Moving, New Year's, and the continuing story of the Breadmaker

I want to give a shout-out to Aviv Moving Services : Thank you!
Last Monday, we came back from the Hirsh Christmas, and we got packing, basically immediately. We took loads of small and odd-shaped stuff to the new house until Thursday, when we had hired movers.

Michael was cool through the whole thing (while I was like a bee in his bonnet), until Thursday, when I finally calmed down, and he got all antsy! Watching the movers struggle with that massive King-sized mattress, we were very glad that we had hired them. It took three hours to move the remainder of our stuff from the old place to the new place.

So then, we set about the daunting task of unpacking. We have a lot of stuff. Not as much as I thought, really -- it mostly fit in the dining room. But boy, oh boy. Looking at all of it, stacked up, was very intimidating.

So, the next day, we begin digging out. I began working on the easy-ish things -- putting away supplies in the bathroom. I also began work in earnest on the kitchen/pantry. When we tried to move Mike's dresser, we put a shallow scratch in the floor -- no big deal, except that the landlord had told us to be very careful with the newly finished floor. We finally got the furniture in the second bedroom in approximately the right place. I was kinda flitting from one thing to another, mostly trying to work on the kitchen.

We didn't have some important pieces of furniture, and this made it hard to put things away. I didn't want to put my wire book case up in the living room -- it was too "dorm". In the kitchen, the stove is kinda sitting in the middle of a wall with no counter or anything next to it, and I wanted a cart to put next to it. We also needed a bedstand, a book case for the living room, a table and chairs where we could eat, and a dresser for me. Off to IKEA!

At IKEA, we had a pretty organized trip -- we knew what we were looking for, and I had a rough idea of what kind of things to get. We wrote down all the numbers for all the things we were going to get, and went to the ground floor to get them from the huge warehouse. The first two items we looked for were not in stock. This was a bit of a blow, and Mike and I were getting testy with each other. Finally, we had some success, getting the dresser, and then the table and chairs (which were massively heavy!). We went to the desk about the book case we wanted, which we had only seen in this ugly white color. Finally, we got everything in the cart that was to be had, and we went to check out. They told us that we were missing a box -- apparently, the dresser came in two boxes. So, we went back for the other box, and we finally got out of there. I was worried that the book case box wasn't going to fit in the car. We had measured the back of the car with the seats down, and found that it was 63 inches long. The box for the bookshelf was something like 89 inches. Mike was totally confident that it would fit. Well, despite my skepticism, he was right. The book shelf poked half way through to the windshield, between our heads. I tried to hold it to the side so Mike could drive, unencumbered.

When we got home, I tried to set about getting the kitchen in order enough to make dinner, while Mike worked on putting the table and chairs together. The table went smoothly, but the chairs were much more complicated. Mike suffered a number of setbacks, before we decided to scrap it and go to dinner.

The next day, our washer and dryer were supposed to be delivered between 7 and 9 AM. Mike was up very early, trying to put the chairs together. and I got up to help him. We suffered a couple more setbacks, but we finally got the chairs together and had our first meal at home -- Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

When the washer and dryer came, we could not take delivery of the dryer because it wouldn't fit in the door. Bummer! So, we are sitting here with a washer, but no dryer. We had to go back to Best Buy to order a smaller dryer which hopefully will fit in the door. It is going to be delivered tomorrow. I was proud of myself, because I talked the guy at Best Buy into not making us pay for delivery again.

Later, the guy from RCN came to bring television and internet access. We had asked for a DVR box, but the message hadn't gotten through. We wanted to set up our wireless router, and so the guy didn't test the internet connection. He just left us to our own devices. It didn't work, and calls to RCN were not terribly helpful. But, they sent someone over for the next day.

We put my dresser together -- which took a very long time. It had a lot of pieces, and was awkward to manipulate. It was definately a two-person job. There was more unpacking.

We went to Christine's New Year's Eve night. The weather was awful. When we got to New Hampshire, we were turning off the main road, and the wheels just let go. We slammed into the divider. I was afraid that we had blown a tire or something. Going gently uphill, towards Christine's house, the wheels were slipping and it was pretty scary. I felt bad for suggesting that we head out in this death trap. We left the party early, because we were worried about the weather. On the way home, it turned out that things weren't so bad. The streets had been plowed and salted, and we didn't have trouble getting up the very steep hill where we now live. It was getting into our driveway that was really scary. Mike just plowed in, and the wheels were slipping, and the car was slipping. The driveway is narrow, and I was afraid he was going to hit the wall next to me broadside. Everything was okay, but I was very scared. We got into the house and turned on the TV about ten minutes before the ball dropped in New York. Yay!

Yesterday, my kitchen was finally together enough to manage to make a meal. We had meatloaf and purple scalloped potatoes -- which were less striking than I had thought they would be. We figured out that the shelves for my wire bookshelf fit perfectly next to the stove. So we bought some new poles, and put it together to serve as my kitchen cart.

Mike has been psuhing to watch the instructional video for the breadmaker (He likes bread). And last night we finally watched it. The breadmaker has a timer function -- so you can put the ingredients in the pan, and it will make the bread for you at a later time. So, we set the breadmaker to have bread ready at 8 AM this morning, which was quite pleasant. I made eggs and sausage to go with it.

We still have some crap left in the living room, but we are mostly settled. We got our CDR / HDTV box today. Mike is drooling over the HD sports. And that is about it!

Tomorrow, Mike goes back to work, and after the dryer comes, I will go to school.