The 7,543 hassles of moving (or at least 5 major ones)

Here's a snapshot of the new place, conveniently photographed so as to hide unpacked moving boxes, unhung pictures and homeless picture books whose bookcase has yet to be anchored to the wall.







I'm sure every move has more or less the same hassles, but I guess I had forgotten how it would necessarily be after 5 1/2 years in the same house. But these were my top five, in the order that they appeared -

Renting: The rental agent & leasing office are in the same building but different offices. Rental agent assures me that I can go in and sign my lease at the leasing office at any time, no appointment necessary. I call the leasing office and not only can I not come in, they don't see any reason why I shouldn't wait to sign the lease until the day I actually am paying movers by the hour while I sign. Oh wait! *I* know the reason! Could it be because it will take me over 45 minutes to sign the paperwork and they will decide to surprise me by waiting until moving day to install the kitchen floor?

Moving: The actual moving day with the big furniture was fine, except for the movers traveling out to Sugar Land during rush hour by mistake when I was only a block away from their office. Well, that and it was pouring down rain, but that's the law right? It has to pour on moving day doesn't it?

Next stop internet: This only took...let me see I think it was six phone calls and two visits by technicians, (neither of which were strictly necessary). I was really glad I called halfway through the first day of waiting around, because predictably they had left me off the schedule.

Phone service: I can't even begin to imagine how much time I spent on the cell phone trying to get Vonage to work. I generally like to wait at least 10 years before trying new technology. I always figure if it's still around in 10 years, it must have been a good idea. But how could I not try Vonage when it's less than half the price of regular phone service? Now that all the various problems seem to be solved, it works great. The only problem left is that if the electricity flickers off, all the modems get turned off. And when the electricity is turned back on, they don't turn back on in the proper order, which is why it's good to have the cell phone for back up.

Email: On the other hand, I *can* imagine how much time I spent on the phone trying to get my email to work, and it's not pretty I tell 'ya! Just ONE of my many, many, many phone calls to tech support took two hours this morning. At least the guy was entertaining. He kept referring to my computer as "the poor beast". Did I mention my email address ends in .net and not .com? Oops! To be fair, it wasn't entirely my fault since my little extension problem was compounded by their whole email system being down for the entire weekend and them having spelled my email address wrong in the first place.

All that aside, I appear to be most of the way moved in...cooking and baking even! Thank goodness I moved during vacation!