Nap time

When we decided to move our home and business out of a largish commercial-building-with-apartment a few months back, we thought we had a smallish house, a warehouse, and two storage units to move stuff into. Then the lady renting the warehouse decided to stay put, and only one of the storage units actually came open. Oops.

The whole move has been more or less like that. A second storage unit came open after a while, but without the warehouse the last several weeks have been full of sorting and culling and selling and giving away and throwing away but still not quite getting out of the old place. We made progress, but...

Then, two days ago, I found out that our old landlord had found new tenants and they were itching to get into the building. I thought we had it set up that as soon as he had either a buyer or renters we'd be told, and we'd do whatever needed to be done, even if it amounted to accepting our losses and sending what was left to the dump. But no, these people were waiting to get inside and start painting and getting a new store set up -- and nobody told us. Augh. Double augh. We are Judsons and we have our pride and we felt horrible about this.

We declared yesterday a do or die day and went at it. The last big problem, from our end, was that we still had shelves and shelves and shelves left from when we had a bricks-and-mortar bookstore over there. So, on a chance, we asked the new tenants if they wanted the shelves. Yes, they did. My husband made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

Even without having to haul the shelves out, for us to get totally cleared out still took several hours hard work on the part of my husband, myself, and two young men who volunteered to work all afternoon just to get us out of a tight spot.

The new folks were very nice about it, and quite understanding, especially once we told them that we didn't mind if they worked while we did. They were moving stuff in and painting as we carried our last loads out. One of them, dodging my husband's oxygen tubing (sixty feet long, attached to an oxygen concentrator at one end and him at the other), smiled and said, "It's like skipping rope, isn't it?"

She'll do. :)

My joints ache, my muscles are talking to me, I'm weary, but we're out. Finally.

I've done the put-bread-on-the-table work I needed to get done today, and I've taken a nap, and I'm seriously thinking about taking another nap.

Yinga. What a day we had yesterday. And how strange -- and wonderful -- it seems to not have to try to find time to get just a little more moving done.