New Beginnings

On August 20th, Sam and I woke up on the floor at our Bay Ridge Parkway abode, finished cleaning the apartment, well, most of it, packed up the Red Rocket with a couple of suitcases, wedding albums, and Lucky and Blue and said goodbye to Brooklyn. We got on the road about 6 hours after I wanted to (who knew that we wouldn't be finished in time to leave by 6am) armed with snacks, a case of water and mapquest directions in case Frieda, the GPS screwed us again.

But let me backtrack two days. So I decided to hire movers to shlep all of our worldly possessions to Austin instead of renting a U-Haul. It was cheaper and we would be able to have the freedom to take the cats with us and not worry about driving a big 'ol truck. So I agreed to the cheapest company without researching anything. Hindsight is 20/20 and of course I know better now, but I had no idea and for some reason Sam trusted me to do it on my own. The day before the movers were scheduled to arrive, we did not get a confirmation call. We called them and did not get an answer. This is when I got nervous. I googled the company and found that they did business under another name and that other name had 40+ negative issues on the Better Business Bureau. This was getting really worrisome. I was tearful and so disappointed in myself and was scared that we would never see our things again. This company had their license revoked a number of times and had horrible reviews. I received a message from the moving company later that night reporting that they would not be there at 9:00 am as was scheduled and would in fact not be there until 2:00 pm. It was already going poorly and they hadn't even picked up our stuff. I couldn't sleep, my stomach was in knots. At 4:00 am, I had enough. I continued to google the company and got even more poor reviews. At this point I was crying hysterically. The next morning, I handed Sam the phone and asked him to call the movers and cancel. I told him of my gut feeling and he agreed.

After a bit of an altercation with the moving company, Sam was able to cancel. After calling my credit card to dispute the $200 deposit from the original movers, I was able to call another moving company and set up a pick up for that afternoon. I was so glad that it wouldn't delay our departure on Wednesday. The movers were great - they were on time, they were fast and they made me feel like I made the right decision. At least they were still endorsed by the BBB!

Now back to the road trip!

Sam and I had so much fun in the car for three days! The cats were amazing! We got hourly meows from Lucky who appeared to be making sure that we still knew he was there. They were quiet and slept most of the trip. Day 1 ended in Hickory, North Carolina with Jen and James. We arrived around 9:00 pm, only 4 hours later than I wanted. Sam's fast driving made up some time. It was so good to see them and the cats acclimated to their bathroom quite well, even eating a little and going to the bathroom. The next morning, we got ready, scooped the cats back into the carrier, re-loaded the car and got on the road. I'll mention that we were able to actually take showers (packing the shower curtain on Monday evening didn't allow for showers) and change into clean clothes.

We arrived in Memphis at Michael and Alice's around 5:00 pm, got the cats settled in their very own room and headed to Gus' Fried Chicken where I proceeded to flood the bathroom before chowing down on spicy chicken and great southern sides. We stayed up late drinking beer and crocheting (I did the latter) and enjoyed our time with our friends. Friday morning, we gathered the cats (seeing a pattern here), reloaded the car and headed out on the road to Houston. We arrived to Sam's parents house around 5:00 pm (that seems a convenient time for us) to a waiting U-Haul that we (and by "we", I mean, Sam, Joe, Brian and Stew) loaded with all of our possessions stored at the Levine house. The plan was to have a little dinner and hit the road so we could get home Friday night. Needless to say, we needed sleep more than we needed to be in Austin that night. We enjoyed the Mexican dinner, hung with the family, got to see Brenda and Eran's new house, got some much needed sleep and hit the road at 6:00 am (finally, we left somewhere at 6:00 am!). We arrived in Austin (well, Pflugerville) on Saturday morning. It was such a relief to be home. I settled in the cats and did a visual inspection of the house. I was so disappointed that the renters left in poor condition but I'll get to that in another post. Little Joe, Big Joe, Brent and Shelly came by to help Sam unload the U-Haul into the garage (I think it took 20 minutes) and then we had some breakfast with the old crew from Austin. Did I mention it felt good to be home.

We now had one week to get the house together before my new job started and before Sam had to go back to New York.

I think I'll leave all of that for another time. It feels good to be back on the blog-wagon! Hopefully I'll continue to write...

Thank you all for waiting patiently for my latest installment.