Friday After work -

IT'S TIME TO PACK FOR THE BIG MOVE

I have been slowly packing stuff to move out of this place.

PoD and I had finalized what we wanted to paint/clean and all was ready for the big move!

I still had stuff left to pack and figured that I was ready enough to get going.

Finished up at 12:30 that night....still have more to do in the morning....

Saturday Morning/Afternoon - MOVING DAY

Finally its time to move!

I was up early [4:30am] had my coffee and started moving stuff downstairs [16 steps] that wasn't too heavy. I had managed 15 bags before Pod and the kids arrived at 8:30.

We used my son's van for the first few loads before HairGirl showed up to help.

I'm sure glad I downsize what I had before but it still seemed endless...which by the way isn't fully completed.

We rushed to get as much done as possible because surprise, surprise...fore cast was for rain!

We decided we were done for the day after "JD's Incident"

But.....

Later that night when Trebor got home he decided that we had to move the stuff that couldn't get damaged by the rain and we continued to bring in more!

We finished that night with both PoD and My muscles sreaming in agony!!!!

I don't know how I am going to managed to do more on Sunday????

Saturday Evening - The Cat's New Home

It was now time to move the cats!

Suki was okay and were were able to transport her to the house without any trouble. She was a little curious about what was going on but handled it quite well and the kids were able to be in the vehicle. The problem one was going to be Thumber!

Thumber has always been afraid of the kids and Pod...nothing that they have done to her. She's just a nervous cat and doesn't like people.

In order to get her there, PoD was going to have to drive and not say a word, while I was going to have to contend with a cat that might freak out!

There was no way I was going to be able to hold on to her if she decided she wanted not to be there...she's big and strong...and has too many claws! My solution was to get a cat harness on her so I would have something to hold on to if she decided to bolt! That meant tricking her with "treats" to get her to stay still long enough to accomplish this.

It worked but she wasn't to happy and you could feel her tensing up as I got closer to the door to outside. I was able to get her out and into the car but the further we drove the worse she was getting. Thankfully she doesn't bite [me] and I managed to get her in the new place and the harness off before total panic set in!

She was gone in a flash!

I wasn't even sure where she went in the house! It took her a long time to reappear!

Meanwhile...

HairGirl had taken the kids while we were messing with the cats. She had come in with AJ [8yrs old]to see how we did and find out how Thumber took it. She left JD in her boyfriends truck and had left it running with explicit warnings on NOT TOUCHING ANYTHING while she was gone.

All of a sudden she could no longer hear his noisy truck anymore and wondered why? At that moment in comes JD with this scared look on his white face!

All hell breaks loose!

We all go running out with HairGirl in the lead...to see the boyfriend's truck down the street sitting perpendicular to the curb!

It seems JD figured he could fool around in the truck...seeing as no one was there to see him doing it!

His messing around with the stick shift caused him to go out of "park" and he rolled backwards down the hill. He must have cranked the wheels because the trucks path served into an empty lot...hitting nothing...and came to rest when the front tires hit the curb. Figuring he could drive it back he got it into drive and onto the road, into the traffic area, before it stalled!

Thankfully he didn't try to jump out while it was moving!

Lessons learned were:

NEVER ASSUME A CHILD WON'T TOUCH ANYTHING WHEN YOU TELL THEM NOT TO!

NEVER LEAVE A CHILD ALONE IN A VEHICLE WHILE IT IS STILL RUNNING OR HAS KEYS IN IT!

Hopefully JD has learned something from this?

Sunday Night - THE HORRENDOUS STORM

It was the end of the weekend and of course was raining AGAIN!

PoD called me on her cell phone and informed me that BillyRoo [my son/her brother] called her and told her that he was watching the weather channel and our area was reporting that there was a warning out for tornadoes!

Wouldn't you know it...me in my new place and already there was a threat that I might not be staying long if it hits me! I'm pretty sure there is a factor out there that's wondering how far it can push me?

Anyways Trebor decided not to drive back to where he works that night and chance going through a hail storm again. He and BillyRoo got surprised by one a couple of years ago and their vehicles had quite a bit of damage caused by baseball size hail.

PoD has a fear of tornadoes so she kept the kids downstairs with them during the night to sleep. As Pod & Trebor were listening for the storm and trying to sleep they were startled by a crashing sound near the house. They looked but couldn't see anything...but the next morning they found that the wild wind had broken a large branch off one of their trees and it just missed hitting the shed next to the house. It was so big that it will have to be cut up to be removed!

At my place things were also very exciting as I kept going from window to window to try and see if I could see anything, but the rain made visibility very poor! Inside you could hear the rain hitting the windows really hard and louder sounds that were small branches hitting them...luckily none broke!

Thumber finally made her appearance from under the couch and headed straight for the litter box...I guess she couldn't hold it any longer! Right after the bathroom break she immediately up-chucked....no hairball...just bile! Poor kitty...her nerves were really shot from the move and noises, probably made her stomach churn! So was still a little scared and ran around all spooked like! Finally she settled down and came to me for some reassurance. The only problem Suki has had is her annoyance at not being able to look outside. My other place had a lot of windows. I like to call their window watching a form of their TV!

Monday morning found us all well and no tornado hit the town. The terrific wind did it's damage on the trees and flowers. Branches, big and small, were everywhere! The abandoned hotel by my place had some of it's metal flashing partially rip from it's building and was bang in the cold breeze. You could see signs of rushing water places with the sand and silt piled in spots. The flowers that the "Communities in Bloom" had put in their planter looked like someone had taken a weed whacker to them...and the had been so pretty earlier!

Surprisingly the water level in my work place wasn't as bad as I thought it would be...I had figured they to be overflowing from all of the rain that had come down!

So I should get to work now that I have given you my weekend saga....