In preparation for my new job, which starts tomorrow, Sibylle and I have moved from Olathe to Manhattan Kansas. This is a return to Manhattan for her, and a new city for me.
Our move has gone reasonably well thus far. Using Allied to do the heavy lifting for us was expensive but ultimately well worth it. We are both exhausted from the stress and strain of it with their help, I can only imagine what it would have been like to do this move ourselves.
We did rent a 14′ U-Haul truck and used it to empty and move the contents of the two storage lockers I had. We were also able to load quite a few boxes from our basement on the truck. We had freakishly good weather the Friday we loaded the U-Haul, with temperatures near 70º. Saturday winter came back with a vengeance with snow and freezing rain. We delayed traveling to Manhattan one day and were able to unload the truck, with the help of Manhattan friends, in just a couple of hours.
Tuesday, while I was having my last day at Argus, Sibylle stayed home while the packers from Allied did their thing. They were there from 8:30 am until 5:30 pm, but when they left everything was boxed up and ready to go. We packed a few things to get us through the week into the Jimmy and Lexus and moved ourselves, and our cats, to Manhattan that night.
Wednesday I returned to Olathe to supervise the loading of everything onto the truck. Counting the driver there was a six-man crew, which made short work of the process. By 12:30 everything was loaded and ready to go, only four hours after they arrived.
Thursday, New Year’s Day, we spent time just unwinding from the whirlwind of activity. We did some planning of where things would go, and how we wanted to arrange the house, but mostly we tried to rest and relax knowing that Friday would bring a lot of work with it.
Allied arrived about 10:15 am on Friday and offloaded 9,780 pounds of stuff in a remarkable short period of time. With only three people, one of whom just unwrapped and freed objects in the truck, they had everything in place inside, and the garage full of boxes by 2:15 pm. Sibylle and I spent the next 10 hours unpacking and arranging and putting things away.
Saturday we had tentatively planned to return to Olathe to clean the townhouse and start painting, but both us wanted to do more here, so we stayed home instead. Sibylle was even able to interview a prospective new student that afternoon.
All of the work, and the dust from stored boxes, has left me weakened and on the verge of a cold. Dust gives me a runny nose and endless sneezes. Today I’ve been tired and listless all day, with cold, or cold like, symptoms. We did some more clean up, and took all our empty boxes outside; hopefully to be given away via craigslist. Tonight we watched our visit movie in the new den/media room. The kitchen is in good shape, as is our bedroom. And the office is coming along nicely. Perhaps most important, we have the laundry room setup now, thanks to our electrician landlord who swapped out the four-prong plug originally installed for a three-prong receptacle to work with our dryer.
The unpacking, sorting, and arranging will continue for a while, but we are moved, and more importantly, moved in.
Life is good.
