Well, we came home, but we didn't rest: I started calling up various movers. One said they could only give me an estimate by seeing the stuff, one didn't answer, one said their sales staff was off for the holiday (it's VJ Day here; the only state that celebrates the holiday). Only the local rep for North American Van Lines gave me a rate per weight. We figure we probably will go over 1000 pounds with the dishes and the furniture being solid wood. 2000 pounds was a little over $1400. This is with the movers coming in, wrapping the furniture, carrying out all the boxes, and then offloading them in Georgia.

Whew. Just for the heck of it I called up U-Haul to see the rate they would charge to rent a truck with a trailer hitch, and the car carrier. Holy cats! They wanted $1488 just for the rental of a 14" truck (anything smaller will not handle the trailer hitch), no one to load it, and the car transport was $300 more. So I called the lady back at North American and told her to do the deal.

Of course now we need to have everything boxed up by the time they come, which can be anytime between the 15th and the 18th. (If we want to fix a date it will cost more. James thinks we ought to fix it. I'm starting to think so, too. I'll see about that when the rep calls back tomorrow.)

This gave me the incentive to go upstairs and continue packing the dishes. James came along and set the fan up (since it was cloudy it was sorta bearable) and we unpacked Mom's china and repacked it in the dish boxes from Miller folks. It turns out this is a service for eight (!!!) and we ran out of bubble wrap—which we started calling "the doohingus" between the dishes and wrapped the remainder of the cups and finger bowls (honest) in fresh newspaper. This fitted in two boxes. Then we realized we still had to wrap "the blue glasses." This is a set of cobalt blue glasses and dishes (with a pitcher) that Mom has had forever; from the moment I saw them I said "I want those." She used to use the blue glass vases that came with them and would break one and then get another. There were only two left and James reduced that to one. But the rest are okay. We have already wrapped some in newspaper but will go back for more bubble wrap tomorrow.

And then we really were done because it was getting on to suppertime. James started the last of the chicken legs that were in the freezer and then we towed out the next set of garbage bags out front: there are 28 of them, plus a recycling bin each of glass, plastic, and paper, and the garbage can that has just what trash we have accumulated ourselves this week.

Finally we were able to sit down and eat. Television was terrible—we'd already seen all the good fundraising stuff on one of the other PBS stations (we get three here)—so I put Star Trek IV on.

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 9:23:00 PM

Comments:

Yeah, when we moved my mother's stuff from California to Colorado, we were amazed that it would cost as much to rent a big UHaul truck than pay for movers. I was just as happy though, since I was the one who would have been driving the truck.

# posted by  FiveAcres : 9:23:00 AM

 

Hello Linda and James: We are back from Vermont and looking forward to seeing you this Saturday evening the 13th. I am assuming you are leaving shortly thereafter. Please take care of yourselves in this heat. We will see you soon. Any change in plans, please call.

# posted by  Anonymous : 8:35:00 PM

 

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