{"id":865,"date":"2005-12-19T07:05:33","date_gmt":"2005-12-19T12:05:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/example.org\/buildingmoving__11"},"modified":"2005-12-19T07:05:33","modified_gmt":"2005-12-19T12:05:33","slug":"buildingmoving__11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/?p=865","title":{"rendered":"Building\/moving to a new home – day 90"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can’t make it without friends<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I am sitting here at Doug Thompson’s computer striving to recapture
\nthe events of the last 28 hours before they vanish into the wastebasket
\nof old memories. Thanks to the hospitality of Doug and his wife Amy, we
\nand our cats are enjoying the warmth and comfort of their hillside home
\nwhile glare ice and and hostile 20-degree weather lock down the
\nsurrounding countryside.<\/p>\n

It takes special kind of friends to invite us and our cats to bunk
\nwith them on short notice. The situation verges on the mystical when
\nthese friends greeted us cheerfully and fed us a delicious dinner of
\nlasagna with garlic bread after we have arrived at 10:30 at night!
\nSuffice it to say that we four weary travelers enjoy full bellies and a
\ngood nights rest as a welcome respite from a long day of non-stop
\neffort.<\/p>\n

Gretchen and I started our final day of packing shortly after dawn
\nyesterday. We realized that we had to find  viable options to solving
\nour problem of insufficient space for our "stuff" and insufficient time
\nto pack it for transport while cleaning a three bedroom house and
\nworkshop.<\/p>\n

By 8:00 am, we had identified and packed 10 boxes of excess "stuff"
\nwhich could make a critical difference in our departure plans, if we
\ncould only find a way to make them "disappear" for a few days. I called
\nmy good friend Gerry Brown who has helped me design and build some of
\nmy most challenging woodworking projects. <\/p>\n

He and his wife Cindy graciously offered to store our boxes of
\nhousehold goods until I could return to pick them up. One big objective
\nwas being accomplished through the assistance of friends.<\/p>\n

Gerry and Cindy had already let me use their new utility trailer to
\ntake several trips to Floyd and they invited us for dinner during the
\nlast crazy days of our packing marathon. Good friends like these are a
\ntreasure. They have promised to visit us in Floyd and we are going to
\ntake them to the Friday Night Jamboree at the Floyd County Store and
\nshow them the simple pleasures of life in Floyd when the weather is a
\nbit more civil.<\/p>\n

I called Charles Nevins, the neighbor who had helped me pack the
\nSmart vaults, and explained that I wasn’t out of the woods yet and I
\nneeded help with the worst kind of packing of all. Charles is
\nunflappable, as you would expect of an Army veteran who served in
\nKorea, Germany and Vietnam, and he just laughed and said he would be
\nright over. <\/p>\n

He spent the next five hours helping me clean out my workshop and
\nskillfully packing all of our remaining household goods into the
\nSubaru, The Dodge van, and the trailer. We could not have done it
\nwithout him because after a week of non-stop packing and carrying of
\nheavy boxes up and downstairs, Gretchen and I had reached our physical
\nlimits. Old injuries had gotten stirred up to the point where it was so
\nmuch of an effort to climb stairs that we were constantly aware of the
\npossibility of losing our balance while carrying heavy boxes. When your
\nknees start to go while you are carrying a TV, you realize that hiring
\nhelp is a necessity.<\/p>\n

By the time Charles left at 2:00 pm, we had loaded most of our
\nhousehold items and the rooms were almost empty except for our
\nsuitcases and the cat cages, with cats safely inside. The cats were
\nremarkably calm during this last day of packing, and it seemed as
\nthough they recognized the signs from our previous moves. Instead of
\nyowling, they slept or watched as we rushed through the house handling
\nthe hundreds of last-minute details that come with shutting down a
\nhousehold.<\/p>\n

Even with our best efforts, it took us three more hours before we
\nstood, car keys in hand, ready to begin the trek to Floyd. It was 4:45
\npm and the sun was low in the sky. We had been working for almost
\ntwelve hours and we had a 175 mile drive ahead of us, but we were
\nrefreshed at the prospect of beginning a new life in a new home.<\/p>\n

The drive was uneventful, although our last few miles was enlivened
\nby increasing amounts of black ice on the main roads and hard-packed
\nsnow and ice on the final few miles to our new home. Our new driveway
\nwas 200 feet of glare ice unbroken by tire tracks. Amazingly enough, we
\nwere able to negotiate it safely, although I fell down several times
\nonce I got out of the van. At one point, I kept sliding down the slope
\nto the house and was only able to make my way back by crawling on all
\nfours. <\/p>\n

I finally was able to make my way out to the emergency generator. It
\nwas now 27 degrees, but the generator started on the third pull. With
\nthe generator roaring behind me, I made my way back to the new workshop
\nand raised the new automatic door. After a few minutes of reshuffling
\ncontractor equipment, I was able to make room for the Dodge van, with
\nits cargo of live plants. Readers may remember that I described
\nGretchen’s four crates of plants. The actual count was eleven crates of
\nlive plants! Our final step of this long day’s move was to park the
\nDodge van in the insulated workshop, leaving the trailer outside. <\/p>\n

I transferred the cats from the van to the Subaru, closed the
\nworkshop, shut off the generator, and backed carefully down the glare
\nice of the driveway without incident. The sure-footed Subaru took us
\nsafely down icy roads and up the icy hill to Doug’s house where we were
\ngreeted by Doug, standing in his stocking feet and beckoning us to come
\nin. What a wonderful end to a most challenging day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can’t make it without friends I am sitting here at Doug Thompson’s computer striving to recapture the events of the last 28 hours before they vanish into the wastebasket of old memories. Thanks to the hospitality of Doug and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1820],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3R4iK-dX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/makingripples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}