We're Officially Moved

s of August 10 Brock and I are officially living together again and the long separation is finally over.

Brock came up to Tennessee on August 8 and we finished the last of the packing. The movers arrived on August 10 and loaded all of the furniture and a few boxes into their truck. As soon as they left we went out and got some dinner and then drove down to Madison. The movers arrived there on August 11 and unloaded our stuff here. No damage and no missing items. It was probably the smoothest move I've had in all the many times I've had to relocate.

One things for certain. I am SOOOO glad that I spent all the time I did packing stuff up and driving much of it to Madison by ourselves. Given the cost of the move, I suspect we saved between 8 and 10 thousand dollars by doing the work ourselves. They charge in part by weight...and we'd already moved some 40 cubic feet of books! They also have a LARGE charge for packing to account for materials and labor and we didn't have to pay for any packing except for the mirror on my dresser and for the mattress and box springs.

We only had one problem. We had planned to go back to Clarksville a week later to pick up Brock's tools and a few other items out in the sheds. But less than two days after we were out of there we were hit by some robbers who cleared out pretty much all the tools left behind. They tried to take the lawn mower but weren't able to get it. The strange thing was that they also cleaned out the cleaning supplies I had left with the intention of doing some cleaning in the house when we went back up. They even took air fresheners out of the walls and light bulbs out of the fixtures! Needless to say we reported it to the Sheriff's office and filed a formal report. We don't expect to see any of the stuff back...and none of it was irreplaceable. But they did get somewhere around $500-1000 in stuff.

I just count myself lucky they didn't burn down the house since they cut and took 25 feet of copper tubing that had propane in it. If it weren't for the fact that they would have burned down the house I would almost have wished they'd blown themselves up.

In any event, we are now happily in our new home. I am spending part of every day trying to get things unpacked and put away. I've also been enjoying digging in my dirt and doing a bunch of gardening. My front beds now are full of asters, coreopsis, roses, blue sage, and mums. They look really pretty from the street. Will post some pictures soon.

I'm also enjoying the fact that the house is really energy efficient. And we're making it more so by replacing all the incandescent bulbs with either LED or fluorescent. We also replaced our gas lawnmower with a cordless electric mower. No more fumes, no gasoline stored in the garage, and no having to break my back pulling on a starter cord. Yay!

So all is well here in Alabama. Any of you passing through this way are invited to visit us.