First, some minor explanation. As soon as we knew we were moving, we investigated cable vs. FiOS. FiOS won (principally because it carries the Yankees' YES network, plus the NFL network; Comcast has neither. I am married to a man of priorities.) We booked Verizon for an install on Friday. As a new customer I was asked to fax them ID; I did so.

On Friday, after moving in, Neil rang Verizon to confirm that they were coming. it turned out that the fax I had sent them hadn't been correctly connected to our order. Consequently, no install. The next available date was Wednesday. So, no phone, no TV, no Internet. Bah.

Side story: We do have basic cable (very basic) included in our rent. it uses a coax cable. We couldn't find a coax-to-component cable and resigned ourselves to no TV. However, on Tuesday, when Neil unpacked our new TV (more later), he discovered it does have coax input. He subsequently discovered our other TV does as well; he just missed it! We missed the season finale of House for no reason! Harrumph.

Anyway.... we drove down on Friday, but none of our belongings did. By the time they'd packed everything up, it was too late for the drivers to get to PA and back. We spent the night in a Holiday Inn. (We did get the grocery shopping done, though as always, I subsequently discovered various items we'd forgotten.)

New place, by the way, is a 3 bed, 2.5 bath townhouse with garage and basement, at a rent to make a New Yorker weep. Location isn't ideal from my perspective (suburban hell) but we were on a short timeframe and this was the nicest place we saw by far. I do mean suburban hell, by the way. The main street is basically lined with big box malls--the really awful kind where if you need 3 stores, you need to move your car every time. Bad enough on your own, horrible when it involves getting a toddler in and out of a carseat repeatedly.

Saturday was a haze of unpacking. We're still not done (32 boxes of books remain, but the shelves to hold them are as yet unassembled). Our garage is filled with boxes and packing paper. The garbage was picked up on Monday and we disposed of some of it, but i think it's going to take weeks to get rid of all of it. The packers did an excellent job (only breakages: a ceramic ramekin and the glass on one picture, and that was in 2 moves) but they used an obscene amount of paper.

Sunday, I had to go to Bed Bath & Beyond (again. My 3rd trip, I think, I've lost track. I believe I've had 4 trips total. Worst part is that if i'd realized how much stuff I needed I would have gotten it all in New York with Carly's 20% discount, but it was impossible to keep it all straight... I did get a new Dyson there for 20% off, but there was one annoying part. BB&B Farmingdale didn't have the DC25 Animal. They didn't even have shelf space for it. So, I assumed they didn't carry it, and got the DC25 All Floors. When I went to the one here, they had the Animal. Gah.) We keep finding things that were missing, that were thrown out because they were broken, that we didn't need before (we only ever had 1 bathroom before, for example), that were accidentally thrown out or sent to the charity shop (Neil confused the good glasses with the £1 IKEA glasses), etc.

As I was leaving, Neil phoned me from Target saying he'd spotted a great deal on a new TV, but didn't want to buy it until I'd seen it. As it happens, BB&B is in the same shopping center, and I ran into him on the way out, so we went back in. It was a 46" Sony Bravia LCD (in the top 3 in Consumer Reports, though I don't know if it was the same model) at a great price. It may be a discontinued line, or not the top series (damn my lack of internet to comparison shop) but it had the right features, looked great and it is a Bravia--not going to be a piece of crap. Neil decided to get it then and there. Hilarity with transport ensued. It seems that a 46" Bravia is just a little too wide for the back of Neil's (rental) car. On top of that, the backseat had previously been occupied by a new wheelie bin. We ended up swapping the contents (including Aliza + carseat) of both cars, and swapping drivers as well because transporting the bin in my trunk meant keeping it open.

Monday, Neil started work. He has a very easy commute. His current lack of distractions also mean he has a very short getting-ready period, which meant that he spent half an hour on Monday sitting at the kitchen table, waiting to go.

This brings me to the final episode (for now) of this saga: the IKEA furniture. We decided that the easiest way to procure necessary IKEA flatpack would be to get it in New York and load it on the truck. Fine. Until Monday night, when Neil went to put his desk together. It comes in 2 boxes. Despite being labelled 1 and 2, they have identical contents. We now have to go to the nearest IKEA (90 minutes) to exchange it. Hopefully. They originally told him he'd need to take it back to New York; however, at the time, he thought he'd lost the receipt. Turned out he hadn't. So he has to call again and find out if he can return it to any IKEA. Hopefully yes, though it means a lot of driving. Also, because we haven't been able to set up bank accounts here yet (and won't be for a few weeks, I think, because banks usually want proof of address which I don't have yet) I may have to go to Philadelphia this week (home to HSBC's only branch in PA). Luckily, there is good train service so I don't have to drive. (The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania subsidizes Amtrak from Harrisburg to Philadelphia, no doubt so legislators don't have to stay here too long.) Driving to Conshohocken (IKEA) or King of Prussia (megamall) is one thing but driving into, and parking in, downtown Philadelphia on a weekday can be tricky.

Aliza is adjusting. She's got the concept of "new house", but this morning she asked me, "go home? Grandma? Papa? Ziggy?" I felt guilty. It's 200 miles, so I can't just pop up there. Neil can't take any vacation days yet, and I'm not enough of a fool to attempt to drive to Long Island on Memorial Day. We might go up for July 4th, though, in which case I'll try to drive at some convenient time, and Neil will take the train up. That's also my birthday (well, it's on the Thursday, but we could use the free babysitting and go out Sunday night).

We're here.

Aliza was not an entirely happy bunny on the flight: she wanted to run around and couldn't. Also, we got an A340-300, not an A340-600. They'd put in the new Premium Economy seats but it still had the old Odyssey IFE, not the v:port on demand. (Odyssey has the programs running on a loop.) Interestingly I've always had 346s on that flight but V-Flyer's database says 61% of flights were on 343s. This limited my ability to distract her with the IFE.

She did sleep a little, and threw some crayons (sigh) and watched In the Night Garden twice (with no sound).

My family is insane. But you knew that.

Aliza likes my parents' dog. I'll have to take pictures.

I filled out and mailed the forms for the movers last week. Didn't hear back. Rang them today--they didn't get them. AAAAAAAARGH. I do not have TIME to redo all the damn forms today. (one is saved and can be reprinted, but another was a non-fillable PDF and I have to do it by hand.) Not to mention the delay, etc. And I need passport photocopies and Neil's signature so it can't actually be posted again till tomorrow.

And I'm suddenly thinking of all the things I didn't do in my 4 years here! I should have made more of it....

List will be updated as necessary (as items are claimed or added). Claim your item and we'll dicker on price, because I don't have the time/inclination to price it all now. The Billys are free if you pick them up.

ETA: Pickup/availability will be after 20th August (preferably, though I might let some stuff go before ;) ) and before Neil leaves (2-3 weeks later).

( List - some stuff already claimed! )

Hopefully (flights still available, but I have to book them) Aliza and I will be flying out on the 20th. This is going to be tight. :( I really do have to go that week, though, because it's my mother's 60th birthday that weekend.

Plan for this week: Clear out the bedrooms. The movers will do all the packing (thank Dog) but I need everything, or as much as possible, cleared and sorted before we go. Once Neil gets his passport back, book the movers and cleaners (we're responsible for having the flat professionally cleaned before moving out).

Next week I'll tackle kitchen and lounge. Ugh. Especially since I'll have to move all the books off the shelves so people can have them! (We have one set of landlord-provided shelves in the living room, so I can stack all the books there.)

Great Sell-Off will commence this week, after some family dibs are taken...

See eldar's poll. vote in it. (except, er, he's friends-locked it. sigh. will have him unlock.)

I am provisionally rescheduling for Aug 16-17, however, as my mother's 60th birthday is on the 24th and she'd really like me and Aliza there! So I'm hoping to fly out that week.

We've got the computer set back up, finally (1, BT's "we'll switch the lines over at 10:30" is a lie. they START switching them at 10:30, it takes about 12 hours. Knew it. 2, Neil killed our router and we had to go get a new one.)

We did end up back at IKEA Monday. naturally they didn't even HAVE the desk Neil wanted (but we've re-measured, and can fit a bigger one anyway, so we'll go back at some point).

I'm still pissed off at Apple; not only is my laptop not repaired, I'm having a hell of a time getting any information from them! Will try again in a bit.

Expect a few updates later....

I've only lived here for 2 years, too, I thought my contribution wouldn't be as bad as it is :/ And I feel even guiltier because I'm going over with the cat and Neil and Phil will be doing all the loading and quite a bit more packing (in my defence, there's an actual physical limit as to what can be packed at any one time--only so much space for boxes...)

Oh well, shall go try to do some of the kitchen :(

So the boxes aren't self sealing. What I didn't notice is that half the things in the box of boxes aren't actually boxes--they're lids! I realised this after I got through 10 boxes, saw how many things were left, and thought "Didn't Neil say this was a box of 20?" I looked at 2 of the bundles, saw they were sheets of cardboard, then after 2 seconds of playing with them realised they were meant to be folded into box tops.

I am very, very dumb.

However, the following cute post on baaaaabyanimals made me smile:
http://community.livejournal.com/baaaaabyanimals/2673758.html