No, the rest of that title is "an empty house." I'll explain.
We left Boston on July 21. I'm still having an incredibly hard time with it. (I'm not holed up in my closet crying everyday or anything like that...I'm just really sad about leaving Boston the city and our church and our friends.) We had a fantastic last week in Boston. I'll be sure to blog about the great things we did (and ate) sometime over the next few weeks. We were able to hang with most of our friends and get in some really good Boston fun. A lot of the fun and food happened because Brad's mom, Barbara, came up a week before we moved and helped us out by watching Bearsy. This enabled the packing and the cleaning and the fun-ning and the eating. It was SO helpful. Thanks, Barbara!
Our apartment. Sniffle.
Moving day morning rolled around and with it came buckets of Boston-transportation-issues fun. We had gone downtown the week before to purchase these ubiquitous signs. You see them everywhere in Boston; if you don't pay to claim a parking space, you will more than likely be up a creek come move-in day...which almost happened to us, even WITH the signs. We reserved a really really big truck (they didn't have the size we wanted, so we ended up with a behemoth), so we needed two signs. I was a little worried that, because there was so much space between where we posted the two signs, someone would assume that there were two separate reserved spaces and park in between (having the signs means you can have violators towed...but I REALLY didn't want to do that. That's the Southern in me. A Massachusetts friend of ours told me that if someone parked there, she would call the police for me.)
I usually hate these signs, as they mean that yet another parking spot is not available...but when I'm the one moving, they're awesome.
Well, while Brad and Bill (my father-in-law, who flew up two days before moving day so that he could help, too. Thanks, Bill!) went to pick up the monster truck, I- like the lunatic that I am- kept checking out the front window every two minutes to make sure that no one was parking there. For perhaps the second time ever in my life, my obsessive fretting tendencies paid off. I spied with my little eye a gal parking exactly in between the two signs. I ran outside and very kindly explained the situation. She was mystified at how anyone could need a space that big...but she moved along anyway. I can't blame her for being frustrated. Remember how pain-in-the-neck Boston parking can be? I then grabbed a stool and set it out there with an Erin-made sign that said something like "See Signs!!" with large arrows pointing toward each sign. Note: you have to label anything you set out on the road or it will be gone in minutes. Exhibits A,B, and C: the floor lamp, bookshelf, and bigger bookshelf that we found on the sidewalk and took home with us.
After that little near-miss, things went pretty smoothly. We had 7 friends show up to help (7. On a workday morning. How great is that? We love our friends. Cue sniffles...). We got the truck loaded with an hour to spare on our self-imposed timeline. Pizza was eaten, goodbyes were said, a few tears were shed, and we headed out.
Our second little almost-hitch was kinda comical in its timing. We were literally getting in the moving van and car when our exit route was blocked by a firetruck and two ambulances with their sirens on. Really? Thankfully, there didn't seem to be anything actually wrong, and they pulled out after about ten minutes. I then got the truly delightful task of blocking traffic with my car while Brad maneuvered the moving truck out. There were a few horns and, I imagine, some choice words. Whatever, y'all. Do whatcha gotta do.
I still can't talk about it. This was the hardest move of my life (emotionally...obviously not physically).
Barbara rode with Claire and me and was the official Claire Entertainer. Bless. Brad and Bill drove the truck. We planned to split the move into two days, spending the night outside of Harrisburg, PA. Our 6-hour (according to Google Maps) trip turned into 8, which was a total bummer. How does that even happen?
The next day, we tackled the rest of the drive to Durham, which seemed to last FOREVER. It was another estimated 6-hour trip that turned into 8. But, we did finally arrive and had a little time before our unloading crew (comprised of some guys from Brad's program at Duke, a college connection, and some friends of friends) arrived. It was enough time to fetch some barbecue to serve to our crew. We're nice like that.
Back to the title about the SBC-ers and the Mormons:
The friend of a friend/college connection is actually the husband of a girl that we went to Union with. The two of them met in training for Journeyman (a year after I went through training). They live five minutes from us. Yay! Interestingly, one of the guys in Brad's program is a Mormon. Apparently, the Mormon church recognizes the very early church fathers and only breaks away after a few centuries. I did not know that. Anyway, he brought a few friends with him: 3 guys doing their missions in the area. We had some very interesting conversations around the "dinner table" (it was actually folding chairs in the almost completely empty new house). Very nice guys. Very helpful. Very strong backs that they put to good use. Who would have ever predicted such a grouping a folks?
The hitch of the night happened when we couldn't get our queen-sized box springs upstairs to our bedroom. The shape of the staircase combined with the varying heights of the ceiling made it impossible. We actually ended up SAWING OUR BOX SPRINGS IN HALF to get the up the stairs. And then put them back together. What?? Yep. It's true. How does this situation even come into being, I ask you.
Sawed and folded in half. Speculate all you want on ways we could have done it without the Big Cut, but until you've tried it in person and proven it can be done, you'll be mistaken.
Anyway, the overall conclusion of the move was that it was successful. We got all of our stuff to our house and left our Boston apartment in the hands of some of our favorite friends. Couldn't ask for more than that. Unfortunately, we're still (six weeks later) getting things settled, but it's been a crazy six weeks, believe me.
