stuffed

Two weeks ago tomorrow, my brother rolled in with a big ol' 16-foot Penske truck and car trailer, upon which sat our minivan.

We had planned to get a small trailer and use the van to haul our stuff, but after a lot of worry, stress, and naysaying. we decided to find another way to transport our belongings.

We narrowed it down to a pod through U-Pack or a Penske truck, and ended up going with Penske and towing our other car (which grand totaled around $1700 if you're interested in that kind of thing), partially because we wanted to ensure we'd have a car Tim could drive to work. (Unfortunately we took the car into a mechanic shortly after we got it and found out about another costly repair because of a leak in the rack and pinion.) And we didn't even drive it here! Oh, cars.

There was a lot of room in the moving truck left over. I had already gotten rid of several items that I now wish we had. But I'm glad now I was unsuccessful getting rid of some other things, such as our couch. Now we have somewhere to sit besides on the mattress on the floor or the kitchen table. Getting everything loaded up from the storage unit and the things from my parents' house was a huge stressor. It wasn't ideal at all the way it worked out (e.g. Tim's mom unloaded the storage unit practically by herself and our attempts to find help for her were ill-fated), but it got done and now we have our stuff. If we could do it all over again, I think we would have had Tim fly back and take care of it rather than waiting to do it during the weekend of my brother's open house, which was when my brother offered to drive the truck out. Or maybe we would've hired somebody to do it? There was too much stuff going on that weekend for my brother to handle it, and it turns out mobilizing other resources when you're across the country is nigh unto impossible. I guess regrets are inevitable when you're moving across the country without a lot of notice, though. We do appreciate the help we got, and now we're settling in slowly but surely.