We're Home!

I had a long, exciting weekend, but I was almost completely unable to enjoy it. Thursday night my sneezing and sniffling morphed into a full-blown head cold complete with unstoppable sneezing, insane sinus pressure to the point I thought I would throw up, and the total inability to breathe peacefully. In a word, I was miserable. But Z's parents were coming over to move furniture on Saturday, so Thursday and Friday were our last days to prepare. (Our goal was to get every single item out of the apartment that we could carry ourselves – including dresser drawers – because sometimes they can be a little difficult, and we wanted their part of the move to be as quick and painless as possible.) Thursday night we tried to move our office. We have a rather large computer desk that has to be taken apart. It has six large drawers, a six-foot long top, and two columns that are very unstable once the top is removed. So we knew we needed to move that ourselves, along with the computer which is still less than a year old. Even though they're family, sometimes other people just aren't as careful as you'd like them to be with your belongings.

Anyway, Z injured himself several times throughout Thursday evening, and I was so sick that I was literally praying to God to "just take me now." Needless to say, it was a long night, and I finally decided (around 10:30 when my cold medicine finally kicked in and I could think straight) that I would call in sick Friday to prepare for Saturday by (1) recuperating a little and (2) moving items to the house. I knew I wouldn't totally be out of commission like with the flu, but that I couldn't go to work sounding/looking/feeling like I did. So I might as well be personally productive.

So Friday I packed and took 3 carloads of boxes/clothes/lamps/dresser drawers, etc. to the house while Z was at work. I had a fever and felt horrible, and it was an unusually warm and muggy day, but I knew that the more I did then, the less I'd have to do with Z's parents. After Z came home from work, the two of us made about 3 more trips. That night (our last night as apartment dwellers!) we further prepared for his parents' early arrival: we took apart as much furniture as possible, including the bed and we slept on the mattress directly on the floor. They showed up bright and early Saturday morning with biscuits (if only I had an appetite – still sick). We began the move with the behemoth: Z's weight machine. He had already completely disassembled the thing that morning, but it still took two full hours for us all to load it on the trailer, drive it to the house (10 minutes max), move it in, and re-assemble it. It's a beast and I hate it. Once that was over with, we made one more trip before stopping for lunch at Steak and Shake. After lunch, we returned to the apartment for our last trip of the day and went back to the house to finish up the move. After just one minor accident (while putting the bed together, the footboard collapsed onto the bed railings and cracked one of them completely and scratched up my beautiful sleigh bed) we were totally finished with all the furniture. It was 4:00 and we had moved a weight machine, couch, recliner, wing-back chair, three coffee tables, washer, dryer, queen-sized bed, mattress and box springs, chest of drawers, dresser, nightstand, large TV, entertainment system to hold said TV, large gas grill, porch swing, writing desk and chair. Quite a feat. I'm very glad we had already moved all of our possessions as well as some furniture (kitchen table and all chairs, computer desk, etc.) What a day.

We all collapsed onto the couches, but then I realized what time it was. Z and I had to leave to go to Hoover for my grandmother's and cousin's joint birthday party that night. We were a little bit late, and my cold was transforming into a horrible cough instead of an annoying sneeze. This made me sad because another cousin was going to be there with her baby who I rarely see (they live farther away than anyone else), and I didn't want to make her sick.

We had a fun time there but got home (our real home!) around 1:00 Sunday morning. We did try to make it to church that morning, but we wound up leaving after Sunday School because neither of us could keep our eyes open, and I felt very rude for yawning all through class. I knew we'd probably fall asleep during the sermon. So we went home for a nap. Well, Z napped but I had a coughing fit and couldn't sleep. I went to the grocery store that afternoon for a huge shopping trip (I hadn't cooked a meal in more than two weeks) and cooked chili for dinner. We went to the apartment for about 20 minutes to get the rest of the stuff from the fridge and pick up a little. We'll have to return to clean it, but then we'll be finished with that place!

This morning it was pretty awesome to wake up and have a cup of coffee looking out at the lake covered in fog. Pretty awesome indeed.

*Oh yeah, our builder totally fixed the dishwasher last week. The little tube connecting to the disposal had a plastic covering that the installer had forgotten to punch out. So he fixed it. He's pretty cool.