I went back and added text to go with the photos of our move, just to give a little context. And now I’m writing about writing, boring, but I thought I’d throw a new post out to draw attention to the previous ones beingupdated. Done. Karen keeps promising to blog – "real soon". I dare you to hold your breath. (Actually, don’t. She’s out of town for a wedding tonight, driving back tomorrow, then leaving Sunday for a week long trip in the Boundary Waters, so… definitely don’t hold your breath.)

Final stages of packing. The dregs. Trying to leave just enough to clean with in the morning… By this time we’ve been going for almost 12 hours, and by the time we stopped working it had been about 16 hours of moving, and then 4 hours of cleaning the next day. Suuuucks. I tried to anticipate it – I knew we had more stuff to move, and had a bigger place to clean, but somehow I still underestimated the time.

What made it take so long? Well, all our "friends" had "weddings" to go to or some such nonsense, and couldn’t help. Ok, I take it back: the two friends that came over at 9 and helped until 4 were truly lifesavers. We’re still brainstorming how to pay them back, there’s no way we could have made it without them… Any ideas? Name the breakfast nook after them?

Widely acknowledged (by Karen at least) to be my finest packing job yet. I agree. The bad news: our worldly belongings do not fit into a 15 foot truck. (I actually requested a 16 foot truck, but ended up with a 15 footer with a stupid lift instead of a ramp. Dumb Budget.) I can’t remember what we moved from St. Paul with, but I think it was a 16′ and we had some room to spare. Maybe we still would have fit in a 16′ this time, there really wasn’t much left over and it might be taller…? Anyway, the only way to test that theory is to rent a 16′ truck and try packing all our stuff into it, and I sure as hell am not going to do that for at least a few years. Keep watching the blog, I’ll let you know in 2008. :) On the other hand, damn have we acquired a lot of stuff.

Step 1: work at an events company for a year until you feel superior enough to write a post called "How to pack a truck for moving".

Step 2: start with the big boxes, or really anything roughly rectangular. From the front back, fill the truck in rows all the way up to the top. It’s worth it to fiddle with pieces to get as tight a fit as you can. If at all possibly, try to finish with a solid wall.

Step 3: (maybe optional) Once the boxes are in, I like to finish off the rows with mattresses and box springs. Some people use sofas – whatever works: the goal here is to span the width of the truck as high as you can, effectively forming a barrier to keep any shifting boxes out of harm’s way. You’ll need to tie the mattress in place: I use a bowline to secure one end of the rope to the side of the truck, and then a trucker’s hitch to crank it down nice and tight on the other. The animations are a bit confusing but I think it’s worth it to learn – those are the two most useful knots I know.

Step 4: Fill in the rest of the truck with the odd-shaped pieces, chairs, desks, etc. Take apart everything you can, to leave the least amount of wasted space. Take your time to get it tight – nest those chairs, try different angles for lamps, etc.

Step 5: Tie it all down! Even if it’s a "quick" trip across town, all it takes is too-sharp turn or some crazy railroad tracks and your furniture is kindling. I guess that’s it. Really, there are ten thousand good ways to pack a truck, but this works for me. It’s sort of cathartic, in the middle of a terrible move day, to find a perfect way to make a crazy piece fit rather than just throwing it all it randomly…

Flor de Caña toast to our new house!

update: This is the day we got possession of the house – somehow I had the foresight to leave a bottle of Flor de Caña handy… I predict this is the last time until we move that you’ll be able to see that much clean floor. :)

Here we see our neighbor hauling a "portable" "fireplace" into our "yard sale." Apparently the fireplace has a scrolling "flicker" effect with lights, but you can’t turn on the heat or it smells like "burning." As they say, one man’s stupid is another man’s awesome. (it sold) (quickly)

On the whole I have to rate the yard sale a raging success – if by raging I mean the raging pain in my back and total exhaustion that comes from two 10-hour days of setting up, sitting in the sun all day making nice talk with crazy people, then tearing down again. Actually, it wasn’t too bad; we did it with good people, so that helped. We made a decent chunk of money – but be warned: it’s more work than you think. To the point of almost not being worth it for just one house. You need some friends to help share the load. Draining. Whew. :)

But we made it, and today we opened a joint account for the house. It’s in both our names, we’ll each have checks and debit cards for the account, with the agreement it’s all for the house – like a lawnmower, etc. All the things I think I’ve thought of but know I haven’t…

Done deal. We’re now officially homos. Homeowners, whatever. It was easy – just a bunch of signing. Oh, and a huge check. And something about monthly payments. I don’t remember, it all happened so fast. I’m sure they were just kidding about the bank taking the house if we don’t pay. Ha ha!

Yesterday was our big day to start getting organized for the upcoming yard sale – and it was a big day in all senses of the word. First we got up way too early (6:30) to go check out the final stage of the Tour de France at the Riverview Theater, which was fun but the coffee had grounds in it and somehow wasn’t quite enough to keep us fully awake. (Snarking aside, that theater is awesome – and close enough to our new place I hope to make it there often) Then it was back to the apartment for the task we’d been dreading – cleaning out the storage spaces.

When we moved into the apartment, we were a bit annoyed to discover that the more usable of two storage spaces already contained a healthy mix of boxes, bags, miscellaneous crap, and, of course, mouse poop. I also seem to recall a dead mouse on the floor there the first time we went in the closet. Real nice. Anyway, it had to be done – our stuff had started sinking into the mess, and we needed to pull it all out anyway to sort what could be sold, packed, etc.

It was K who found it. Almost buried under a mound of mouse poop, an inconspicuous carboard box. I was busy in another corner, and vaguely heard something about dishes. And then, "holy shit, this says Oscar de la Renta!" What?? Doesn’t he do clothes, and maybe some furniture? The answer is yes, but (apparently) also china. We had stumbled onto an abandoned treasure of what appeared to be totally unused, still wrapped, 100% authentic Oscar de la Renta china. Model LAF13, to be exact. "Hospitality Platinum".

As we unwrapped a few more pieces and started noticing the price tags, our jaws dropped — surely that’s for all the cups, not for just one, right? Neither of us had ever really priced china… How do you look things like that up, for discontinued patterns? On the internets, obviously. Two sites turned up quickly: tabletopsetc.com, and replacements.com – both listed several pieces in the pattern, and they were comparable to our price tags. Whoa.

Both sites claim to be interested in buying discontinued pieces from people, so I’ve email them both some pictures and a list of what’s there. Hoping to get hooked up with a local dealer, but no answer yet. Half of me thinks we should just keep them, but… I’m really not ready for "nice things" like that. We’ll see what we can get for them, if it’s a good price they’ll probably go. Otherwise we might just have a really nice set of china (although K isn’t crazy about the pattern…)

Our old place is for rent already.

We’re in that sort of awkward phase between the rush and excitement of successful househunting and the actual move-in day. Our situation is even a bit worse than "normal" because we close at the end of the month and then rent back for 2 weeks – complicated, but necessary. (and we still have to try to convince our stupid current landlords to make an effort to rent it mid-month or we’re stuck paying for the remainder plus the mortgage.)

But I’ve already started making plans for the basement, and K too. I’m getting a chest freezer from her family which I intend to start filling with kegs of homebrew ASAP – but there’s money involved there to get the temperature regulator, kegs, taps, and CO2 setup. Might have to do it in phases. But, oh, so sweet to have delicious beer on tap. Good thing I’m finally working out again…

And speaking of working out, K’s big plans for the basement involve her free-standing punching bag – it’s a molded plastic thingy with a big base and a covered foam pad that goes on the top. You fill the bottom with water for weight, and you’re good to go, it will take all sorts of punches, kicks, and general workout abuse.

… but it’s all so far away… Still over a month.

Anyway, watch this place for further entries on the new adventure of home ownership! From unexpected bills to fun projects to those awesome "mysteries" that houses have – "what the heck is this switch wired to??", it’s all coming to you live from the Duo Team World Headquarters!