Moving Right Along

My posting has been a little erratic lately since I've been busy trying to help my son and daughter-in-law with their move.  They are moving to San Antonio but it is kind of a drawn out process.  First, we have a new Dr. in the house.  Helen finished her PhD.   Yay!   Lots of hard work there but it is done and she did it in less than normal time while working a full time job and keeping up her triathlon training.  She is definitely the energizer bunny and such a smart and sweet DIL.  Second, they have the house in San Antonio now so I was helping out by cleaning the kitchen cupboards and some other things before Steve got back to San Antonio.  They had their household goods packed up about two weeks ago in Florida.  Steve came west early because he had the kids for the weekend before the movers were to deliver here.  We worked on some last minute updates to the new house like caulking and painting in between the kids visit and the furniture delivery.  I can't say too much because Helen doesn't know all about it yet.  lol.

Then we had the household goods delivery.  OMG, if you have never lived through household goods shipment, you have never lived.  One company in Panama City packed up the household goods.  Then a driver from another company loaded it up in his truck.  Finally, it took over a week and a half for it to be delivered to San Antonio.  It was actually delivered by another driver because the first one got sent on another job.  So the second driver brings it to the house and another company's helpers come to help him unload this.  Sounds really convoluted doesn't it?  And why you might ask?  Well, Congress wants to support small business.  Now, don't get me wrong.....I support small business too.  But when everyone gets a piece of the pie, the owner of the pie (the household goods) is left to try and prove just who out of this convoluted process is responsible for damaging the goods or the property while they were loading the goods.

On the Florida end of the pickup, they managed to scratch the brand new tiles and tear out the new transitions strips between the new tile and the wood floors. We were much luckier at this end because the driver padded the entrance door frames as well as the door frames into the other rooms.  He also padded the banisters going upstairs and rolled out a runway for the carpet going through the downstairs rooms and up the stairs.  So that was a good start to the day.  They were also very careful bringing all the boxes and furniture in.  Even the driver and helpers at this end were really frustrated by the job of marking the items that was done on the other end.  They couldn't tell what rooms things belonged in because they were so poorly identified.  The driver actually called his company and the other company to let them know how bad it was.

We were all exhausted by the time boxes were marked off the list, unpacked and boxes hauled out.  I really hated when my DH insisted on everything being unpacked when we were active duty military and my son wanted most of it unpacked too because these days it is so hard to get rid of all the boxes and packing after the movers leave. And you always need to make them put the beds together and the mirrors on the dressers or you will never see the screws again.  I can remember moves when we slept on the mattresses on the floor because the movers could not find any of the screws to put anything together.

As I said, we were fortunate with the crew in San Antonio.  They worked hard and they both cared about what they were doing and knew how to do it well.  We had lots of bottled water available and brought in pizzas for lunch for everyone.  The driver told us he was going to go back to only doing moves for corporations.  When a corporation hires a move, the same crew packs it up, drives it directly to the new location, and unpacks it.  There is no confusion about who was responsible for damage.  He enjoys helping military families but the breaking up of the move to give everyone a piece of the pie is just too stressful on everyone.

Before I retired, I was a contracting officer supervisor for the Air Force so I know about all those laws and rules passed by Congress that we were required to abide by when awarding contracts to businesses.  DoD is the easiest target for Congress to use to enforce their special programs.  I believe in supporting small business too but it shouldn't be on the backs of military families when they are already stressed by uprooting families and moving.  Tearing down one household, moving, and setting up a new household is a stressful and tiring business.  It's good when family can help.  We began the task of putting things away.  That is gonna take some time.  Enough said.

And then we were off to Florida to get that house sold......