So, that’s it, we’re done! Julie and I have moved into our brand new house and boy are our arms tired. We closed on Friday night, as the snow began to fall. It was a race to get to the title company in time. With traffic and the impending snowmaggedon, both Julie and I were a bit late, but no worries. Closing happened pretty quick and we were a bit stunned that after about 50 minutes, we were handed an envelope with a ton of keys.

We drove back to our apartment and enjoyed a nice bottle of wine to celebrate (while continuing to pack, of course). That was our last night in Thornton, and it was a busy one. We stuffed as many things as we could in boxes and tried to organise as best we could. But our excitement overcame us and we decided to haul a small load of fragiles down to the house that night to see the place for the first time as owners. Murphy came along and was thoroughly confounded by all the hubbub.

On Saturday morning we saw that there really wasn’t much snow on the ground, and we rejoiced. We picked up our U-Haul, and my memories of driving a rental truck through the snow cross-country 3 years ago came rushing back to me. We had to get everything sorted out before the snow came, as was predicted for the afternoon. My friend and coworker, Trace, came over to help us load, and we can’t thank her enough for her help. Without her, I’m not sure we would have made it.

In picking up the first major item of heavy furniture, I pinched my finger between a door and the wooden edge and promptly sliced my finger. It was the first sign of a difficult move. We pressed on, and got the whole truck loaded by 2pm-ish. We still had some “dregs” left in the apartment, but the truck was too full and we were too hungry to keep loading. We grabbed lunch, drove to the house and thanked Trace  again for all her help. Julie and I got the idea that we could back the truck down the alley way and swing it into the back yard along driveway pavers that are still there from when the house had a garage. We didn’t quite manage that, but we were able to get the truck in somewhat cockeyed, which was good enough.

As soon as we swung the truck door open, the snow began to fall in earnest. The heavy globs started to cover the grass and so we stepped up the pace. By now, both Julie and I were tremendously bruised with very sore backs and arms. It was a real struggle to get everything offloaded. There’s a covered area to the back patio, which made for a nice staging ground. Without that, we would have been in dire straits. We moved as efficiently as possible, but it was impossible to keep everything out of the snowy mud. We did our best and eventually triumphed. But, there was still plenty to be done at the apartment. We returned the truck up north and drove back home  - battered and bruised, surely, but immeasurably proud and excited to spend our first night in our house.

Thirty or so minutes after returning home, we looked out the window and saw the whole landscape covered in a huge depth of snow. We had escaped the worst, but just barely. The next morning we awoke early to find the snow at least a foot deep – probably more. We dug our cars out, returned to the apartment and began the final cleanup. I corralled all of those dregs to discover that I’d left quite a bit more than I’d reckoned on. Julie, with her efficient packing mindset, began consolidating everything to a more manageable size, all the while cursing my apparent packing ineptitude. I decided to lie low and go and rent one of those rug steamers from the grocery store. We spent the entire day cleaning and loading and managed to make the apartment look better than it did when we arrived. Two car trips was all it took to get everything out. By 8pm we were back at our house. We had a frozen pizza, a Duraflame log for the fireplace and the first two bottles of my most recent batch – a stout brewed in the style of Rogue’s Shakespeare. We were done. We were happy. We were utterly exhausted. And, we had no clue where anything was packed. Sigh. Unpacking will now be our new project. But I think we’ll wait a couple days until we’ve mended – because for now, I think we deserve a bit of a weekend.