315: workin, workin, workin day and nite! - a story of extreme gratitude

yes Miz Aly, mr. bliss had me working day and night, getting things all packed and moved.

and Sister Susan, can you believe that on thursday (of last week), mr. bliss told me i should have everything packed and ready to go by saturday?!

i told him he'd gone mad. even God needed 7 whole days to Get It Done.

how in the life of bliss did that man think i could pack up an 1100 square foot apartment full of furniture and things in less than 48 hours?

i told him i needed at least a week.

after i explained how my stress level would be so far off the charts if i even attempted to do what he was asking and that i might never regain the wife-mother sanity i'm hanging on to with both hands, he agreed.


but i digress y'all. lemme start from The Beginning.

we knew the lease on our 2BR would expire mid-march so i began looking at places a few months ago. we looked at houses and apartments in or as near as possible to our neighborhood cuz we love it here.

somehow, i needed more space cuz my dining room "office" was overflowing into the living room and driving us all crazy. (and the more i dragged into the living room, the more baby bliss felt she should drag into the living room as well...)

mr. bliss said he didn't care as long as i was happy.

baby bliss couldn't be bothered one way or the other as long as she would retain her own room.

(y'all can click here to read about the places we looked and how we weren't supposed to be moving at all.)

finally we decided to stay in our same complex for a number of reasons: we live in a neighborhood we love, it's close enough to family, the management already knows us well, and we've never had any serious problems with living on this property, blah blah blah.

around the first of february, i talked to the office manager about renewing our lease. he said we still had a few weeks before we had to sign the new one, no rush.

cool. so we kinda forgot about it.

mid way thru the month i recalled my frustration with my office situation and began dreaming of my own real office, at home.

initially mr. bliss said no when i brought up moving to a 3BR, cuz he didn't want to pay more rent. he also didn't want to move furniture. but i couldn't give up my dream.

i asked the office manager about a 3BR and he said if i had asked a few weeks earlier, he would have had one for us. he said 3BRs rarely came open and he didn't have any notices to vacate. but he said anything was possible so i should check back again before we came in to sign our lease renewal.

a week passed and i checked again. nothing... but he said to check back towards the end of the week.

well, i wasn't feeling any confidence in that because the end of the week would put us at our signing day.

why did i ever doubt that God would make my dream come true?

we went in on thursday to sign the renewal and office manager asked if i'd gotten his message from the day before: there was a 3BR available.

my eyes lit up and i looked at mr. bliss with a huge grin on my face.

office manager asked what floor we wanted. i said 2nd. he said it was a 3rd floor unit but if we wanted, we could look at it.

mr. bliss looked at office manager and said, "she'll take it."

i laughed and said we'd look at it first.

we all fell in love immediately. then i got kinda 'spicious and wondered how there was all of a sudden a 3BR when there hadn't been one open earlier in the week.

in other words, i began to doubt God. and being human (and true to the conspiracy theorist that i am), i began to imagine all sorts of scenarios in my mind about how and why the apartment was now available.

i told mr. bliss i wanted time to think about it.

we returned to the office to fill out the papers but couldn't decide on a move-out date for the old place.

office manager said we could take some time to think about it and give him our final decision the next day.

y'all see that? i had just said those very words and God gave it to me.

on the short drive back home, i realized i'd better start counting my blessings and stop complaining about bull puckie. ;-)

i'm not joking when i say as soon as we got our shoes off, i pulled out the tape gun, searched for empty boxes, plastic bags and anything i could use for packing materials.

then i went out in search of boxes. most places told us they had no boxes or to come back early friday morning. i was overjoyed when we got several from tuesday morning and a pizza place. cuz i was anxious to get started.

silly ole me should have been online arranging to move service for my utilities and doing our change of address with the post office. but it slipped my mind until friday evening. and i didn't get online to do the transfers until the wee hours of saturday morning.

most places need at least 2 business days to coordinate service transfers. our's went through just the way i needed them to.

hallelujah!

i'm thankful to everyone who helped us move: #1 brother-in-law, #1 auntie, grandma, youngest cousin, and our downstairs neighbor from our old building.

on friday, i did my best to empty furniture so it could be taken out saturday, the only day #1 brother-in-law would be available to help.

i managed to do all 5 dressers, 2 night stands, and 2 bookcases. saturday, #1 auntie helped me empty the remaining furniture (two lateral file cabinets, an armoire, and a buffet) while the men moved the empties and heavy boxes.

everyone was extremely helpful but i have to give an extra "thank you" to our dear neighbor.
who has become a member of our family in the short time we've known him.

he's gone to church with us and we'll be going with him very soon. we've all eaten dinner together several times and he's even gone grocery shopping with me and baby bliss.

if it had not been for him, i know we would not have completed this move in enough time. because of him, baby bliss and i didn't have to tire ourselves out walking up and down the steps, we didn't have to carry heavy boxes, and i didn't have to stress myself with moving everything out of the building by the deadline.

while mr. bliss was at work, dear neighbor carried boxes up and down steps, let us put some items in his storage unit, took trash to the dumpster, and was just an all around BIG help to us.

when mr. bliss came home, dear neighbor helped my hubby move boxes and small furniture.

and he would not accept a dime for any of it.

after we finished it all on thursday, dear neighbor dumped the last load of trash then biked home (about a minute away) to wait for baby bliss and i to freshen up so we could head out to grab some grub.

we picked him up and motored a couple of blocks to our favorite market. he offered to make us a real meal for our late lunch if we got the fixings. but we were all too hungry to wait so we decided on pizza.

i tossed two into the cart with the few other things i'd picked up while baby bliss and dear neighbor were busy stuffing their faces with tidbits of goodies they got while running back and forth to the sample area.

dear neighbor said we could eat at his place (cleaner and more organized than this place with boxes stacked and plates who-knew-where) so i took all my food there. no need to stop to unload when i would be home later any way.

our good time was interrupted by dear neighbor's "friend", who was waiting at his door when we got back.

but that's part of a looooooooooong story that extends in time both before and after this event. not something i want to get into at all.

this was the most stress-free move i've ever had. i'm thankful.

amen.


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