Day Before Closing Diary

8:30 AM- wake up, take dogs to kennel where they will be for the next couple of days. Start packing odds and ends in apartment and disassembling furniture.

12:00 noon- Go pick up 24 foot truck from Penske, (way better than U-Haul, I highly recommend them), while picking the truck up, receive distressing phone call from our realtor regarding the walk through that the buyer did earlier today saying that the buyers were mad that our stuff was still in the house.... wtf... almost have first crying moment of the day

12:30- am impressed with Nick's driving skills as he wips huge truck in and out of Chicago traffic

1:00- load up the big stuff from the apartment... playing a guessing game.. how much stuff can we fit in the truck from the apartment but still enough room to clean out the entire house and garage which we HAVE to get done TODAY

3:00-headed down to the house... traffic SUCKS...I fall asleep on Nick's lap, taking advantage of the huge bench seat in the truck.

4:00- arrive at house... start loading stuff...

5:00-realizing that we're completely screwed in terms of how much crap we have to get out of the house and into the truck, have second almost crying moment of the day. Getting fridges that are too big to fit through doorways unless you take off the doors out of a basement is a ROYAL PAIN!!! literally.

7:00- Make second phone call to our friend Ed... trying to convince him to come help. We need rescuing at this point. Nick's been hit in the head, elbow, arm, leg, by various doors and furniture items... I'm already exhausted, and we have NO IDEA how we're going to get all the stuff in the truck and how we'll finish before the closing at 8AM.

8:00- get more visits and interaction from the neighbors today than we've had over the last three years combined. They are sad to see us go (thanks), they want to know if we have anything we want to sell (sure, please PLEASE buy something... $20 bucks sells the dining room table), they want to know if they can have plants for our yard (sure, here's a piece of pionie that it takes me WAY LONGER THAN EXPECTED to dig out of the garden)

8:30- Impending depression mitigated by arrival of master moving-truck-packer, Ed, who has come to help us despite having a cold (thanks Ed!!). Also, at this point realize that we own a bunch of complete crap and that we would have rather burned it in a bon fire rather than move it.

9:59- get "dinner" from Wendy's just as they're closing.. go home and eat while sitting on floor with cardboard box as table.

11:00- Things are looking up. Ed has managed to jam pack the truck floor to ceiling, it looks like we might have room for everything after all.

12:30 AM- have almost everything moved out of the house... a lot of stuff siting on the front lawn waiting to go into the truck...

1:30- Holy crap! Ed, you're a freaking genius. I can't believe we got all that in the truck... even the bikes and potted plants. We leave one potted plant as a welcome to your new house gift for the buyers.

3:00- After driving truck back downtown to get garage opener we forgot from the pickup, finally arrive in Oak Park (about a mile from our new house) where we park our truck in front of the home of Nick's boss (thanks Susan!) Take blue line home for some SLEEP!!!!!

4:00 AM- finally go to bed (and by "bed" I mean left over futon mattress on floor, but hey, who's complaining)


Day one over!

Stay tuned to day two report. :)