All Gone!!!!

I spent yesterday doing some last minute stuff at the old house. One more run to the Sally Ann. We also piled a bunch of stuff at the curb just in time for garbage day today. Our neighbours are letting us keep our bicycles in their garage for the time being, so we moved all those over before noon. The cleaning crew spent a good 4-5 hours in the house and made it look and smell brand new. My son packed most of his worldly possessions in his Hyundai Accent and then we vacated the place shortly before 2 pm.

Chris and I had an enjoyable afternoon and supper with Jim Anders, an old classmate of ours from our high school days at CFB Baden in Germany during the 70s. He retired from the military several years ago. Jim came to our rescue in fact. We had a large wooden clothes rack to move to "the cave" and it was far too big for our SUV. Thankfully, Jim has a Dodge Ram truck which handled the load quite easily.

Chris is back to work today. I dropped her off and then headed to Perkins to have breakfast with my son before he headed off to Hanover. We had a good chat. Don't mind saying I was left a little teary eyed as he drove off to begin life on his own. Feels strange being an official empty nester now.

I managed a nice 4 mile along along the Ottawa river after breakfast and then spent the rest of my day running errands. I returned a floor lamp we had bought at Home Depot after 3 light bulbs blew up in it and shattered all over the floor. I picked up another floor lamp with the 'touch' feature. The top of the box looked like it was retaped after having been opened before. A Home Depot clerk told me it was new and had not been returned. Imagine how much I fumed when I opened the box and found the lamp had indeed been opened and returned before. Half the styrofoam was even missing from the box! Wait until I return it tomorrow!

Finally have our wifi internet connection working well at 'the cave'. I had managed to get my cable modem working in our suite by connecting it directly to cable but it stopped working this morning and Rogers said it was because they only allowed one cable modem on a line. I would have to pay for a second line if I wanted to use my own cable modem. I talked to our landlord upstairs and am now running a wifi network on his cable at no cost at all. Can't beat that!

Time to pick up the working lady.

All Done!!! - Well......Almost

What a hectic week so far....and it is only Wednesday!

The packers showed up on Monday morning around 9 am and set to work immediately. There was only two of them but they managed to have everything boxed up and ready to load by 3 pm. Chris and I spent the day throwing out more stuff that we simply didn't need to keep and making even more runs to the Salvation Army, which thankfully, is just a few kilometers away from our house, on Innes Rd.

The loaders arrived Tuesday morning just before 9 am with a huge truck. They were in and gone by 11 am. Two hours and the house was basically empty except for my son's things which he is carting off to London in the coming days! I was impressed. They moved it all and never hit a wall or left a mark anywhere. We made a couple of runs out to the motorhome to transfer some of our things into it. The farmer who owns the property where we store our Bounder gratefully accepted our donations of rarely used tools from our shed and also the workmate table which we no longer required.

Basically, we have done a series of 4 moves within this one move which has proved to be quite a challenging logistical puzzle. We moved Chris's things into her new rental suite (aka The Cave"). We moved some of our things into our Bounder for our run to Florida this winter. We moved my son's things for his upcoming year at Fanshawe College and we are also putting some things into storage.

The new owners take possession of the house this evening. We have a few things to haul out later this morning before the cleaners give it a once over for the last time. Have to see the lawyer too this morning to get the money and drop off the key....can't forget that!

Chris has some studying and assignments to do for her new job at CHEO, so she will stay in the "Cave" this morning while I return to the house early and get my son loaded for his drive to Hanover tomorrow. Apparently all his "stuff" will fit in the car. We shall see..... Our 14 yr old bichon, Buddy, will make the trip to Hanover with him where he will enjoy a luxurious stay at the Chateau Shearer for a few weeks at least. Thanks for that Karen.

Chris is back to work tomorrow for a set of four (2 days/2 nights) while I put my feet up.....I wish! We'll make the drive out to Hanover on her next set of days off. We have things to drop in St Catharines, London and Hanover, so that should be a nice little road trip.

Neighbours across the street have graciously agreed to store our bicycles in their garage for the time being. We'll retrieve one of them for the above road trip and the rest of them once we take the motorhome out of storage later this summer.

So our move is almost over. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Our friends, Jim and Jane, will also be moving in the coming days. You can read about all their fun by clicking on the BritsOnTour link in the right margin.

Cheers all!

Almost There

Only one more sleep until the movers arrive on Monday morning!

It has been a very busy week for all of us. Lots of trips to the Salvation Army with bags of donations. Casey and I also rented a Budget van and managed to get the larger furniture items moved into Chris's new place. Chris slept there for the first time this week after a couple of recent nightshifts. Good idea too as it was pretty noisy here with doors slamming, etc.

Today will be the last real push for us. We have separated what we have left into three piles: RV stuff, stuff for Chris's place and Casey's travel stuff. Anything that doesn't make it into one of those three piles will be going into storage. The last thing to be sold off will be our lawn mower. Our neighbour needs a new one and it makes for an easy move.

I also traded in all my old Canon 35mm camera gear on a new Canon EOS Rebel XSi. It is a pretty sweet camera. I was big into photography during my younger days and have been hauling a lot of stuff around with me from house to house for many years. I bought my original gear at the Canex store in Germany while still in my late teens but haven't used it much since digital photography became popular. Henry's gave me a fair trade in value, so I took the plunge. Haven't had too much time to dabble with the new camera yet. That certainly won't be a problem once the move is over and done.

Anyway, once more into the breach!

Slim Pickins

No........not the old western movie star!

I'm referring to the amount of furniture left in the old place. Between what we have sold already, what Chris is keeping for her place and what friends and relatives have taken......there ain't much left!! All this is really great too because it "should" makes our packing, loading and moving days at the end of July go quite smoothly. I am reserving judgement on that one until all is said and done. More things going later today as well.

We recall a comedy routine by Jeff Foxworthy entitled "You know you're a Redneck when......" He gives a list of indicators that are quite funny. One of his endings referred to having lawn furniture set up in your family room. Well, we certainly have that and more besides!!! Or should that be less? We thought it was hilarious.

Anyway things are going well. My sister in law, Karen and her husband, John are in town for the weekend. They are sleeping on a queen size inflatable bed which we bought at Walmart. It has a motor that pumps it up in about 3 minutes and they both slept very well on it. The bed cost about $60 and comes in its own carry bag making for easy storage too. Great for company.

Karen and John have agreed to take Buddy for us, for a month to begin with. We can't keep him in the inlaw suite with us and it made no sense to set up the RV and maintain two residences, just so Buddy would have a place to sleep. They head home today with a load of our stuff in their van. Our son will run Buddy over to them at the end of the month when he moves to London, Ontario. Chris and I will head over to Hanover around August 10 for 5 days while she is on days off from CHEO. We'll be able to check on our things in storage and see some more family as well.

Still lots to do but we are getting there, one step at a time.

Things are Movin'!

We are selling things off, almost room by room it seems. Someone bought our family room wall unit last night and will pick it up on Friday afternoon. Most of the big stuff has gone. We decided to keep some things for Chris's inlaw suite. Seemed silly to sell what we had and then buy new stuff to replace it. My daughter came home for a few days last weekend. Her brother helped her go through all her "stuff". Lots went to the Salvation Army. Yesterday. we managed to muscle a chest freezer up from the basement and out into the garage. That is spoken for as well.

Given that Chris has her new place, we are considering perhaps not setting up the RV on July 20th as we had initially planned. Why pay for two separate places if we don't need to? Her place is certainly big enough for the two of us for a few months. All depends on what kind of dog sitting arrangements we can arrange for our 14 year old Bichon. No dogs allowed in the new place unfortunately.

Movers came in to look at the place last Friday. Without appliances and heavy furniture to move, we will likely not even be over 3400 lbs. That should make for an easy move all around. Pack Jul 28th, load Jul 29th and leave Jul 30th is the plan.

Hoping to get in a nice bike ride on the tandem today before Chris goes back to work tomorrow.