I've learned my lesson

We have officially moved into our new home in Portland, Texas. We love it here and soon I will tell you why, but first I must tell you how we got here...

Moving is not a fun thing to do. All that packing. All that stressing. All that driving. Bleh. But having movers is supposed to fix that. I hired movers back in February. Their job was to load the truck, drive the truck, and unload the truck. They were also hired to take apart beds and put them back together. Ahhh. You see, so much less stress and the move was still months away.

Fast forward to the day before the movers were scheduled to come. We had just returned from vacation the day before (I know, who goes on vacation the week before a move? Score one for the stress monster.) and we hadn't heard from the movers in a couple of days. I had been told the van driver would call me 24-48 hrs before they come to load us so we would know when to expect them. When the call never came, I decided to call them.

Sigh.

The rep in charge of my account wasn't answering the phone or returning my call. Then I tried their customer service and found out why my rep was avoiding me.

Are you ready for this?

They had yet to assign a shipper to my move. (The shipper is the van driver.) You see, I chose a nation-wide mover that hires out big trucks to move people, and the truck they had hired for my move had filled up and dropped us earlier that day and we now had no shipper planning to come to move us. Score five million to the stress monster.

Why didn't my rep feel like I should know this?! He did finally return my increasingly irate phone calls to inform me that he was sure they would find someone else to move us and contractually he had until midnight two days from then. The contract said the movers would come to load the truck on the 28/29th. I was sure that coming at midnight on the 29th didn't work, but he insisted he had until then to find me a shipper.

Gaaaaaaaaa.

Let me back up a little here.

We had planned to drive to our new home in order to move our cars there. My parents were planning to help us with the long drive and our young children. Then Chris' truck broke down and we sold it. This left us with one car that does not have room for my family plus my parents. (Score two for the stress monster.) My dad decided he would rent a car and still help us with our move. I soon learned that renting a car in one state and dropping it off in another state is a big deal.

Anyway,

On the 28th of July my parents flew into Tucson. We had one car, but they were planning to rent a car the following day when we started our long drive. We also had NO shippers at our house loading a moving truck. As we frantically finished packing our belongings (remember that vacation I went on? I had lots of laundry to do, and unpacking, and re-packing, and... score three for the stress monster.)

My husband, thank goodness, took over the whole yelling at the movers job. And after waiting 48 hours for the contract to be officially broken we rented Penske trucks and began to move ourselves. Did you catch that? I said truckS. When you wait until the day after you planned on moving to rent a moving truck all the big trucks won't be available and you will be stuck renting two 16 ft. trucks. We also had to load these trucks all by ourselves (who can you really ask to help you move the day after they all thought you had moved?)

Happily my parents were in town and Chris' truck was no longer ours. With four drivers, one car full of kids, and two Penske trucks full of our belongings we drove to our new home in Texas. Score one for everything working out.

And now we are here. My house is coming together nicely. I have Chris home for a month before he starts his new job. We were finally reimbursed by the movers. We even received our moving bonus and can now buy groceries. Everything is rainbows and unicorns.

I may never be willing to move again.