On Things You Need When You Move

Some recommendations for items to take with you if you ever move across the country and won't have access to your stuff for a week:

~ Something sharp. (Scissors, knife, leatherman, whatever). Otherwise, it's a pain to get boxes open and you feel like you're back in kindergarten with those annoying blunt-edged scissors.

~ A table and chairs. We've been sitting on the kitchen island to eat. Not fun.

~ Walkie-talkies for the drive down. We bought a couple of 12-mile walkie-talkies and they were extremely useful for the Noah's ark caravan that we had going on.

~ Snacks for when you get to the house at 7 p.m. We were starving and split a granola bar. Then we ordered a big pizza.

~ Plastic cups. These have come in handy for just about everything - cleaning the fish's bowl, drinking out of (not the same cups), watering half-dead plants.

There are lists all over the internet that helped, but these are things we found especially helpful.

Tampa or Bust

We made it safely to Tampa on Tuesday night. Ernesto was here in small force to greet us - but thankfully, we didn't need to stop for a generator and Vienna sausages at the local grocery store. For the last few days, it's been the Slightly Cloudy With a Chance of Rain State instead of the Sunshine State. That hasn't stopped us from getting in the pool, though.

Is it hot? Yes, but it's bearable. Is it humid? Ask my white-girl 'fro. I've used a bottle of gel already. Ah the joys of frizzy hair...

Jason and I just signed up for our Hillsborough County Library cards. A joyous moment! I was waiting on pins and needles for the "official piece of business mail" that we could use to prove that we wouldn't spirit away any library materials back to Illinois. Our internet service won't be hooked up to the house until Sunday, so we're using the Upper Tampa Bay Regional Public Library to get our fix. The UTBRPL is a new, bright local branch library with about 25 books on CD. I hope the Hold shelf knows what's coming.

Yesterday we spent exploring the local shopping complexes. There's something to be said for the spread of common stores across the US - we were able to find fish filters and Ziggy's brand of food at the Petsmart down the street, and the Publix (grocery) carries the right brand of chocolate milk. I guess it's comforting to see the Tarjay right down the street!

Otherwise, we'll be exploring Ybor City, the parks system, and hopefully get down to the Keys sometime. At the moment we're just hoping our furniture arrives here safely tomorrow.

Macon our way South.... Macon GA. that is.

Hello friends,

Michelle and I have now made it to Macon GA. We decided to make the trip from Edwardsville a three day route as opposed to two as originally planned. The second leg was just going to be too much windshield time. Not to mention that we wanted an additional 24 hours to see where Ernesto was going to end up. It appears that our (my) concerns of encountering a hurricane are about to be addressed with the ole` fashion emersion technique. As I type this, it appears that we'll be in the house for about 20 hours before Ernetso blows through. Thankfully, it doesn't appear he'll have too much umph.

It's been a real gas traveling with three animals, two cars, and one wife. Fortunately, the wife can drive one of the cars. Just kidding, Michelle. Little did I realize that stopping at a rest stop would turn into a half hour long exercise worthy of a degree in Event Planning. It wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have to worry about keeping the cars cool for traveling farm. I'm sure you can imagine the dance that lunch stops have become. All in all, it's been a breeze. Hopefully tomorrow will be more of the same.

JC

On Our Way

We've stopped over in Edwardsville for the night. Yesterday, the Caulk side of the family plus my aunt plus friends from high school came over to the park to celebrate and see us off. Gotta love the parties! It was wonderful to see everyone and we were touched that everyone made the effort to give us the big bon voyage.

It was interesting to see how the packers and movers work on Thursday and Friday. They even packed the Jeep into the semi-trailer. It's very strange to see the whole of your belongings packed by strangers and loaded into a truck that you won't see for another week. But, I'm glad we didn't have to do it ourselves. Probably I would have ended up rocking away in a corner from all of the stress!

Ziggy (the cat), Bandit (the dog), Mr. Fish (the fish) and Miss Buns (the bunny) did just fine as we were traveling from St Charles to Edwardsville. We put Mr. Fish into a thermos and popped the lid open so he could breathe. He seems to like his new minimalist home. Ziggy mostly slept, as is his nature. Bandit was treated to his very own Culver's butterburger - heaven on earth for the pups.

It's time to shove off for the drive to Chattanooga. We've decided to stop in Macon, GA for a night and then continue on to Tampa. It was just too far from Choo-Choo to Tampa.

Hopefully we can find a wireless spot in either TN or GA. Until then, know that we miss you all!

~mc

Moving Resource

A friend recently gave me the book After the Boxes are Unpacked by Susan Miller. I've just started it, but it seems like a great resource for dealing with the highs and lows of relocation. She also has a web site with a list of classes called "Moving On After Moving In". I'm definitely going to check those out.

-mc

Sat Picnic Recap

Sat afternoon was yet another lovely and bittersweet marker as we continue the countdown to Move day. Around 3:00 or so we headed over to Baker park (the park just two houses North of us) to lay out the picnic spread. With a late invite we were please to learn that anyone could join us. Over the next few hours we shared some pretty decent grub, some good wiffle ball, and even better laughs with friends. We mingled at the park until just before dark. I don't think either Michelle or I could have asked for a better afternoon. We were just pleased to see so many friends take some time out of the day to stop by and wish us well in our up coming journey.

Once we got back to the house we did the ole' kitchen hang out with the Walsh's for another hour or so. Shortly after they left there was just enough time to clean up, and crash on the couch. Nothing like a day of fresh air and romping around the play ground with a couple of our favorite 2 year olds to wipe a guy out.

Again, thanks to you all for stopping by. We really appreciate the effort.

J

Thanks for the Memories

If you ever need to keep a secret, a secret... tell a librarian. As a final send-off, I was treated to a complete surprise party by my friends and colleagues from the Library on Friday evening. I thought a small group of us were going out for Mexican food and margaritas, but to my delight the whole crew was present to help celebrate. If you ask Jane nicely, perhaps she will do a rendition of her original song, Don't Cry for Her, Melville Dewey. It will go down in history as perhaps one of the most original, and hilarious, renditions of an Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice song sung at a Library going-away party.

So my final day at the Library was Friday. It was with both sadness and a grateful heart that I packed my two boxes and said good-bye. (Personally, I can't believe everything fit into just two boxes. My apologies to our maintenance person, who will discover the recycle bins on Monday.) To put it lightly, I have grown incredibly in the past six years. I've learned how to provide customer service to people that perhaps should consider picking up their meds again... how to show an impatient teenager that there's life beyond Google... and how public libraries contain within them some of the most dedicated, intelligent people I'll ever come across.

On Saturday morning, one of the first things Jason said to me was, "So, how does it feel to be unemployed?" Yes, it's true, at least for the next two weeks. I'm grateful for the time that we'll have to transition to our new life. I'm grateful that I get to take the dog for long walks around the neighborhood for a few last times. Things are just ebbing and flowing around us, to-do lists growing shorter as the time to leave town draws closer.

I can't thank God enough for His calming presence in our lives these past few months! - mc

Caulk's Road Show

Thursday August 17th:

To bring you all up to speed... This past June Michelle and I decided to accept an invitation from my employer Masonite to relocate to Tampa Florida. Since then Michelle has found what appears to be an awesome opportunity at Price Waterhouse Coopers as a Sr. Business Researcher. She's decided to depart from the traditional librarian role to explore more indepth research projects in the corporate world. I'll be taking on a new role within Masonite as the Director of Product and Data Management.

As the definition of both new roles firmed up in late July we headed South to find a house. We used the weekend of August 4th through the 8th to locate the next spot we'll drop anchor. In just 4 days we toured what seemed like a thousand homes for sale, only to decide that renting was the best way for us to go in the short term. We're not sure we'll like owning a pool... riiiight.

The house we ended up finding turned out to be a dream come true. It's a 4 bedroom / 2 bath / 2 car garage / with a pool and fenced in back yard. How could we pass that up....

Tuesday the 8th we signed the lease 2 hours before we had to get back on the plane for Chicago.

That night (the 8th) we met with our Realtor team and finally decided to sell our beloved house here in St Charles. Suzanne and Tim the realtors gave us a little to do list to tackle before we listed. Starting that night we began the transformation. Over the next 5 days we packed up half the house, repainted the kitchen, tore up carpet in the second bedroom, re-arranged the basement, and last but not least finished and installed a new front door.

(The pictures I've attached are the fruits of our efforts.)

This last Tuesday we met with Suzanne to get the house listed. Tuesday afternoon the house went live in the MLS system and by noon the next day we had an offer!!! Talk about an answered prayer. God is so good!

So now you know the background. From here on out we'll use this site to update and post comments and pictures from our journey South. Hopefully you'll join us for the ride and eventually come visit!

Jas