Amy Boatman

The Longest Two Weeks of My Life

The movers are at my house right now taking away all the boxes and various things that I’ve busted my butt to get ready. My last day at work was September 28 and it’s been nonstop work since then. It is just amazing the amount of stuff you accumulate. I went through everything that first week after quitting my job to decide what to sell. We had already decided to get rid of a lot of stuff. Moving to a new city, new state, may as well start over with new stuff.

So, I started going through the house room by room. I felt like I was back at Kmart having a blue light sale. “Everything must go!!!” Rhonda had used the back bedroom as her office/studio and it was filled with the products of 10 years worth of hobbies. She went down a lot of creative paths before she found her current passion, knitting, so there was a multitude of various items in that room. She had gone through there before we left for Seattle back at the beginning of September. Since she wasn’t coming back, I wanted her to tell me how much everything should cost. Our crafty friends came out the weekend before the sale and bought everything they wanted. We gave them a really good deal.

Part of the process of going through everything was also hauling it up to my parents house where we were having the sale. They have the most amazing house. It’s a giant barn with the house built inside. They spent an entire year during nights and weekends and assorted days off building it mostly themselves. My brother was a huge help too. Rhonda and I just showed up occasionally to ooh and ahh. Anyway, they have an enormous front porch that turned out to be perfect for the sale. My dad has this giant trailer that he brought down to my front door so I could begin loading stuff up. It was a family effort getting it all up there. My mom and dad helped so much and my brother showed up just in time to help move the heavy couch and the bulky armoire.

The area that took the most work was our shed. This was our junk drawer only on a much larger scale. If we didn’t know what else to do with it, we put it in the shed. Now most of this stuff, we had no desire to keep. We just didn’t know what else to do with it. After pulling it all out onto the yard, I soon realized that our keep pile was gonna be tiny. Sure enough. Out of the entire shed, we kept four boxes full of Rhonda’s papers, one set of shelves, a stand for my drum, and two wooden boxes my grandpa had made. Everything else went onto the trailer. It doesn't rain all the much here during the summer but sure enough, as soon as I had everything piled out on the lawn, the storm clouds began to gather. I raced around throwing things onto the trailer desperately hoping to beat the rain because we don’t just have a bit of rain. We have downpours that completely soak everything. Some of the stuff I had painstakingly pulled out of tool shed would ruin if it got wet. I’m sure I was funny to watch, heaving boxes and various items over the side of the trailer. As I got the last thing tossed on, I could see the rain coming. It poured in sheets from the big black clouds bearing down on me.

I hopped into the pickup, hoping I could get the trailer in my parents’ garage before the rain hit. My dad’s farm truck is this old Ford manual transmission. The driver’s door has to be opened a certain way or it gets stuck. I momentarily forgot that in my haste and was left jerking on the useless door handle, cussing a blue streak. And then I remembered, pushed the handle in the right way, and voila it opened easy peasy. Once in the truck, I stalled it three times before I got the right mixture of gas and clutch to make the beast move. The rain was coming up the field behind me as I drove the 500 feet to my parents’ house. Luckily they have a drive through garage so I was able to just pull it straight on in. Not two seconds after the back of the trailer cleared the door, the downpour caught up and within moments, the ground was soaking wet. I had made it!

We started the sale on Friday morning with three and a half trailer loads of stuff. To say the sale was a success would be an understatement. By the time it was all said and done, we had made almost a $1000 and only had about 2/3 of a trailer left. My dad hauled it up to the Crisis Center and we gave it to them. It had been a lot of effort but it had certainly been worth it.

The other really good thing about the sale was that now only stuff I was keeping was still in my house. Well, that turned out to not be entirely true. By the time I’m done today, I’ll have another load to take to the Crisis Center. Another hazard I discovered of living in the house as you’re packing it up was that I kept packing up things I actually needed to use. I packed up all the dishes and then dang if I didn’t leave me anything to eat off of. So, there are a few boxes I have packed and repacked a couple of times. I also had trouble with the things I may need on my trip. I packed up all my clothes and then realized it was colder where I was going than it is here, so I had to unpack and pull out some pants. I also had to realize this stuff won’t be at our house in Seattle for 10-15 days. So what I pack is what I’ll have to wear until the end of October. Hopefully, it’ll be enough. I only have so much room in the car.

Adventure #2 (or whatever) took place yesterday. I took all four critters to the vet. I figured it’d be a trial run for when I take them with me to Seattle. I put Shadow and Sparky in one carrier and R.J. by himself in the other one. Since R.J. and Sparky don’t get along, I figured it was the best way to go. Pachelbel sat up in the front seat. They were surprisingly easy to handle. The only glitch was Shadow throwing up on the way home. Now they all have their shots, Sparky got treated for ear mites, and Pachelbel came up clean for heart worms. They’re all ready to go. The vet told me to give them Benadryl if they got car sick so that definitely goes on the grocery list.

Once the movers get done, I’m going to finish up here in the house and move on to the next task. Pachelbel is in bad need of some grooming if she’s gonna hang out in my car for a week so we’re taking her to Petsmart to get all dolled up. I had wanted to go see my uncle but it’s just not gonna happen. Since I’m leaving on Monday, I’d like to have one day to rest before I go.

I can’t believe it’s this close. It seemed like it would be forever when we first decided to do this. Now I’m only three days away from leaving Texas and starting a new life in Seattle. I miss Rhonda so much and I can’t wait to see her. I think that has been the hardest part. Being away from her for so long. In just a week, I’ll get to see her again. And when the movers arrive, I get to do all this again in reverse. But Rhonda will be helping on that end! I also told her she can’t give me a hard time about not having a job for at least two months. I need a break!