I think that the last six weeks have been the longest of my life. Even longer than the last six weeks of pregnancy (did I really say that?).
Our Christmas season was nice, but consumed with home inspections, contract negotiations, packing and planning, mingled in with the regular Christmas busyness. I was so excited, anticipating the move, the new house, the new beginning all the while feeling twinges of homesickness for the house I had loved so much.
We planned to move the weekend of January fourth. Moving day dawned bright and beautiful, although very cold; the high temperatures that day only reached the teens. Everything went wonderfully, we had lots of help from family and friends and our new neighbors. We were upbeat, optimistic and excited. We noticed when we unloaded during our second trip that the house didn’t seem to be warming up, despite the furnace running; in fact it seemed that the vents were blowing cold air. I figured that because it was so cold outside (below zero at this point) and the doors were open with people unloading that the furnace just couldn’t keep up.
Boy, was I wrong.
Later, I was alone at the new house with the kids, who were playing and exploring their new house. I was nursing Squishy, under a big quilt because it was freezing, and heard the furnace click off. I looked at the thermostat it was 45 degrees in the house. I knew the furnace was in working, order; we had had it inspected and serviced, could it be the propane? This house, being so far out from town, runs off its own propane system, something that is new to us, and we hadn’t even thought to check the levels of the propane tank. When Dadzoo got back and unloaded the truck, he went and looked at the meter on the tank.
It wasn’t low…. It was EMPTY. Zero. Nothing.
There we were, with our children, our babies with no heat and it was negative eight degrees outside….
It was going to be a long, long night.
I got the children settled with many blankets and a small space heater, while Dadzoo researched propane companies. Realizing there was nothing we could do until morning and we could contact the previous owner we, took the babies to bed with us (to keep them warm) and tried to sleep.
I cried. I wanted to go home.
The next morning was chilly, we hurried and dressed and headed back to the old house to take hot showers, load more stuff and figure things out. Dadzoo spent most of the morning on the phone trying to figure out how to get propane delivered while our good neighbors loaded all the big stuff into the truck.
To make a long story short, we weren’t going to be able to have any propane delivered until Monday morning. Because of liability issues we had to have an account set up with the propane company that owns our tank before they could deliver, and since it was a weekend there wasn’t any office staff to set things up for us. They promised a truck would be there first thing to pressurize our lines (since we had to turn the gas off, there wasn’t enough propane to even hold a pilot light) and fill the tank. In talking with the company, we found out that the previous owner had been out of propane for quite some time. While I was really angry that she didn’t inform us, so we could have had it taken care of before we moved it, I tried to focus more on how sad it was that she couldn’t heat that house for her children.
Saturday we moved the rest of our things, with the exception of a few odds and ends. Family came over and helped me put the kitchen away. It was cold. My little Monkey walked around in her coat with a runny nose and purple fingers. The only warm spots were right next to the space heaters. It was so cold that they didn’t really help unless you were right next to them. I was so discouraged. I wanted to get my house in order, but it was so very cold. My children were cold (but not complaining!) My baby had to be bundled, but as much as I tried to keep her wrapped up every time I would nurse her, her little nose and chin were freezing, and she had developed a yucky cough. The thought of staying another night in that house was unbearable. I just couldn’t do it. I was trying so hard to be brave, but I just couldn’t, all I could do was lay my head on the ice cold table and cry. I wanted to go home, I wanted a hot shower, a warm bed, familiar surroundings, a CLEAN (the new house, despite having had it cleaned was filthy and smelly) place to be. I was so homesick, tired and discouraged I thought my heart was going to tear in two.
I just kept thinking “what had we done!”
Dadzoo, saw my distress, and because he is a kind man, packed us all up and took us back to the old house for the night. The kids slept on the floor, the babies in porta-cribs and Dadzoo and I on an air mattress (thanks to my dear neighbors who picked it up for us at Walmart). It was good to be home. I cried off and on all night long. I had no idea I was going to have such a hard time leaving. I had no idea how much I had loved that home, and now I was leaving, all the time, love and work for an orphan of a house that had no heat, a fixer-upper, that smelled bad and was dirty. What was I thinking!
Sunday was a little better, we cleaned the old house, packed up and moved the few odds and ends and ran some errands. We were able to stay in the old house one more night, per our contract we didn’t need to vacate until Monday morning (tender mercy!). We rented a couple of movies, ordered pizza and had a little going away party on the floor of our old master bedroom.
Early Monday morning we left the keys on the kitchen counter, locked the doors for the last time and pulled out of the drive way. We said goodbye to eleven and a half years, to all those memories, to the place we brought home four babies, and birthed one. We said goodbye to all the work we had put in, all the love, the tears all those moments. How we loved that place, our first home.
At nine o’clock that morning we met a big beautiful propane truck. I have never wanted to kiss a man (that wasn’t my husband) so much before. He filled our tank, checked our lines, lighted the pilot lights and fired things up. By that afternoon the house was toasty warm, our things were starting to get put away and spread out and slowly things were starting to feel like home.
We have lived here now two weeks, and every day I get glimpses of home, as we work on this little orphan house we put more of ourselves into it and it becomes ours. We have a long road ahead, there is a lot of renovation and loving to be done, but we are going to jump in with both feet and in the process make this place, home.
