and needs to get up and stand about every two hours. Three car crashes and two fused vertebra will do that. So it was up to us to find a house for her. Eventually we did, a cute 2-bedroom condo for her and her cat. And then the chore of getting her packed became my main focus.
No one likes to move. I get it. It's a pain in the ass. And, to be frank, it was quite the chore getting my mom to decide what to keep, what she was going to sell, what to donate, etc. She was renting the house she was in, and let the company that owned the home know that she was going to be leaving. So she had a deadline of the 18th of August to be out of there.
And then everything caught up to her and she decided that it was too much and wanted to push the move out. Of course she couldn't by then, as she'd received the Notice to Vacate letter (or whatever it was). Oh, and she also hired, and then cancel movers. She cancelled the movers 7 days before the move so she lost the deposit. I ended up scrambling to figure out how we were going to pack and move and get her and her cars (she had her Jeep and my stepdad's Corvette. Oh, anyone wanna buy a Corvette?), and all her stuff up here.
Thankfully I have some very good friends. One — Gina — drove down with me on my last trip there to help pack. And then Mary, Mike, and Meagan came down the Friday before the movers were to be there (We got a U-Haul and then I hired two movers to help load the truck down there, and two movers to help unload the truck up here. Best money I spent, as my mom had a piano, a huge buffet, big dressers, etc.) to help us pack. And I can't forget the wife! She was up here handling stuff in the new condo; getting new toilets in, a new hot water heater put in, getting the dishwasher mounted correctly, etc. Without all of them helping, I don't think we would've made it. But we managed to roll out on a Tuesday, unload on a Wednesday and get her (sorta) settled into her new place, which is a 10-minute drive from my house. Sure beats 6 hours!
Oh, and while this was all going on, I had a huge project at work that had a deadline that was almost the same as my mom's move date. I ended up working all of Fourth of July weekend while down there, along with late nights every week. We barely made it, but we made it.
To say it's been a bit chaotic would be an understatement. But the project is done, the move is done. Mom's still unpacking, but she can take all the time she wants for that. Though when I go over there, I do tend to open boxes and get something done. It makes me twitchy to have all that lying around undone. I have a long weekend in the middle of September planned with my poker boys, where there will be cards and bourbon and BBQ and boating and probably more cards.
I am very much looking forward to that.