Another late night for me. Besides this blog post, I still need to prepare the children's medicine for the next two days -- (Four cups, four lids, two straws... measured pre-mixed medicine+water with scale, make more of the pre-mix, two powders with two measuring cups, three liquids - dropper and two syringes, juice, mix well, clean up all the measuring cups, syringes, table) -- and clean catboxes (no, Apple, not hatboxes), and then set schedule my coffee for the morning.
Lori's making great progress - she's really reduced her pain medication and she's finding that she can do about 90 minutes of activity at a time before needing a rest or a nap. She got up this morning and did a lot of getting the kids out of the door and ready for school. It was kinda cool, all of us being up together at the same time, first Lori, Rachel and I, and then after she left, Lori, Ben and I.
Today was a good step forward - I had my first phone call with the Relocation Specialist who's helping with the move. She said the call typically takes up to an hour, but we pounded it out in half an hour. I think that we didn't need her help in finding a realtor here or in L.A. saved a bunch of time. We talked about the house-hunting trip, the move, the pack & load, shipping the car, flights, hotels, rental cars, temporary housing, any costs we might be on the hook for, all the things we can expense, the timing of things, the impacts to the children, requirements (like max 500 miles a day for any driving we want to be reimbursed for during the move - which turns Lori's two-day trip into a three-day trip) and how they can help us ship Lori's mom car at the same low rates they get and on and on. I think during the negotiation phase, they undersold (or I underappreciated) just what an amazing relocation package this is. I know it was a long-shot, but I had wondered if they could just park my car at LAX in long-term. Sadly, that's a no-go - an adult has to sign for it. (Any friends out there want to sign for it and drive it to LAX and leave it in long-term?)
The biggest takeaway is that it costs about $1/pound to ship things from Seattle to L.A. The company pays for a set amount, but anything over that is on us and she said from her experience a house our size (she had already looked up sq footage and # of rooms before the call..weird.) was almost twice what they pay for. Our move up here was almost 1/3 of what she thinks we'll take back down.
Threw away the rug that used to be in the dining room. I'm a little sad to see it go, but I think it was time. It's gotten old, faded, worn and it was just rolled up in the garage. So now all that stuff just looks like dollar signs and it becomes much easier to part with it. That will be the test now... "How must does it weigh?" Is it worth that many dollars to ship? Do we use it? Would it be better to replace with a new one later? Would we miss it? (Can it fit in the trunk of my car and get a free ride down?) Considering our new house will undoubtedly be several hundred square feet smaller, will there be room for it? (Not counting the several hundred square feet of storage that's not counted in this house's official square footage.)
Time to get ruthless.
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