Who knew it would be so hard to find a moving company to load us up and move our stuff to Ingram? I sure didn't. It has been quite some time since I hired a moving company and then it was for a short haul. When we came back to Texas from New Mexico we did it in increments, mainly because it took 2 and a half years to sell that house in the mountains so there was no hurry, but also because we didn't have as much STUFF as we do now. We had downsized before we moved to the small house in New Mexico, but somehow, over the 10 years we have been in Yoakum, we have accumulated a whole lot more STUFF. Partly that's due to the house on the coast we bought in 2014 and just sold. We sold it furnished but there was still STUFF we wanted to keep from there, so that got put in the storage room that used to be a garage. And then Wayne has been bringing 60-plus years worth of STUFF from his land and the mobil home there where he used to live long ago. That place has been the home of misfit toys for many decades, but it is under contract now and all that STUFF has had to come here to the storage room that used to be a garage as well. So now, we are awash in way way too much STUFF.
I did a virtual walk-through with a moving company a week ago. The iPad lost its internet connection just as I was about to step out the laundry door into the used to be garage, and I was kind of glad. The quote that I got stopped my heart and it probably would have been a lot worse if the company had got a load of that used to be garage. We have been boxing up stuff for charity but it really became so awful that one day, without me knowing, Wayne went and rented a storage building. So we moved a lot of the STUFF in the used to be garage to the newly rented storage building, but that doesn't solve the problem, does it? This is what happens when you reach our age and have somehow collected too many sentimental items and/or things you think might be useful sometime in the future.
About those sentimental items: here is where I'm conflicted. For instance, I have three sets of dishes. One set is the everyday dishes. Those we will definitely take with us because, well, they go in the dishwasher; they go in the microwave; they are essentially sturdy stoneware dishes. Then there is the set I inherited from my mother-in-law from a past marriage. They are antiques, and they are Haviland China, and they are lovely and delicate, and they look so perfect in the china cabinet. Plus, I adored the woman who gave them to me, even though I divorced her son quite some time ago. However, I am the mother of his children which would make one think they are family heirlooms to be handed down, right? No. The kids don't want them. They have their own STUFF now and can't make room for sentimental items like antique china. The third set of dishes I now own belonged to my mother. It is also delicate china just not quite as valuable as the Haviland. But—here's the catch—I remember when Mother got all of it back in the 1970s by making deposits in a bank in Mississippi where they lived then. Each $10 deposit bought you a piece of china. Mother diligently went to the bank weekly, made her deposit, and began accumulating this china. She made so many deposits she ended up with a service for 20!! Why in the world did she think she would be giving a dinner party for 20? So now all this lovely STUFF belongs to me. I checked with a antique dealer here and he really didn't want to take either set on consignment. I checked with Replacements.com and they will break up these beautiful sets and sell one piece at a time. That's a notion I cannot stomach, so I have already transported the Haviland to the new house in Ingram, and am about to do the same with Mother's china. Sigh!!!
About those things that might be useful sometime in the future: this is Wayne's conflict more than mine. Maybe it's a man-thing, I don't know. But he is a hunter/gatherer when it comes to oddball items. He collects empty coffee cans, empty plastic tea jugs, empty containers of any kind. I recently noticed he's been saving the empty OxyClean buckets. In fact, anything that will "hold" something, makes his eyes gleam. A friend gave us a Christmas nut tray with different little slots for the all different kinds of nuts, which really took us an eternity to eat. However, Wayne kept at it so determinedly that I finally realized it wasn't because he enjoyed eating the nuts, it was because he coveted the wooden tray all the nuts came in. And sure enough, it now sit propped against the wall out in the used to be garage, empty and clean. For those of you who have a cat, you know how you can jiggle something shiny and maybe stringy in front of them and they will paw at it relentlessly. (You're nodding.) Yeah, well, that's Wayne when it comes to containers. So my question is what the hell are we going to do with all of that STUFF? Move it to Ingram? Please, God, no. But how can I argue with him over that stuff when I'm carting up my sentimental stuff and driving it there myself?
Back to moving companies. So far I have contacted four. Only one has come back with a quote, and it was staggering. So staggering that Wayne is ready, at nearly 76 years of age, to rent a U-Haul and try to do it ourselves. He even went to Cuero yesterday to scope out a couple of truck sizes. I refuse to do that. I absolutely refuse. So, I am hoping that one of these other companies comes back with a more reasonable quote in the next few days, because people, we are moving August 1 come hell or high water. Now is the time to sell the Yoakum house when the inventory here is low and the summer people start thinking about a move before school starts. Keep your fingers crossed for us that we get lucky because it will take a special person who wants to commit to living in a 100-year-old house like this one. I've done the 100+ old house three times and my flat wallet is testimony.
Have a Happy Fourth, everyone! Meanwhile we will continue to inch toward our big move!
Onward...
by Larry McMurtry. Picked it up on a remainder table. I have usually enjoyed McMurtry, big fan of his earlier stuff, and I will read this one as well because it's light-reading with short fast chapters. But I swear, if anybody else but him had written this book, it would not have been accepted by a publishing house. There are some funny parts, but it's mostly a throw-away book. Doubt I'll remember much in a couple of years, past maybe the rhino that the main character befriends.