Time is moving along swiftly, and the fact that we are moving in just a few days is starting to feel a little more real. It never felt unreal that we are moving to Fredericton, but it just felt as though there were still a few weeks left – particularly since it feels like August 1st was just yesterday.
I finished work at the law firm here on Friday. As Neal drove me to work that day, I felt flutters of panic that I was just barely able to keep under some semblance of control. I knew that in a few short hours, I would be unemployed, and the future as far as employment was concerned was unknown… until about 10 a.m. Friday morning when I received an email from the HR manager at the Fredericton office of the same law firm. She wrote that although she knows that it was my last day and therefore probably extremely busy, she was wondering if I could find a few minutes to give her a call as she wanted to offer me a job.
Um, yes. I think I can find a few minutes for that!
I found a phone in a small signing room for privacy, and we discussed the position (Legal Assistant for lawyers in the areas of Labour & Employment, Family Law, and Litigation), and the terms, and honestly, it all sounded so perfect that there was no question at all in my mind. I accepted the position on the spot, and then proceeded to float around the office, announcing to everyone that I am employed after all! The job starts on September 1st – it doesn’t leave me a huge amount of time to get settled, but I don’t even care. That is a small price to pay to have the certainty of a job in Fredericton.
So I’m basically on a bit of an unpaid “vacation” now until September 1st. We really didn’t do a huge amount of responsible house stuff on the weekend as we had some of our neighbours over for a BBQ on Saturday, and then we met up with some friends at Martinique Beach on Sunday. We were a little more productive yesterday, and today the men doing the “pre-pack” are here (for the uninitiated, the “pre-pack” is when they come and pack up anything that is not essential to daily life – generally stuff in the garage, shed, spare bedroom, rec room, etc.). It feels very strange because there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot for me to do. I brought the car in for an oil change and an alignment and picked it back up. Neal has taken some stuff to a charity and other things to places that take old electronics and batteries. We emptied the sandbox and hosed it out so it can come with us. We are picking away at a few things here and there, but there isn’t much that we can do today.
Tomorrow will be a little different. We’ll need to pack our suitcases and some other items that we are taking in the car with us (some things, such as cleaners, won’t be taken in the truck, but since we’re driving to our destination anyway, we might as well take them with us). We’ll have to get up bright and early on Thursday morning to load the car up so that when the men come to do the full pack, those things won’t accidentally be taken or end up behind a tower of boxes. Because items essential for daily life will be packed on Thursday, we will go stay in a hotel that night. Friday is the day the truck is loaded, and then it leaves. We will come back for a few hours on Saturday as we have hired a cleaner to help us give the house one last cleaning and then… Gulp… we will lock up the house and that will be it. On Sunday morning, we drive to Fredericton.
It’s finally starting to feel a little more real that we are leaving in a few days. The move itself never felt unreal, but over the past little bit, it has felt as though we still have weeks before we leave. That’s partially because, until today, nothing was packed. Non-military people kept asking me if we had started packing, and my response was always “Nope, because the movers do all of that!”
And thank goodness for that. Looking around this house (and the garage and the shed), I am so relieved we don’t have to pack most of it. I wouldn’t say that we are pack-rats or even that we have all that much stuff compared to other people who live in houses, but OMG, there is a lot of stuff in here! We even got rid of a lot of stuff before when we were getting ready to list the house for sale! We are being spoiled, that is for certain. I told Neal today that whenever we do our final move when he’s getting out of the military years from now, that will be it. I’m not moving anywhere else because we would have to do it all ourselves!
