Freak Magnet Dave

After all of the relatively painless steps it took to find our new house and sell our existing one, it is somewhat overwhelming to see how quickly we take possession. Just over three weeks away (23 days to be exact) until we get the keys to the new place.

The planning for the move is under way. I ordered and had delivered a pile of boxes and packing material from one of my suppliers, and we've already filled a number of them with things that we know we won't be using before the move.

On Sunday our street had its annual garage sale, so we unloaded a lot of stuff there. We hauled out our dining room table and chairs, a couple of dressers, some book cases and end tables, another set of wood chairs and a slew of books, picture frames, glasses, mugs, cutlery, knick-nacks, garden tools, wheelbarrow, lawnmower, hedge clippers, etc. We were ruthless in our purging.

We were probably the best priced yard-salers (would that be yard-sellers?) on the street. Aside from the dining room set we sold pretty much everything. A woman stopped by early in the afternoon and gave The Squeeze a deposit on the set and she called her husband on her cell to have him come down and meet her to take it home. So we held it. A few other people came by to ask if it was still for sale. "Sorry, it's sold" we told them. A couple of hours later, her husband came by and asked if we were the place with the dining room set. We told him we were. He called his wife on his cell to get her back to our place. When she arrived a few minutes later, he decided he didn't want it, so The Squeeze gave her back the deposit. Meanwhile, the majority of the people were packing up their stuff and the shoppers were becoming few and far between. I was pissed! We could have sold that set to any of the others who asked, but NOOOOO, we held it for these people who decided against it. So we wound up carrying it back into the house. I'm trying to let that go....it's not easy.

The last few remaining pieces we simply gave away. When all was said and done, we were left with a few glasses and mugs and a couple of books that we brought back in, and we were up about $300.00. Not too shabby. As we said, this isn't about the money, it's about getting rid of stuff. The more we sell, the less we move. Then I can feed my shopping addiction and buy new furniture. :o)

We have debated back and forth about using a moving company. We thought it would be the way to go, then I was told what to expect to pay and that made us rethink it. After moving all of this furniture out for the sale and discovering how sore and winded we were, we're back on the moving company idea.

I spent a good part of yesterday contacting utility companies and having things transferred to the new address. The most confusing part is the cable company. Currently we just have basic cable along with some additional channels that we haven't been billed for. Don't ask, don't tell. So of course, in the new place, odds are we won't have all of that. We'll need to pay more for what we're used to, plus pay an extra 9 bucks for each additional outlet (probably 3 in total: living room, rec room, den) and the ideal of going digital so we can have video-on-demand is mighty tempting. Tack on a couple of specialty channels like Biography, add the price of the digital tuner/recorder and we're talking big friggin' bucks! Not to mention the fact that we also need cable boxes for the other two sets too.

The Squeeze's brother asked if we were interested in buying his cable box since it looks like he's going to be moving away to another province to chase some new woman he met at a convention recently. Perhaps we can trade him for...oh...I don't know...maybe a year or so of rent-free living.