Lessons Learned.....

The hard way! (as usual)

Lesson #1: Never again will we "move in site/neighborhood unseen"
Lesson #2: Take the Elder's Quorum President's advice when he gives it
Lesson #3: Third time is NOT the charm
Lesson #4: Never pay a month and a half's worth of a security deposit
Lesson #5: Never live anywhere that has a Danish refrigerator
Lesson #6: Never ever live in a place with wood floors

The good news is that we: made it safely to Kalamazoo (Kzoo); belong to a wonderful ward whose EQ president helped us unpack a 26 foot moving truck, just to turn around and pack it all back up, and then unpack it again; did major cleaning before unpacking (for the 2nd time this summer); unburied ourselves from boxes; set-up home in our apartment; had Charter set up our internet service (a must!); and are now looking for jobs.

If you care to delve into the gruesome details, keep reading.

We left Helena on a Sunday morning about 11 am. Seth drove the Silverado with attached U-Haul and I drove my Saturn with our newly purchased GARMIN (which we love and has saved us from getting lost too many times to count - I definitely recommend it!)

We drove as far as Rapid City, South Dakota, which is near Mt. Rushmore. As it was so late in the night we decided to find an LDS building and slept in our vehicles in the parking lot, as is a safe place, and we wouldn't have to pay $70 to spend 6 hours in a hotel. It was not the most comfortable night of sleep, but it was free! We drove into Lincoln, NE about 4pm on Monday. I opened my car door completely expecting to be blasted by a sauna of humidity, as has been the pattern since we moved into Lincoln and every following August when we returned from summer breaks. But alas, the humidity was nigh gone! I wasn't sure if I was really in Lincoln! But a welcome and appreciated reprieve for the following morning when we packed up our Penske 26 foot moving truck. (PS - thanks Brandi for the bargaining tip between moving companies, we got a great deal!)
For as many families as S. helped move into the Trendwood Ward when he served as EQ president, we thought the service/favor would surely be returned to help us pack our stuff out of the storage unit into the moving truck. Wrong. We were greatly disappointed. But we are grateful to the few who did help.


After packing the truck we began the 2nd leg of our move - and drove across the state of Iowa and reached the Illinois border where we stayed the night at city of Davenport, IL. For the first time in both S. and my life, we crossed the Mississippi river - too bad it was dark, I would have liked a better view. I couldn't help but spell the name of the river as I crossed, and then proceeded to think about the character Huckleberry Fin floating down the Mississippi on his raft!

Wednesday brought the dreaded drive through Chicago, Il, but thanks to our handy little gizmo, the Garmin, we made it through just fine with out getting separated.


We arrived in Kzoo about 3:30 pm, and as we made our way to our new living quarters, we couldn't help but notice the good graces and society of the people that would be our neighbors. But having hope, we pressed on, parked the moving truck in a good open parking lot (the EQ pres had checked out 219 Rose Place and wasn't sure if we would be able to get the moving truck down the narrow cobbled street) and Seth joined me and Mazie in the Chevy so we could check things out for ourselves before bringing the big truck. As we drove down the cobbled street of Rose place, we passed a home just 2 before ours whose tenant was sitting on a picnic table staring blankly at the air before her; the look of her face said all - an avid drug user racked with addiction. By this point we were a little concerned.

We arrived at 219 Rose Place, which itself is a nice home, and went inside to meet the land lady and her husband. They gave us the official tour, where my eyes beheld the Danish refrigerator that had been given accolades by the landlady in my corresponding emails. Note: my fridge in Lincoln was quite small, and I would curse it all the time for being so, I didn't think there could be anything worse. Aha, wrong again! The fridge is very tall and narrow and thin. Crazy European appliance -meant to hold wine, a baguette, and maybe some cheese! I told my self I can deal with an even smaller fridge for a year. We made our way upstairs to see the bedrooms. The stairs are very short, steep, and narrow - the plush carpeting it made them even worse. I instantly comprehended why people back in the day would fall down stairs, especially pregnant women! I could barely keep myself from falling, and I could see where I was stepping. Oh dear, I can just see my self trying to go down these stairs in the middle of the night and oops, I'd find my self in a heap of broken bones at the bottom. Well, it'll only be for a year, I'll just have to be extra careful. We get to the bathroom nestled between the bedrooms, it's an old claw foot tub, with out any shower accessories, well, guess I'll be taking baths for the next year too. Next we visit the dungeon/basement where there's actually a shower about the size of a large walk-in closet, and the washer and dryer. Well, I'm deathly afraid of ghosts residing in old houses, especially basements...guess I won't be showering down here, and I won't be doing laundry unless Seth is here...I can handle that for a year. Oh, and I best not forget the wood-floors! We were also instructed to be careful of the wood floors that hadn't ever been refinished, so we will now have to buy area rugs, and with Mazie we'll have to be careful that she doesn't "happy-pee" on them. Tut tut!


6 pm rolls around and the volunteers from our new ward (the EQP and 3 other men) and we spend 2 hours unload the huge truck. Before this, Seth had to back in the moving truck down the little street (it did fit, just couldn't do any kind of turning). We unloaded my Saturn off the car carrier, and somehow the men were able to drag the carrier out of the way of the truck so we could unload it - What a pain in the xxx that was for them. Note to self- next time use a car dolly and not a car carrier. Mid-way to unpacking it's time to get the 2 queen beds up the stairs, but wait, they don't fit through the door entrance of the stairs. That's it I told Seth, we can't even get our beds in the house - let’s call the land lords and pack back up. Well, there just happened to be an outside balcony/door to the upstairs bedroom, so the guys decided to hoist the box springs up to the second level - the first was easier as pictured, the second not so easy, it didn't have a hole in it to put a rope. Some the mattresses were able to squeeze through the inside door and up the death-stairs - but not without a little damage to the mattresses. Ugh! Did I mention I LOVE moving! NOT! Our bedroom dressers presented a problem as well; they had to be hoisted up the stairs and over the banisters.




In the middle of this the drug woman moseyed by and asked if we had a cigarette she could smoke. One of the guys told her "no, we're Mormon, we don't have cigarettes"! I'll also mention that in between our unpacking she frequently circled the area, and the not-so-friendly black people stared at us from their porch as we worked our buts off, and would not even wave Hi back to us when we said hello at the beginning of all this.

Finally after much labor and turmoil we got the truck unloaded, and the car carrier hooked back on to the moving truck (after a few gut busting lifts and moves for the 5 men). Seth and the EQP then drove the truck to the Penske drop off. I stayed behind to watch our stuff as some of it was still on the outside porch. To bide my time until Seth cam back, I sat in the Chevrolet truck with the door open and called my parents. Mid phone call another older white man carrying a gasoline tank walked past me on over to another neighbor woman and I heard her yell at him to "not come back and bother me or I'll call the police", so then he turned around and walked past me, and stopped to ask if I had money for some gas for his lawnmower. I politely waved him on.

By the time S. came back to 219 Rose Place it was dark - about 9 pm and we were both starving as we hadn't eaten since our continental breakfast early that morning. And we needed to go back to the Penske truck to put a padlock on the trailer so it couldn't be stolen and deposit the keys in the night drop box. We sat in the car next to the drop box debating if we should really turn the truck keys in, it's Wednesday, and we have it reserved until Sunday morning. We didn't feel safe at Rose Place, didn't dare walk down the street even! But, we had signed a contract "site unseen" and had already given our $2000 of rent/security deposit/cleaning fee in the form of a cashiers check. S. dropped the keys in the box and we went to BK’s drive-thru for a couple dollar menu burgers to eat at the place.

When we arrived at Rose Place street, we couldn't park in the drive way because a police car was parked a house down from our blocking the entire street, so we parked in the back parking area and came to the front of the house where we could see 2 fellows being arrested, one white, and the other black. Fear and regret (from not listening to our EQ pres, Derek's, advice to not live there) dulled our hunger as we peeked out the window to see the cop now casing the area around our house. What were going to do? Druggies and criminals outside, and ghosts inside! It couldn't be any worse than Star Street in Lincoln could it? I had exclaimed to Seth. (A street of student housing where many of our Lincoln ward members lived.) Exhaustion was taking over so we went up to the room with our mattress, laid it on the floor, decided to just sleep in our clothes and tried to get some rest. 2 hours of sleep gives one lots of time to think!

Thursday morning we came to the conclusion that we cannot live in this old house and most of all, the horrible neighborhood. Everything about it is wrong and has gone wrong since we arrived. We got to Penske by 7 am before they opened to catch the store rep before he checked in the truck. The man was nice and understanding and let us have the keys to the Penske truck back, so we drove it back to 219 Rose Place, then we called the landlady and told here we couldn't live there -we didn't feel safe at all, and she was willing to give us back our $. Great, we thought, we're out of here. We called Derek and his wife Alicia, and told them our bad news, they offered to drive us around to apartments to find some place new, while doing this the landlady called back and told us to get the moving truck off her property, and that now she and her husband/business partner will have to negotiate the amount of the money they will give back to us. With that, Derek called the 2 sets of missionaries to help us pack back up all our stuff asap, which was done. Thank goodness for missionaries and a good EQ president.


The summer’s roller coaster we were on just got worse! Our hard earned savings were possibly lost forever. We’ve moved twice in 2 days, and then trying to find an apartment that will allow a pet and that has a washer/dryer was and had immediate move in was very hard. We spent the rest of Thursday looking for an apartment with no luck. Friday morning we found a place, opted for 3 bedrooms as it has no outside storage. That evening Seth and Derek unloaded the moving truck all by themselves, as Penske had called that day and offered a $100 rebate if we turned it in a day early as they were in need of a 26’ truck by Sunday.

Twice before we have found places to live off of craig's list and have moved in "site unseen" and they've been great. Hence learned lesson #3.

Sunday evening the landlords finally returned our phone calls regarding the deposit. Bad news, we lost all but $200 in exchange for breaking the contract. Guess it’s worth our peace of mind and safety.

We’ve spent the last week deep cleaning and unpacking and putting stuff away. The apartment smelled horrible of burnt smoker flesh, but is better now that the carpet has been cleaned, along with everything else.


It can only get better from here!