Moving Saga, Day 3

Yesterday at 10am sharp there were a bunch of ladies vying for my stuff, snatching kitchen utensils and baby clothes and blankets. They all knew someone who could use the things and I was glad we could give them.  I had about 5 laundry baskets worth of things and they were all gone– the room was completely bare– within 25 minutes.

In the meantime we frantically packed up the house, idealistically thinking we were almost done.  The landlord’s agent came at noon to “check us out”, with our deposit in hand.  Then he and his assistant (it seems everybody around here has an assistant, no matter what job they do) scoured the house and began racking up things. There were three broken portable emergency lights missing (broken when we arrived but the landlord had cupboards full of broken lamps and such … this should have been a clue), and we’d gotten rid of a blanket and three pillows that were horribly moldy/mildewy. These items were apparently worth half our deposit.  And the landlord would not factor in that we had put in at least triple this amount in improvements on the home like hot water heater and shelving.

We were tired and emotional.  We were not at our best.

We got into a huge yelling match with our house agent. All the while I could hear my dad’s voice in my head…

“It’s just money. Don’t ruin the relationship. Just give it and move on.” Sometimes my dad is a little extreme about this, but his generosity has kept him out of the type of terrible, drawn out arguments that we dug ourselves right into.

It took two hours to finish and wheedle the charges down by 25%, and get our meager deposit. And the two men sulked and glared at us from their couch for the THREE HOURS that it took us to gather our stuff.  And to find my wedding ring that had been missing under a bed for three days.

On a side note, the movers had missed a toddler mattress and several kitchen items. So now we have a mattress to drive to Delhi along with a lot of suitcases.

We drove up the winding mountain half a mile to our B&B, pulling our beat-up van with the suitcases, carseats, a cooking range, and mattress on the luggage rack.  Snuck our dirty selves into our cute little cottage room and really just wanted to bury ourselves under the covers.

But instead we went upstairs to dinner with three friends and had a lovely time. Ella is still sick with terrible allergies so I took her to bed early. And she coughed and whimpered all.night.long.  Eventually I just laid there and waited till morning because I’d done all I could do for her (medicine, nasal rinse, essential oil diffuser), I couldn’t sleep, and at least in the morning I could have the room deep-cleaned of dust and it might help.

Now Little Man and I sit at the breakfast table over coffee. Daddy and Ella were deep-sleeping when we snuck out.

The sun is rising on the hills.  It’s going to be a beautiful last day on this mountain top.

My lessons for the day are…

1. Don’t ruin even a meager working relationship over money.  And if I do, to move on and let it go.
2. To limit myself to TWO catch-all baskets with nick-knacks so that I don’t have fifteen to sort through when i move.
3. To always stay in a hotel or guest room before moving. Its small but clean with a hot shower, and being away from home gives me more perspective to get rid of even more of our things before we drive away tomorrow.

The kids are holding up super well. I can’t wait to be settled with them and in routine again.  But in the meantime we have mastered the ability to have “home” and “peace” wherever we are together.  I have my mom to thank for that lesson .