Some homemade pasta primavera, wine, top chef and some homemade peanut butter cookies. Yum!

Slowly adjusting to our new life and home,

Brett and Kate

Slowly but surely we are unpacking and settling in.  Unfortunately, we have had a few breakages that are starting to add up.  Its impressive there are not more things damaged considering the condition of some of the boxes and the way the movers carried things in.  Yikes.  I guess I need to look up the definition of fragile and this end up cause apparently they mean different things here in PA.

If you can’t duck it, chuck it,
Brett and Kate

Short story: we got to Philadelphia Monday evening, picked up the keys to our house, and finally got to see our new home!

Long story: After not hearing from the moving company all weekend, we decided we were going to call them first thing Monday morning to see what the status of our move was. While spending Sunday evening with our good friends Justin & Hedda, we get a call around 9pm from the driver of our moving truck saying we are to meet him in Philadelphia the next afternoon. I’m sure you’re thinking “what?!”, and so were we. We told him we wouldn’t be able to leave until the morning & with the 6 hr drive, wouldn’t make it until early evening at best, so we agreed to meet at 6. We were pretty disappointed to have to leave NY so quickly, but I must say, the drive from NY to Philly was absolutely beautiful. After driving all day we get a call from the driver around 430pm saying that he’s not able to make the delivery that is scheduled before ours (and packed in front of ours) so he won’t be able to deliver our stuff until Tuesday morning. So, as it turns out, the day, weekend, month, etc all led to a very anti-climactic end when we spent the 1st night in our new home/city on the floor with nothing

Tuesday we got up, got ready, & started cleaning before our things arrived. When the driver showed up, he informed us that he was going to need a shuttle to move our stuff because our street is so narrow, but that his shuttle was full with the other delivery so he needed to drop that off before he could switch our stuff & be back with it around 230pm. (Side-note - I never want to hear the word shuttle again…grr.) So, we go run a few errands then come home at 2, just to get a call from Carlos that his shuttle is broken & he’ll be here in a few hours after it’s fixed. Double Grr. We ran a few more errands (groceries, yay!) & was home for Carlos & his Bostonian sidekick to arrive at 630. They finished after 3 hours of moving, 6 bottles of water & lemonade (I’m a good host!), and 2 short breaks to tell us ridiculous stories.

We decided to stay up and start unpacking & made it until 1am before we crashed…but at least this time we had a bed! Brett was back to work today, from home, while I worked ON the home, getting rid of boxes & making this place ours. Much more on the house to come, but so far, we absolutely love it! Thanks for checking up on us

Finally home sweet home,

Brett and Kate

Both the sky and the water were on fire hanging with Justin and Hedda in NY waiting for the Movers to call.

Getting lit ourselves,

Brett and Kate

It was tough saying goodbye to the kids this morning but we are looking forward to arriving in New York tonight…only 5 1/2 hours to go! Most of our driving time is spent listening to podcasts and collaborating on crosswords, really helps the time go by. After making a rest stop to let Captain hang out in the grass, we decided he would need to be medicated the rest of the trip so he’s now laying at me feet feeling nice and sedated…poor guy. Well, onward we go!
Fueled by coffee & ibuprofen,
Brett and Kate

We’ve put in some long and productive days, packing, cleaning, painting, grouting… you know, the usual finish all those projects you started a year ago because there are literally no more tomorrows.

Note to self: a bottle of beer is 12oz. The perfect size to measure out the 48oz of water needed for a box of grout. (Yeah I totally had to drink and use a beer bottle because we had packed everything else.)

I think we are at a good point to call it a night, finish the loose ends in the morning, have a cup of coffee and let the movers do the rest.

Can’t believe we have this many boxes,

Brett

Now that we’re 2 days from leaving, apparently we’re working so hard Captain is exhausted just watching us…

It’s official – we’re roommates…there’s no turning back now We spent all of yesterday moving the last of my stuff over to Brett’s place and into his storage unit, which leaves all of his stuff still to be organized, packed, and labeled. Speaking of labeling, I’ve decided to implement a probably-annoying-but hopefully-worth-it-in-the-end box labeling/tracking system, which of course is helping the packing process as much as it’s making it more frustrating. Each box is numbered, assigned a room, and given a summary of contents, while also being color coded. Not only does this ease a bit of my anxiety, but will hopefully help the movers out a lot too…once I give them the handy-dandy spreadsheet that accompanies my craziness.

Luckily, my last day of work was on Friday so I’ll be at home for the next few days just working on getting things ready. As for Brett, he has one day left in the office on Monday, will be working from home on Tuesday, then will be off for a week starting Wednesday.

While it looks like the next few days will be nothing but early mornings and late nights, we’re totally ready for it and very excited to be so close to leaving!

Packing up and shipping out,

Brett and Kate

We knew from the get-go that we wouldn’t be driving straight from Chicago to Philly, since it will take 5-6 days for the movers to actually arrive with our belongings…however, we finally figured out last week what our exact itinerary will be:

• Movers came this morning to load everything up, and as soon as everything was packed and the house emptied, we and our stuff started on our separate paths
• We are at the start of the first leg (5 hours) to Detroit where we will stay the night at Brett’s brother Chris’s house and get hang out with the nieces and nephew (yay!)
• On Friday, we will make the 6 hour trip to Brett’s parents house in New York, where we will spend a few days of much needed relaxation while we wait to meet our stuff in Philly
• Once we get the green light from the movers, we will commence the final 6 hour leg of our trip and head to Philly to get the keys to our place, see it for the first time, and hopefully be ready for the movers to move everything inside our new home

currently homeless,

Kate