In one of my last blogs, I told you the story of our packing and getting things ready for storage. Thank you for the many comments regarding your experiences with packing! But what I didn’t tell you is that our house is not ready, and Neal and I moved in with my sister, Janice, and her husband.
When she offered to let us to move into their house during this interim period, we accepted and were welcomed with open arms. We moved in to our place on the second floor. It wasn’t long before I flashed back to our childhood. I have not lived with this person (the baby of the family) since 1978. We shared a room and had matching twin beds. She had her side of the room, and I had mine. But we had one dresser—which worked out fine, except for the top drawer. This drawer posed a problem because we each had the same number of drawers except for this one. So I took a marker pen and drew a line down the middle of it, creating borders for us both. Janice still has that dresser and reminds me of it occasionally.
On the day of the final load to the storage facility, our friends and family came to rescue us by taking our personal things over to my sister’s house so we could vacate promptly. That is where I lost control of my stuff. Janice had set aside a sitting room as the holding room until we could move our stuff upstairs to our new quarters. Anything that was not going to storage is at Janice’s.
Being an overprotective mother and grandmother, I could not possibly let my children’s kindergarten artwork go to storage (they are 35 now) nor could I ever think of my grandchildren’s notes and pictures going there either. So they are somewhere in the sitting room … with me.
The first night we were there, Neal and I decided to go down to the refrigerator in the garage and grab one of the diet Cokes we brought with us. We got to the door and realized the alarm was on. We had no idea how to get out of there without setting it off. Since the others had already turned in for the night, we returned upstairs with water in hand to our place. Janice told us the procedure the following day. Check!
The first week, I wore the same shoes every day as I had no idea where the others were packed. This past weekend, we decided to sift through the holding room and really find out what we brought. It was very interesting. I did find some of my shoes, but not the ones I thought I had. And I am still not sure why I brought three empty boxes.
A couple of nights ago, Neal decided he would go down and look for something he needed. So as not to disturb the early-to-bed couple, he used his flashlight. I watched with humor as he made his way down the steps and into the sitting room (storage), which is next to their bedroom. All I could think of was how he totally resembled a burglar! And I truly hoped he didn’t wake them up or, worse, scare them. I had visions of the police being called or his getting attacked by the master of the home defending his castle!
Have you ever had to move in with your sibling?
