Of Packing, Bombs, Getting the Keys and Moving

So we've been doing a lot of this lately:






Which is the reason I haven't been commenting on blogs as much as usual.

I haven't forgotten about y'all, though.

Believe me, I'd rather be blogging. It's just that some days it's kind of like an archaeological dig trying to unearth the computer from beneath the piles of stuff lying around.

My living room has shrunk to a 10x10 patch of carpeting, with stuff stacked up all around.

The packing seems like a never-ending job.

Which is probably because Judah is going along behind me unpacking everything I've already packed.

Because, you know, he just loves to 'help' his mama.




Plus I've packed up most of his stuff (including his toys) and he's been feeling a bit cooped up.

That's okay, though...he's reliving his early childhood by playing around in all the old baby stuff that's turned up again.





And laying claim to new 'toys' he's found around the house.



Then we got the call that Escrow was delayed a day. The bank that owned the home seems to delight in keeping everyone on pins and needles and stretching things out to the last possible minute.

I'm soooo tired of not having the things I need and use from day to day at my disposal, and was beginning to lose patience.


My to-do lists for both houses have been rather long. These are just the top pages.




Shopping for appliances, switching over utilities and forwarding our mail to our new address, keeping track of paint chips and carpet and flooring estimates has been...challenging, to say the least.

Like spinning plates. Lots and lots of plates.


I'm kinda dizzy from it all, really.

Trying to get help lined up when the closing date wasn't set in stone was just plain crazy. We've had to reschedule things with all our help twice already.

I was not too happy with the delays.

Then we received the joyous news...we should have the keys tomorrow! WOOOO HOO!!

That made me very happy.



Though the past couple of weeks have been hectic enough with all the cleaning and packing in order to move...now the real work begins as we swing into action to get all the painting and flooring replaced in the house before we can move in.

It's probably going to result in us needing to sleep over at my MIL's house for the first couple of days of October, as there will still be paint fumes for a while. But that's okay, because everything is getting a fresh new coat and is going to look FAB when it's done.

Due to our closing date on the house falling so close to the end of the month, our back-up plan was to move all the boxes of stuff into the new garage so that we could get out of our rental on time.

But before we could do that, something had to be done about the year or two's worth of spider-webbage in the long-vacant garage.

There was something in that garage that was making really, really strong, thick webs. Webs that looked and felt like super sticky dental floss.

On the final walk-through with our agent Todd last evening, he got some of the stuff stuck on his sunglasses. Stuck!

*shudders*

All I knew was that I wanted whatever it was that made that web hunted down and killed. Pronto.

I'm kind of arachniphobic that way.

Jeff suggested bug-bombing it, and went to the store for one.

Jericho became fascinated with this new thread of conversation, and asked several questions.

"You have to bomb the new house?" Jericho asked, aghast.

"Yep. Lots of black widows in the garage," I said absently, strapping tape on and then marking the twelve hundredth box.

Later, he came up and asked me, "So what does the bomb do, exactly?"

"Well, you set it off and it gets rid of all the bugs," I replied.

Still later, Jericho came into the room where I was and asked, "Won't a bomb hurt the house?"

"Oh, I suppose it leaves a little chemical residue inside the garage, but if it kills all the bugs we can deal with that."

"Do you have to light it?"

"Light it?" I asked distractedly. "No! You just...set it off."

"So it's like a grenade?"

"No!" I said for what felt like the umpteenth time. "It's just a can of stuff that when you set it off it sprays stuff up in the air and the vapor or gas or whatever is inside goes throughout the room, into all the nooks and crannies, and kills all the bugs."

"Ohhh." This seemed to satisfy him, and he wandered away mulling that over.

Later, Jeff brought home a box of Raid foggers. Wherever he'd stopped to get them, they only sold them in bulk.

"I got the bug bomb" he called to me, no doubt knowing I'd want to check that off my 'list'.

"You got the bombs?" Jericho asked, rushing over to him as excited as he gets knowing they're going to go get fireworks for the 4th of July.

Jeff not having been there for the previous portions of this continued conversation looked at him oddly as he set the box on the counter. "Uh, yeah. I got the bug bombs."

"I want to set it off!" Jericho said excitedly.

Jeff looked askance at him. "Okaaaaaay..."

I walked into the room just in time to witness this little exhange and laughed. "Is that what all these questions have been about?" I asked. "Son, they're not that kind of bomb."


I felt the maternal need to dispell whatever notions he'd been conjuring up in his head.


Like this:




And this:



And this:



Jericho grinned a bit sheepishly and snatched up the box of foggers.

"See..." I said, pointing to the picture on the box. "It's a little like a can of hairspray...except that stuff sprays out the top, and the button doesn't turn off once you depress it. You just put it in the garage, push the button and run out and close the door so the fumes kill everything in that room."

"Please, can I help set it off?" he asked, his eyes pleading with his dad.

"Yes," Jeff replied. "It's not a big deal. Really."

I think Jeff may have been aiming that comment at me.

"Just so you don't breathe any of that junk in" I retorted and went back to my cleaning detail.

I guess maybe we would have saved ourselves a lot of miscommunication had we just said "foggers" from the get-go.

On second thought, we would have missed out on a whole lotta laughs.

Still...there's just something about Jericho's expression makes me a tad nervous.






Now please excuse me while I go hide all the matches in my house.