We’ve been in the new house four nights, and this morning our dimmest cat is alerting me that SOMETHING IS AMISS!! He’s walking rapidly from room to room, making the mer-SQUEAK sound he makes instead of a normal meow. Then he comes back to me and looks at me urgently: SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT HERE!! He can’t quite put a paw-pad on it, but something is DEFINITELY NOT QUITE AS IT WAS BEFORE!! Poor sweet little dummy.
Yesterday Paul and I made progress on one of our New House Plans. The center of our town has a whole bunch of restaurants, but downtown parking is a colossal pain so we’ve only been to two of them. Now that we can walk to downtown, our plan is to start on one end and go all the way to the other end, eating in each restaurant once. (Er, over a period of months. Not, like, in a row on the same day.) Yesterday we had lunch at Restaurant One–or rather, at Restaurant Two, because it turned out Restaurant One is closed on Sundays. Good to build in a little flexibility right from the start.
Restaurant Two was perfect for us. I love to eat breakfast out and Paul doesn’t, and Paul is not what I’d call an Adventurous Eater (neither am I, but compared to him I am). Restaurant Two is the kind that has breakfast all day, with tons of sides options (including a side of French toast, which is exactly as much French toast as I want to have), so you can have the huge some-of-everything sort of breakfast I like to have at a restaurant, but/and they also had good and interesting hamburgers for Paul. They had good coffee and nice servers who kept refilling the coffee, and I liked their sturdy colorful dishware, and they had a big board listing all the local places they get their ingredients/supplies from. Clearly a lot of the customers were regulars, because they and the servers were catching up before ordering: “How’s your daughter doing at college?” “Is your mom settling in at the home?” etc. I kept making enthusiastic remarks about everything until Paul said, “Remember we are going to eat at ALL the restaurants; we are not going to fall in love with this one and never go to any of the others.” Okay but what about the side of French toast.
I took the three littler kids back to the old house yesterday. They’re supposed to be going through the detritus remaining in their rooms, boxing up what they actually want to keep so that we can bulldoze out what’s left. Yesterday I said idly to Paul that perhaps we should arrange to donate our old house to the fire department for one of their practice planned-burn exercises, so that we don’t have to deal with what’s left. I hate going over there now: it makes me sad, and also it’s overwhelming how much still needs to be done. We’re chipping away at it, but UG this is taking forever. I stand there and I have no idea what to start with. Yesterday I cleaned out under the fridge, which seemed…low-priority. But it ALL needs to be done, and sometimes the best thing is to just DO ANYTHING rather than standing there trying to rank everything in order of importance.
I am wondering how weird this is going to be for Rob. He was home for Thanksgiving in the old house, and when he comes home in a week and a half for winter break it’ll be to the new house. I wondered briefly if it would have been better to wait for him to come home to do the main part of the move, since the other six of us are doing a lot of Adjustment Rituals (special dinners; treats on the coffee table in the evenings; deciding where to put things) that are helping us settle in and get used to this together, and Rob is missing out on all that. Then I imagined trying to do the worst part of the move five days before Christmas, and Rob coming home to a lot of physical labor and two parents at the ends of their ropes (one parent weeping and saying “I know it’s temporary but I am SO MISERABLE!!”), and it seems like it was probably better to do it the way we did it.
It is definitely better to move without Rob. He doesn’t strike me as the sentimental type, so I think he’ll be fine coming home to a new house. Now he’ll get to come home for Christmas and it will be weird for him, but you’ll get to enjoy your time together so much more than you would if you were trying to transition with him home for a brief visit.
What Sarah said.
Also, what you said about just doing ANYTHING that needs doing, rather than trying to prioritize.
Make sure you give Rob the new address . . . I had a friend in high school whose parents moved shortly before Thanksgiving during his first semester of college. He knew they had moved but didn’t know the address and had to spend his first night “home” in the old empty house! (This was pre-cell phone days, obviously.)
You are doing great with the move! Yay you! [just wanted a little cheering here]
I remember that coming home from college my first year ALWAYS felt weird. Everything was strange and different even with my same house. I remember being driven on the roads to my house thinking, this all feels so foreign. So, it would be weird for Rob no matter where “home” was. The experience will probably be less jarring for him in some ways than for the rest of you because he is already adjusting to living in new places. This is just one more. And next year he’ll have a new dorm room or apartment, so the new house is just a drop in the bucket.
I love your new house plans. And how great that the first restaurant was such a good one!
Totally in agreement with others who say it was better to move without Rob. Trying to squeeze Christmas and a college student homecoming and a move into the same five days sounds like a nightmare. You definitely made the right choice.
Again, you are my spirit sister. A side of french toast. That’s all I need in life!
Seriously. I have said this for years–French toast is great, and a little goes a long way. It should always be an add on.
My parents moved while I was away at college. I was sentimental, and I missed my old house, but I was SO GLAD that I wasn’t there for the move, which would have been so much worse. It was a quick transition, like peeling off a bandaid, butmostly I did not want to help with the move… which is the kind of situation where parents invariably drive their college aged children crazy.
The new restaurant sounds delightful. I love breakfast food, but don’t really like eating much in the mornings, so I love a good breakfast all day menu. I’m sure you did the right thing moving before Rob comes home. I’m coming off two weeks at home with sick (but not terribly sick) children so this may be coloring my attitude a little bit, but I think getting used to small amounts of unsettling discomfort may be good for all children! Ahem.
Dealing with the old house after you’ve already moved is very much an UGH! You are ready to be done with it and focus on the new house. And I agree about moving without waiting for Rob. It would have been a nightmare if you had waited.
The title of this blog post made me laugh out loud. You might be feeling miserable, but you’re still funny.
Really enjoy hearing all out the move and new house!
My parents moved house my first Christmas break at college. It was not great. So I think you were good to do what you did.
I love that restaurant idea. What a fun project.
The new restaurant sounds great- and now, you can look forward to coming back to it once you’ve tried them all, even if the other ones are fine-but-not-any-better-than-that-one!
Also, cleaning out the fridge is definitely not low priority! Just think how much worse it will get! Bedroom crap won’t get any worse but fridge crap gets that “hasn’t been opened in a few days” funk. Better to do it now!
Laughing so hard about your “dimmest cat.” Haha poor dummy.
You are doing more worrying about Christmas homecoming than Rob ever would. He’ll be with his family and that really will be what he notices. College kids are very resilient, and bonus? The novelty of the new house may override all of the itchiness of a college kid being back under a parental roof. Territory has changed.
The funniest photo Christmas card I ever saw was from a Fire Department. It had them at a house training fire, and it said, “Keep the home fires burning this Christmas”.
In general I love chipping away at problems, but I have loathed wrapping up a vacated residence. It has a way of stretching on with no real reward. I suppose at some point the thought of money for the sale of it will be appealing, but I feel you on the slog of getting it emptied. Think of it as a storage shed off the interstate. The longer that people live without the contents, the more it feels like they can and should just be disposed of.
Uh, the contents of the storage receptacle, not the people. Must find coffee now.
Oh, Swistle, I needed this! I’m planning to move shortly after Christmas (which also means shortly after the week I will spend in my hometown and NOT packing), and I need the “…it all needs to be done, and sometimes the best thing is to just do anything rather than standing there trying to rank everything in order of importance” to really sink in!
This morning before leaving for work, I packed up some glassware I’m going to bring to my mom (I don’t use it and I think she will) and then I folded some laundry even though it is not technically a drop in the bucket of moving boxes. But I would eventually have to fold that laundry! Even if just to put it in a duffle bag and bring it to the new place! So it’s good I did it in the 10 minutes I had this morning!
Also, would gladly welcome at this point my fairy godmother saying, “I’ll give you $5,000 to move with nothing but the clothes on your back.” Yes, good, please and thank you.
I love “okay, but what about the side of French toast”, and I love my dog, but the mer-SQUEAk thing made me miss my cat.
How’s the restaurant project going? Just finished a book about “loving where you live” and this seems like such a fun idea. Love the blog!
A friend sent me that book as a moving gift!! It was definitely part of the inspiration of our restaurant tour. We’ve gone to…let’s see…four restaurants so far. It has been fun, and yummy, and also it really does give me a feeling of “claiming” our neighborhood, and makes me feel more familiar with it overall.