There's also the alternative of just leave it all behind, but we're so sentimental that we just couldn't do it. It's funny, because when we didn't know whether or not we'd lost anything, we were like, "I think I can come to terms with it all being gone," but once we knew our stuff was safe, there were so many things that we were like, "Well, we can't leave that behind, because..."
So yesterday was kind of a flurry. We had some guys from church, and a friend of Steve's who's not from church, come by to help get all the heavy stuff loaded into trucks. It was really hard, because we had to make sure the other stuff wasn't in the way, but when you're moving, everything is always in the way. And so sometimes we needed to get stuff packed so it would be out of the way, and in the meantime, we have all these helpful people standing around wondering what they can do, and we don't want them to do anything because we don't trust anyone with our stuff. Actually, I think I'd probably trust all of them with my stuff on an individual basis, but with a whole group of people doing who-knows-what, it's scarier.
So we moved all the heavy stuff, and then Athena and I stayed behind on our own to take care of the rest of it, with Mom and Steve coming at intervals to cart stuff off to storage so we'd have room to maneuver for the rest of the stuff. It was quite an ordeal. At five o'clock, the head maintenance guy came up and said we had to get out so they could lock up. We told them we were just finishing up (we were about to walk out with the last of the stuff), and he said, "I know, but you have to leave so we can lock up." This conversation repeated a couple of times, until I said, "Stop talking and we can get out!" So we said a short goodbye to our home of eight years, we took the last of our stuff, and we left.
Of course by the end of it, we were all battered and bruised and exhausted, so we were really grateful when Steve pushed himself to get dinner and ice cream for everyone. It was a rough day, and probably a good experience, but boy am I glad it's over. Now we're going to take a day or two to decompress, and then we get to start figuring out where we're going to live.
Today I'm thankful for managing to get all our stuff packed and out of the apartment, Steve getting food for everyone, not having to call AllState to make the apartment management let us stay long enough to get our stuff (I know it's hard to have to work overtime, but this is our whole life here), Alice coming by to make sure my three boxes of fabric went to a good home, and having enough room in storage for everything.