Moving Day - Finally! it was over

I have so much to say about the last week. I could make an entire post about so many things but I'll combine two of them here with headings and the third is it's own post. There is no way to do justice to Isaiah's Mother's Day Prayer here. Fair warning... {Skippy, this is for you}... if you have a weak bladder or breathing problems, you might want to sit down before reading it. I seriously start laughing as soon as I start telling the story. It loses some in translation but I think you'll still find it amusing.

Moving Day activities actually started Friday. Ron and I came up to the Villa to sign our paperwork and to make sure that everything was A-OK with the unit. While we were there, the maintenance guy who installed the new appliances came over to talk to us about a small ramp for Ron to get over the threshold easier. He also showed Brenda (the sales lady we've been working with) how he hooked up the ice maker into the washing machine water line (this is a key item here - you'll want to remember it for later in this post). I was standing back with Ron so I didn't see what he was showing Brenda.

Our friends and family members started arriving at the house at about 9:00 am on Saturday. Everything went pretty smoothly and it was all done in about six hours. That sounds like a lot of time, but at least one hour of that time was spent in driving from our house to our villa.

The tale of two Orlins

I’d never, ever even heard the name “Orlin” before last Friday. We moved into a six-plex unit and we’re next to the end unit. Our neighbors in the end unit are named Orlin and Ethel. It took me a while to remember Ethel but I remembered Orlin right off because it’s so unusual. I thought I’d not have any problems with it at all.

But then, the lady in the opposite end unit came down to introduce herself. Her name is Ina and her husband is… Orlin! I thought sure I was losing my marbles then when I was talking to the sales manager about the neighbors. She said, “No, Ethel’s husband is Orlin.” I said, “No, Ina’s husband is Orlin.” So we asked Ina… They’re BOTH Orlin.

I’d never heard the name before and now we’ve got it at both ends of our building. There’s also a Clara who lives behind us and a Clara who lives across the street from us. In our building, we’ve also got an Ellen (who I was confusing with Ethel for a while) and we’ve met a couple who lives in another building behind us - Marvin and Dorothy. We had so many visitors on Friday and Saturday to introduce themselves; it was really nice. We met more people in those two days than we met in our neighborhood in three YEARS.

Ron says he’s the happiest that he’s been in years. He’s had visitors come to see him this week while I’ve been at work and he loves it. Maisey loves the extra attention, too.

Washing Machine Woes

One of the benefits of the condo is that they provide all of the appliances, including a washer and dryer. We did pay a bit extra to get a bottom freezer fridge (with ice maker) but opted to take the standard washer and dryer. The units they installed are nice, brand new, top loading Maytag. Maytag is a good brand and I was pleased to see that they were new.

The friends and family who helped get our stuff moved in got all done late in the afternoon and left. Rex and Amy stayed for a while longer because we still needed to get the stuff out of the storage unit I had been renting. Rex drove the truck over and Kris and I helped him empty the storage (poor Rex – he had a pitiful excuse for a dolly and two women with balance problems trying to carry stuff up the loading ramp). Rex did the lion’s share of the work and it was HOT.

I needed to go to Wal-mart to pick up a few things (like shower curtain, trash bags, trash can, etc.) but Rex was going to grill steaks for us for Mother’s Day so we decided that we’d go after dinner. After Rex and Amy left to go home, Kris and I started unpacking boxes and trying to get things set up. I decided I’d throw in a load of wash and while it was washing, we went out to the patio to rest.

Good thing we opted for Wal-mart AFTER dinner instead of throwing in the wash and leaving. We came back into the house to several inches of water on the kitchen floor. Seriously… I walked in and thought, “I don’t remember the vinyl having that textured look to it,” as I stepped toward the kitchen in my bare feet.


Squish, went the BRAND NEW carpet under my toes. Splash, went the water up over my feet when I stepped into the kitchen. I hurried and shut off the washer because I could tell that the water was soapy. I went to Ethel’s door and asked if she knew the emergency maintenance number and if she had any brooms I could borrow. All I could think about was my new carpet getting ruined. Ethel and I, and then Ethel and Kris swept water out of the kitchen for about 30 minutes while we waited on the emergency maintenance man to show up.

When I called him I had told him what happened and said we had about 3-4 inches of standing water in the kitchen and that it had gone several feet into the living room. It had also seeped under the wall and into the closet of the bedroom – where my dresser was sitting. It got a stack of boxes in the living room that contained my angels and my FINISHED scrapbooks. Kris hurried to get those boxes out of the way and then we started opening things. The boxes in the kitchen were totally water-logged but most of the stuff in those boxes were kitchen items that could get wet – like silverware and dishes.

Kris looked at where the drain hose should have been and said that it must have come loose, so that’s what I had told the maintenance man. Once she pulled out the washer, she discovered that the hose was still tucked up INSIDE the washer. The person who installed the washer had never even pulled the hose out of the body of the machine.

The maintenance man was so nice and very apologetic. He called in a second worker to come help and they suctioned, swept, and even got down on their hands and knees and wiped up the floors. They had to move the fridge and the stove to get the water out from under them.

In the process, they discovered the same person had not hooked up the ice maker correctly, either (the guy from earlier in this post). They fixed that little error as well. Then they set up fans to help dry out the floors and wall boards.