Tag: moving

Where did time go…

~ Life of Momma B ~ Leave a comment

I know that I have been away from my blog for a while, but I am trying to keep many plates spinning at the same time.

Since purchasing my new van in May (read that story here), I have put over 10,000 miles on my van. Considering I am a stay-at-home mom that does not work outside the home and can go days without leaving the house, that is a lot. Those miles consist of 4 trips to Alabama to help my dad with his rotator cuff and his surgery; 1 trip to the DC area to visit my sister / family vacation, 1 trip to Tennessee for AHG summer camp, and 2 trips to Florida to look for a new house. In the last 66 days I have only spent 23 days in my own bed.

Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that in July my dear sweet hubby was laid off from his job in North Carolina. You remember this job. The one that the company paid to move us across country for earlier this year. Only to lay him off less than a year later without warning. The positive note to all of this is that he was able to find a job quickly. However, it is in Florida. So we are in the midst of preparing for another move once we find a house. Two moves in one year is no fun!

While all of my belongings are in North Carolina, I am spending my days in a VERY SMALL motel room. Since we did not receive a relocation package with this job, and are thankful to have a job, the budget does not allow for much more. This means I am also homeschooling in the motel room while trying to keep a dog quiet. As my husband says “Have books, will travel”. This also means that I am without a kitchen. Currently I am living on meals that can be cooked in a slow-cooker, or microwaved, so a lot of convenience type foods. My morning are spent teaching and my afternoons and evenings house hunting.

I forget how much I abhor house hunting. I have spent countless hours riding around town with the realtor looking a house. I think I could write an entire post on the “joys” of house hunting and horrors that I have seen. I will sum it up by saying that realtors who write the house descriptions must have a very vivid imagination.

My goal is to find some time between all of this to write more, so please be patient with me. I will return soon.

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Stressed, I’m not STRESSED!

~ Life of Momma B ~ Leave a comment

I have to admit, I had a meltdown the other night. You know, one of those moments when nothing is going right and every little thing makes it worse. Well that was me. You can blame it on hormones, lack of sleep, being in pain from a re-occurring back problem. Whatever the cause I had one to many things go wrong and I did not want anymore.

As my hubby and I “talked” (or should I say I fussed and he patiently listened). I came to realize that I hate change. The move across country has been hard on me. I left all my friends, my volunteer positions, my support network, my comfort zone to move 5000 miles. To make it worse, I have to find new doctors, learn new roads, and find a new church. And do all of this while trying to keep a “happy” face for the kids who are also miserable.

I think the icing on the cake was dealing with new technology. You know about my adventures with the new laptop. But we all know that bad news comes in threes. So within 2 weeks, not only did I replace my laptop, but my phone died and I was in an accident that totaled my van.

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The good news is no one was hurt. As my daddy always said “THINGS YOU CAN REPLACE, PEOPLE YOU CAN NOT”. I think I am more frustrated than anything. I loved my van. I had it for 9 years. It had 160,000 miles on it, drove great and the best part it was paid for. No for the joy of car shopping.

If you were not aware, April was National Stress Awareness Month. Since it is now May, that means I’m no longer stressed right?

Guess?

~ Life of Momma B ~ Leave a comment

Previously I have shared about some of the misadventures that we have had moving to North Carolina. (See What is wrong with this picture?) But the fun continues!  My current frustration is poorly labeled boxes.  I am thankful that my hubby’s new company paid for movers, but they definitely do not care about my stuff.

When the 3 packers descended upon my house I was not able to watch all of them at the same time.  Many of the boxes are labeled “GUESS”. No, I am not making this stuff up. When I first saw these boxes I just scratched my head, and tried to remain calm. “Why would you label a box GUESS?  I have come to realize that the workers could not spell. This is their attempt to spell GUEST. They also labeled some of the breakable items at “FRAJILE”.  For the sake of political correctness, I will not comment on their nationality, but…

I was happy the day my husband found my label maker.  It is one of the those little toys that I love. I have owned mine for about 3 years now. I never thought I would get much use out of it, but it is an organizers friend.  I have been working on re-organizing my pantry. My current pantry is about 1/2 of the size of the one I had in Texas, so space is at a premium.  My previous containers for dry goods were square and did not sit well on the shelf. The tapered sides created a lot of wasted space. I have updated them to a nice set of Rubbermaid. And they are all labeled 🙂  Life is getting back in order.

Get organized

If you are interested, I own the Dymo LetraTag Plus LT-100H.

What is wrong with this picture?

~ Life of Momma B ~ Leave a comment

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Earlier this month we moved from Texas to North Carolina. Like any move it was full of adventures and mishaps. I was telling a girl friend about some of them and she thought I should write a blog with my adventures in life and “I hear you can make money at it”. Well, I don’t blog to make money, and most of my friends do not know that I do blog. I thought I would randomly post about some of the things we found. It is only upon looking back at them are they humorous. I hope you don’t find them too boring.

Part of my husband’s relocation package included hiring packers to come in and do the boxing for me. While I did find it necessary to do some of the boxing ahead of time (especially for things like my china that I wanted packed very carefully) I am grateful for the help. The thing about hiring someone else to do the work for you is they never do it the way you would do it.

Unpacking boxes makes my blood boil. They seem to have gone out of their way to make setting up home difficult for me. I cannot figure out why they felt the need to separate items. They took the lids off of all of my canisters, the canisters were in one box while the lids were in another. They separated the electric tea kettle and the base that is need to make it work. The plastic bowls were in one box, and the lids are still MIA, I assume they are in one of many boxes yet to be opened.

One of the first boxes we opened, because the boxes were not labeled was my cookbooks. However, they also decided to add a jar of molasses from the pantry. The jar was not wrapped just dropped in the box. These items were not in the same location. REALLY GUYS!!! Who in their right mind would put a jar of molasses with books. Ok, I get that maybe being males you did not realize that molasses is a sticky thick syrupy substance but a glass jar of anything does not belong with books.

After I calmed down, I actually find it quite humorous. Do you have adventures from moving, I would love to hear about them.