We finally did it!

So moving is never fun, but I have never experienced a move quite like this.

The first thing we did was start purging and boxing up all the things we wanted to keep.  You can see my process for storing all my crafty items here. Craft Storage for the Tiny House

Then there was the how are we going to get our stuff from Louisiana to North Carolina? This was interesting to find out about all the different ways you can move. PODS, and there are several companies that did this. Then there was the company that rented you part of a semi with no guarantees of who is in your stuff, nor when it would arrive. So my hubby elected to just buy a trailer our right and tow it himself. we are now on to 3 trips so far and will need to do one more after the sale of the house.

What to do with the furniture

Then a garage sale. Which was quite successful but no one took our Miles Talbot Shabby Chic sofa and chair. This left us with a serious dilemma because Disable American Vets did not take furniture. So we went to Habitat for Humanity, they took the sofa but did not want the chair. So now we are left with what to do with that.

Listing the House

We finally listed the house you can check out the link for that here. That was fun as well. Trying to find someone whom you feel comfortable with and someone who will work with you because you have pets. It seems in the realtor world Pets can be a nuisance. Not everyone is that way but we did want to move the animals quickly after the house was listed.

The Animals and a Final Goodbye

So the week before we were about to leave one of my cats Izzy stopped eating. I am sure this is because of all the changes going on at the house. Things were moving out and not coming back. We took a trip before leaving the critters with our wonderful Pet Sitter coming back without all that stuff! Izzy got to the point with all the commotion she starting spitting out her thyroid medication causing her to not eat and throw up a lot. This kept up so we gave her a med that we had to make her eat. Doubled up her thyroid medication to no avail. She was done. A 12 hour or more car ride was in her very near future and if she did not eat it would not be a good situation for her. So with much love and conversation with the vet, we decided it would be best to put her to sleep. She only weighed 8 pounds to start with but she had quickly dropped weight again down to about 5 pounds and was already very weak. The day before our departure we drove Izzy to the Vets office and made the hard choice to allow her to go in peace. When they gave her the sedative to relax her she was done. Her small frail body couldn’t even handle that.

 

We went into New Orleans that night to see my husbands family and tell them goodbye. Then had a nice dinner at Lola’s on Esplanade.

The next morning we loaded up the final items and said goodbye to our house. Talk about HARD!  It was my dream house. It was exactly 6 years that we lived there. One of our neighbors runs a blog called the GingerLife. She posted something on Instagram and said it so eloquently. Check it out here. I will miss all of my neighbors dearly.

Traveling North

With my Subaru, Otis loaded with me, my daughter and dogs and my husband’s Truck, Octavia towing a trailer with our possessions and my remaining 4 cats we set off on our journey. The cats did not take to the travel very well. There was a lot of crying involved by them. 4 cats with hammocks and a litter pan in a large dog kennel. No one would use the hammocks so there were plenty of cats fights along the way as well. We left Louisiana around 10 am and got stopped by weather just south of Atlanta. Big thunderstorm with lots of wind we needed to pull over it was pushing the truck and trailer all over the road. We waited about 45 minutes and was finally able to move on toward Atlanta. We got through Atlanta with spotty downpours and we thought the worst was behind us. Just a few more hours and we were golden. Unfortunately, it did not happen that way.

About an hour outside of our destination which was 1:30 AM the truck broke down and so did I. We had no idea what was happening but my husband called and said I can not get the truck to go and he pulled off the interstate and we called for a tow truck. This is where I LOST my marbles. My whole world was in the truck and trailer and I certainly did not want to leave it on the side of the road. There were plenty of things going through my mind at the time. We started slowing down. Like what if somebody is texting and doesn’t see us in time and slams into us? If we get out on the highway will we get hit? I have a friend whose husband was killed changing a tire on the side of the road. I was nauseous, my hands were shaking and I could not think clearly and I had to pee. I started to hyperventilate and will now admit I even had some chest pains. Once I had those I decided to take my anxiety medication. I do this so rarely but this was definitely the time. Way too much had happened to me in the last 48 hours that I had not even processed. I was trying to stay strong but it was getting increasingly hard to do. I grabbed a cup and peed on the side of the road and I took my medications all of them and got back in the car with the dogs while my husband and daughter tried to figure out what to do.

Decisions

So the decision was made to take me and the critters (dogs and cats) on to the house while my husband stayed with the truck and trailer waiting for a tow truck. Which should be within the hour. In order to get the cats into my car on the highway, we decided to put them into a smaller cage. That’s right smaller. These kitties were NOT happy in the least. I have never been more frightened in my life as to when we moved each cat to the new carrier while forcing the others to stay in the carrier all while being sitting ducks on a highway. Once we got them into my car, I finally started to relax just a bit. I still sat in the back of the car with tears streaming down my face. My cats were in the front seat fighting with each other. The cat screams and puffs of hair that came out of the cage broke my heart. There was nothing I could do for them till we got to the tiny.

We finally arrived at about 3:30 AM my husband still was waiting on the tow truck. My daughter and her husband got me and the dogs and cats in the house hooked up my water and then tried to go get some sleep so they could go help Tim in the morning.

I couldn’t sleep that anxiety med that I thought I had taken apparently my husband found on the side of the road in a puddle of pee. I talked to my husband via text throughout the night. The tow truck finally arrived around 5:30 AM and brought him to a hotel where he could catch a nap at least. I slept for about an hour and waited on my husband to tell me he was OK. While he was waiting on the tow truck he somehow managed to fall out of the back of his truck landing on his hands. This did not help his recovering shoulder from surgery 6 months ago.

Daughter and husband got up and put the kids in the car and went to get his truck and go get Tim. They were able to get the trailer and all the belonging left in the truck back to the tiny house. Since it was Sunday the hotel told Tim he could leave his truck there and have it towed to a repair shop on Monday.

What really happened to the Truck?

Several days later we got the news of what happened to the truck. There is a hose that goes to the bottom of the gas tank in a diesel truck and that was what broke. It caused the fuel system to airlock along with the fact that his batteries died while waiting on the tow truck for over 5 hours. Most of you know we just dumped 2,000 dollars in it for a 6 dollar part for air conditioning and now we were putting another 1,150 into it. I am over the trucks needs now!!

I know we said we were going to build or buy a house once we were up here but I don’t know that that will ever happen. I don’t ever want to move again.

Good News

We are here safely, and I have a chiropractic appointment next week. We are hoping that our house will sell quickly. I also have signed up with NC Demonstrators group so I hope to bring you some new ideas soon!! Oh and I have an absolutely wonderful daughter, I could not have gotten here without her.

 

Happy Craftin’

Amy