Matt and I arrived at the Eugene airport to discover that my typical carry-on bag that I had checked was missing a wheel rendering it completely useless. Oh well, out of all my luggage pieces the carry-on is the one I wouldn't mind losing. Mostly I was super happy to see my grown-up cat Odin, although he spent most of his time hiding in the closet of our room. Not too long ago he had gotten in a fight with the pitbull of the apartment and had been paranoid since. Matt had really gotten the worst of that fight and even had to get antibiotics for all the cat bites he got separating the animals. I'm glad I wasn't there, but I was sad to see how nervous Odin was about everything.
Matt's car that his sister had picked up from the towing place was luckily mostly in tact with just some wires exposed. His Ipod was gone, but surprisingly they left the car kit, stereo, and even their own phone charger and flashlight! With some repairs needed, we were hopeful we would still be able to sell it.
It didn't take long for me to see how much work there was to do once I saw the large piles of unfinished boxes. The boxes with things to store at my Mom's was already taken care of, but we still had to box the stuff to ship by sea. We got working on organizing, sorting, and boxing quickly but the end never seemed in sight. It didn't help that we could barely sleep at night on our thin pads on the floor.
Luckily my mom and sister were already on their way from Utah to help out. I had not prepared for them for work so unfortunately their "vacation" was cut short. They were pretty mortified when we took them to what we call Matt's Mom's house where all our stuff was. The old abandoned house had been taken over by fleas and spiders. As we showed them around it was common to find a few fleas on your legs. Matt thinks a spider had babies and that's why there were small webs all over our stuff. Since that was the only space we could do it all there wasn't much to do about it.
We had some fun spider experiences though as we tried to spray a giant one (see picture to right) on the light just in front of the doorway with bleach water. It began to dangle on a string and us girls jumped big time when I sprayed it and the spider swung toward us. Later I found another big one that had developed a nest underneath the mud guard of my bike. I made Matt kill it and we found thousands of tiny eggs. Those spiders definitely work fast because it must have just built it that day.
The first night my family was there I stayed in the hotel with them in Eugene and we discovered the next day I had a pretty bad cold and was not really able to do much of anything. The good news was that we picked up Matt's car from the shop that morning and it was only a $100 to fix up the car.
Later we discovered some bad news as the boxes we had packed all of our shipping stuff were collapsed when stacked so we had to get all new double lined boxes. In the end, my mom sent Matt and I to her hotel in Florence while they finished working on stuff for us and got things set up for the moving sale the next day.
After the GPS on my phone led us a 30 minute drive away from the hotel we finally got to sleep on a nice bed and not have to get up early and start working on stuff. Although Matt was anxious to get back I was keen on just relaxing so we went to the coast, ate at Moe's, and walked around the shops before heading back.Upon returning, the moving sale was all set up and there were lots of people already looking around even before the sale started. While the sale went on my mom and sister repacked the stuff while I managed the people looking at stuff and Matt cleaned his car to sell. Heavily drugged on Dayquil I was probably the worst person for the job as I was selling things a lot lower than Matt would want. I didn't really care and as long as it was gone and we got something for it that's all that matters.
My family left to spend their night at the hotel in Florence while Matt and I finished any final packing. There were some difficulties deciphering my Mom's handwriting of what was in the boxes, but we got it all sorted and we ready to send them to Portland.
Later that night we got another blessing because we found out Matt's grandma was going to buy the car for his sister Jaime! She was going to give us a check the next night when we would stay with them so we didn't have to worry about trying to sell the car anymore!
The following day Matt had to take a cargo van with our 13 re-packed boxes up to Portland to be dropped off at the port. While he did that I got to see my friends Laura and Valerie once again! We didn't do much but chat and have lunch, but spending time with good friends is priceless. I hope we will always stay in touch.
I was extremely fortunate that the first couple of hours of the sale not many showed up while I was all by myself. Miraculously I even took a little nap sitting in the chair. My mom and sister came back from their day in Florence at the perfect time. I was really glad that my mom and sister would get some time to have fun and apparently they had an awesome day at Hobbit beach. We had to rotate again because Matt and I were spending the night at his grandparents in Oakridge, which is about an hour away.
His grandma made breakfast for us in the morning and then we only had time for a short chat before we had to leave. We went straight to his other grandma's house down the street (his Japanese father's side). She is an adorable short Japanese woman and it was fun to see her before we left.
All that was left to do was finish our sale, finish packing our bags for the plane and clean up! Saturday was packed with people at the sale. My sister, Carina, and I loaded up her car with all of our storage boxes including a volleyball net and golf clubs. Once that was taken care of we got back to helping with the sale and as the day went on we were just letting stuff go quick and cheap! By 3pm everything was $1 or less and just an hour later we starting loading up whatever was left into the truck to take to Goodwill. We sort of cleaned up stuff in the old house, but in the end there just wasn't time and after all there was still loads of other junk left there that didn't come from us.
Finally it was time to say goodbye to my family and my fat cat as they headed out back to Utah. Odin was scared by all the movement going on that he hid in his litter box. I was just happy I knew my sister's place had plenty of space for him and no other animals to scare him (other than people that is). It was sad to see them go because truthfully we couldn't have done all the packing and the sale by ourselves. They were our lifesavers. On top of all that, they even got us new bags since Matt didn't have a second bag to check and my carry-on had broken. My family is amazing!
Next up...Australia!
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