progress

Trying to Decipher

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

We’ve made a lot of progress with unpacking.  Yes, I still have stacks of boxes behind me as I type this, but just about everything else is unpacked, or at least partly unpacked.

I even managed to repair my dad’s bedside shelf, which I am now using.  This allowed me to move the large-ish end table I had on my side of the bed over to my husband’s side, so we could put his tiny fridge on it (for his medication), get his CPAP machine off the floor and have a place to tuck away his bottles of distilled water for the CPAP humidifier.

We still haven’t been able to find some of the girls’ things.  There was some stuff in their third floor bathroom that was in a bag we can’t find, and some movies that were on another floor, so they shouldn’t have ended up in the same box.  Also, we found other stuff from their  bathroom, so those items should have been there, too.

While my brother and I were at our van yesterday, checking on the engine, I remembered to go into the glove compartment and get the paperwork from the movers that was in there.  On moving day, I barely had time to skim over them as I signed them, and just shoved them into the glove compartment as we were leaving.

Today, I finally had a chance to sit down and look at them closely, to try and figure out what happened to the girls’ stuff.

I still have no clue.  The sheets tell me next to nothing useful.

This is so frustrating.

20180121_174836.25%

As near as I can figure out, the above photo is mostly third floor stuff, but also second floor stuff.  Maybe.

20180121_174912.25%

While this one is of second and third floor stuff.  The information I was looking for should have been on these two pages.  I can barely decipher it at all.

All over the place I see the word “mettals.”  I think it’s supposed to be “metal”.  But metal what?

“Matters”, I’ve figured out, means “mattress.”  “Pichers” are “pictures,” and likely refers to both pictures from the walls and my daughter’s paintings.  Then there are the shalfes, pellows, pillasstic taibls, hendels, wood and even anberallas.

I’m guessing shelves, pillows, plastic tables (I am guessing our collapsible tables, including the folding one they didn’t fold), handles (???), wood (my daughter’s easel?) and umbrella.

The other pages are no better.

There is 4 pages of this, each with two columns.  The first page was mostly
marked boxes and bins.  According to the sheets, including the piano, we had 234 items.  Some of those items were things like a bundle with our mop, broom, window cleaner and snow shovels, taped together.  The piano bench had its own number sticker, but I don’t see anything that even remotely looks like it could be “bench”.

When he brought the sheets for me to sign, he’d made a comment about how we had “a lot of stuff.”  You wouldn’t know it, from what’s on these sheets!  According to them, we just have a lot of mettal and shalfes.

In the end, though, there is no way of knowing what box they packed the girls’ stuff that’s missing into.  It looks like they not only marked the boxes and bins we packed ourselves as just “box” or “bin,” but also boxes they packed have no listing of their contents.

Which is something I was told they do, when I was arranging all this.

These sheets are useless.

As part of the contract, the client is supposed to use these sheets to make sure everything gets to its destination.  Given the circumstances of the delivery of our stuff, that was impossible.  Even if we’d managed to unpack everything with 10 days and could say for sure there was stuff missing, there would have been no way to say which item numbers weren’t accounted for.

What a mess.

Meanwhile, I still haven’t heard back about my claim, when I responded by saying I expected them to repair the damage their driver did, on top of the basic liability for items damaged.

The Re-Farmer

People Visit

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We get lots of critter visitors.  Yesterday, we got a people visit!

My oldest brother came by briefly.  Being the sweetheart that he is, he brought along his mechanics stethoscope, and we checked out our van.  The first thing we did was check the coolant.  This was not an easy job, as the radiator cap on our vehicle is off to the side and under a hose.

We also discovered that I am very low on coolant.

I had the vehicle serviced before we drove out here.  I should not have been low on coolant.  Which means I likely have a leak somewhere.  I have never seen signs of a leak under the vehicle, but it’s possible that any leak was happening only while I was driving, after the engine was warm enough for the coolant to expand into the overflow chamber.

He got as much as he could into the tester, and as best as we can make out, our coolant has enough anti-freeze to handle temperatures down to about -22C to -25C.  Without being able to fill the tester fully, however, we can’t say that definitively.

We’ve been hitting temperatures of lower than -30C.  Wind chills brought us to the -40C, but we didn’t drive in that, and the van was in the garage, so it was protected from the elements, at least.

Then we fired it up and waited until the noise started, which took about a minute.  Using his stethoscope, we were able to pinpoint the source as the water pump.  Likely a bearing.  And yes, the cold could have caused this damage, with our coolant as low as it was.

On the plus side, if the water pump needs to be replaced, the part itself is not that expensive.  Labour, on the other hand, could easily be much more.  It all depends on how hard it is to get into there.  It could cost anywhere from $300-$400 to fix.

Also on the plus side, when funds come in, we should actually have room in the budget for that.  It’s do-able.  As long as it doesn’t end up costing  more. :-(  Meanwhile, we will continue to NOT use our van, because driving it would likely cause more damage.

It’s a good thing we don’t need to go anywhere.  And my other brother has told us to just leave his van at our place for now.

That done, my older brother’s next task was to salvage the parts he’d put into the old hot water tank.  He’d spent quite a bit of money on that thing, and the parts are still good, so anything that can be salvaged will be useful.

20180120_154235.25%

The first thing he did was take out the bottom thermostat and remove the new heating band he’d installed at the bottom.

This photo shows that heating band.  It had been in pristine condition when he put it in, but in the short time it was there, it got this corroded!

You can see an the bottom of the photo, what he’d used to McGyver the band in place, when it turned out to be too short.

That was one heck of a job.  And it did work, for a short time.  It was the last thing to try.  Once that failed, there was nothing left to do.

20180120_154402.25%

In the next picture, you can see the top thermometer he’s about to remove.

The tank itself got dented up (you can see that a bit at the top left of the second photo) when the plumber dropped it down to drain into the sump pump reservoir.  There were more dents all in a line.  The bottom of the tank had started to rust quite a bit in one patch.  It was weakened enough that the entire bottom had started to come loose!

That thing was way overdue for replacement.

Getting it out of the basement is going to be one heck of a job!

The visit also gave us the opportunity to talk about the house in general, and some of the work he’d done over the years, from what he had to do to get the pump to the septic tank working a few years back (you can see part of it in the background of the top photo), to fixing doors and the like.  He even brought printouts of the historical data for the electric bills for this place!  This will help me with budgeting a bit.  Our usage is, of course, going to be higher, since the house was empty during the time period in the printouts.  However, this was before the new windows were installed, so it would have been bleeding heat in the winter like crazy.  I’d hate to think how much our current bill would have been if the old windows were still in!  Hopefully, over the next while, we’ll be able to continue improvements to make the house more energy efficient.

Little by little, we’ll figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Looking Back

/ Re-Farmer / 7 Comments

It has been just past 2 months since all of us have been living here, in my childhood home.  Three months for my husband and younger daughter.

It’s been rather tumultuous, all things considered.  Hopefully, this will all have been worth it in the long run.  We shall see.

There are, as always, a number of things that we couldn’t know until we actually lived here a while.  Some of those things were budget related.

Living on my husband’s long term disability has changed a lot.  Thankfully, 60% of his previous income left us doing much better than others I know in a similar position.  Still, living in the city kept getting more and more expensive, while the income can’t change.  Our daughters had gotten themselves part time jobs, and my older daughter has been working on turning her art into an income, but they both gave that up to come with us, so that they could help their father and I as much as possible.  They gave up quite a lot of other things to come out here, too.  And with our van making noises it shouldn’t be making, and no money to get it looked at, all our options are severely limited.

So it’s 4 of us living on one fixed income, still playing catch up on the costs of the move and the bills we had to let slide a bit.

But we’ve been here long enough to get an idea of what some of those unknowns are going to be.

One of them was the electricity costs.  We knew, from living in the area before and heating with electricity, we would be looking at Hydro bills in the winter of about $400 or more.  Previously, our winter bills were in the $80-$90 range, while in the summer, it was closer to $150-$180.  We had to use an air conditioner all summer, for my husband’s health.  We won’t need an air conditioner here, but winters are another story.

Our very first electric bill came out to over $400.  I had actually expected it to be a bit higher, because of all the troubles we were having with the hot water tank, and needing to use the stove to heat so much water every day.  I knew the next bill would be even higher, partly because it covered the time period were we were heating the most water, but also because of the polar vortex that sent temperatures plunging and the furnace running.

We send in our meter readings in the middle of the month, and now have the new bill.  It’s just under $600.  And there was absolutely nothing we could have done to make it lower.

Ouch.

At least we can be sure that this is going to be the highest electric bill of the winter.  After this, it should start doing down.

Still.  Ouch.

The next unknown was the internet.  Our satellite package is only about $100 a month; less than the cable/internet package we had before the move.  Unfortunately, the maximum data available for non-commercial packages is 100 gigs.  Before coming out here, we averaged about 350 gigs a month usage.  Still, we can control that to a certain extent.  No more watching lots of Youtube videos, and no more World of Warcraft.  We take advantage of free WiFi elsewhere, as much as we can.

Reaching the limit on our package didn’t mean we would lose our internet for the rest of the month.  It would just be reduced in speed.  It would be enough to check our email or whatever.  Or, we could have the bottleneck removed and pay $2 a gig on top of our regular package.  There would be no slowdown that way.

That resulted in a bill of almost $300, even with reducing our online usage.

At the start of the month, there was a lot of downloading of updates and patches, which resulted in us reaching our limit before even half way through the month.  So options were looked at on how to get around that.

In the end, we got a second account, with a second satellite dish.  It was installed yesterday. By doing it that way, we’ll be paying around $200 + a month for internet, instead of $300 +.

We still haven’t received our first phone bill in our name, so that one is still an unknown.

Then there’s the fact that we’re feeding so many extra animals, including the deer.  We will probably be spending another $150 a month, just on that.  That wasn’t in our projected calculations at all.

The fact that we are no longer paying a housing charge of just over $1400 a month does give us the room to handle these extra expenses.  Or at least it would, if we didn’t still have to catch up on old bills, plus deal with additional expenses related to the move, plus we had to buy that new hot water tank, plus we have to get the van looked at, plus we’re going to have to put money into this house to make up for years of neglect…

It’ll probably be another 2-4 months before we get to a point were we can actually know if living here will be a financial improvement.

The next question becomes one of quality of life.  Did moving here improve that situation?

Well, for my husband, we’re not there yet.  First, there were the problems with not being able to get certain prescriptions, and the screw up with his insurance coverage.  So he’s been in massive amounts of pain.  Big drop in quality of life, there.  Then there is finding a new medical team to replace the specialists he left behind.  That will take time.  Still, there is the advantage of stress reduction in other areas, and stress = pain.  There’s also the fact that this house, for all its issues, is more accessible that the townhouse we left.  He’s no longer essentially trapped on the second floor.  Something as simple as getting up and going into the kitchen is something he can do now, without too much difficulty. The biggest plus is that we are close to his family again, but without reliable transportation, we may as well still be two provinces away.

For myself, there is a definite huge reduction in stress.  I’m still in contact with friends living in the co-op we’d been in, and I am so glad we’re not there anymore.  I honestly cannot recommend co-op housing anymore.  The concept is good, but human nature being what it is, it just doesn’t work unless the members are aware enough to get a good property management company in.  Otherwise, it’s just not worth the stress.

That stress was having quite a negative effect on my health, but since being here, for all the hassles we’ve had, there has been a huge improvement.  The pressure headaches are gone.  My sleep has improved.  I hardly ever need to take pain killers anymore.  My body’s aches and pains have reduced substantially, though I know they will never go away completely.  And I do still have my mystery pain in my side, and that chronic cough that no amount of testing could find the source of.   Unfortunately, while I’ve been able to set up the office part of things, I haven’t been able to set up my crafting side of things quite yet; not enough that I can get back to working on things or writing patterns, and I have not been able to get my photography area set up yet.  That should come in time, though I will have to evict the cats from what will be my work and photography area on my work table, which they have claimed for naps. :-D

And for our daughters?  They once again have an upper floor as their own space.  Sometimes, as I work in my office, I can hear them upstairs, singing together, and they sound so wonderful.  I know it’s been hard on them, but I do hope that, long term, this will be good for them, too.

We knew coming out here would be a mixed bag of positives and negatives.  We’re still figuring out what those are.  Plus, once we’re past those first few months of settling in, there will be new options ahead of us that we could not have done without coming here.

In the end, I do feel that we made the right choice.

The Re-Farmer

Eight

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Okay, I’ve made up for lost time, that’s for sure.

I finished clearing, cleaning and disinfecting the linen closet.  The shelves are made of plywood that’s painted.  It’s quite rough in texture.  My mother had lined the shelves with sheets of plastic, tacked into place, to protect her linens.  I haven’t decided what I want to do with them to fix the roughness on a permanent basis, but I still needed to do something to cover them, so they won’t damage my stuff.

Cardboard to the rescue.

I cut a couple of boxes we’d unpacked previously, to fit the shelves.  It worked out quite well.

It’s amazing what getting that one thing done led to.

I was able to unpack 8 boxes.  I was also able to move two long bins designed to fit under beds, under the bottom shelf.  These hold things like our collection of canes, umbrellas and shinai in one, badminton and tennis rackets in the other, so we do want to keep them handy.  They stick out of the closet, which means the door can’t be closed, but the door is broken, anyhow, so it doesn’t really matter.  At some point, they will actually get unpacked to more permanent places.

With the linen closet now clear, I could not only unpack my linens, but move some of the ones already unpacked and shoved into the wall of shelves.  I was then able to pack a bit more of my mother’s things away, which in turned helped clear more shelves.  I was then able to clear and clean 2 columns of shelves in the wall of shelves, then unpack boxes of papers, binders, folders, board games, etc.  Some of it will need to be gone through and put into more permanent places, or at least better organized, but the main thing is they are no longer in boxes.

All that finally allowed me to unpack my last box of linens.  These I was saving for last, as it included things like an antique, cut work embroidered linen table cloth, and table cloths and napkins embroidered for me by the same amazingly talented family member who gifted me with the ceramic sugar and creamer set that the movers broke the creamer from.  She’s actually the one who inspired me to get into crafting myself.  I’ve also got items embroidered and crocheted (some pieces have both) by my great-aunt, who was amazingly skilled.

One box, oddly, was half blankets, half kitchen stuff.  The movers packed that one.  I unpacked the blankets half, then took the box out to the dinging room.  After I stopped for supper (which my daughters were awesome enough to make for us), it was there anyhow, I unpacked the rest of that box, too.

The best part is, I no longer have a wall of boxes along my side of the bed that I need to squeeze past.  Yay!  There’s now just a few things than need to be finished up and re-organized in the bedroom before it’s done.  Well.  As done as it can be, for now.

The next major area of boxes that needs unpacking is my office.  Some of them are my crafting materials and tools, but not all.  As usual, the challenge is, where do I unpack them to?  I still need to work out a space to unpack all my cookbooks in particular, since I do want them actually near the kitchen.

All in good time.  Right now, I’m exhausted, but in a good way.  I think my goal for tomorrow is not to unpack anything else, but to rearrange our bedroom and maybe even *gasp* vacuum it.  I do wish we could rip out the carpet.  The lumps and bumps are quite the tripping hazard.  That, I am thinking, will wait until we can install the second bathroom.  If we’re going to be doing construction in there, anyway, that would be a good time to get rid of it.  I have no idea how we would take out that wall of shelves, though.  It’s more than 10 feet long.

Ugh.  I can’t start thinking about that now!  Especially since it’ll probably be years before we can come up with the money to do it.  I’m more interested in getting more boxes unpacked and hopefully finding the stuff of the girls’ that’s missing.  I don’t hold out much hope for that, though.

The Re-Farmer

Trapped trap

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

While vacuuming the linen closet, I went into the carpeted area under the bottom shelf.  In one corner I used the crevice tool to pull out what looked like a very old nylon knee high (they do NOT make nylons in that sort of fabric anymore, and haven’t for a very long time), tied into a loop.

I didn’t look took closely.

Then I saw a piece of wood tucked into the opposite corner.  Not an unusual find in this place, really.  I tried to use the vacuum to bring it closer, but that didn’t work.  So I bashed it around a bit, only to realize it had something on the other side that was caught on the carpet.

The carpet does not seem to be adhered to the floor at all, so it kept lifting up.

Eventually, I got it loose, and found this…

20180116_1244342053366223.jpg

It was the hooked end that was caught on the carpet.

I imagine that someone tucked it into the corner years ago, it got triggered without catching anything, and was simply forgotten.

I’m glad I didn’t find a little corpse to go with it.

Since I needed to use a little step ladder to reach the top of the closet, I took the opportunity to finally get into the very top, where there are sliding doors that hid the contents.

I found my dad’s old water bed mattress, what looks like rolled up blinds, some poster paper, also rolled up, a tied up bundle of fabric, what a plastic grocery bag with what looks like a folded up sheet of vinyl.

I had to show the folded up mattress to my daughters.  This was from when water beds first came out, so it is literally just a big vinyl bladder.  I still remember how fun it was to go on the bed and make waves, and the struggle to get out of it.  The mattress was held by a sturdy frame.  The mattress, of course, would sink as you sat on the edge, which would leave your legs hung up on the frame.  It could be quite painful, with that wood digging into the backs of your legs.

I’m procrastinating, now.  It’s all vacuumed out.  Now I need to clean and sterilize it.

Time to dig out the gloves…

The Re-Farmer

 

Getting things done, and more deer

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This morning, we got a phone call from my husband’s doctor, following up on the fax sent from the pharmacy about that prescription refill.  We then headed into town to pick up the prescription (he ended up giving a bunch), since getting the pharmacy to do it might take a couple of days.  At the same time, the prescription dosage error on the other versions of this medication was fixed.  So my husband is all stocked up on painkillers again, which is making life much more bearable for him!

We also got a pair of deer visiting again today.  This time, they seemed less nervous about us in the window.  The deer came together, but kept their distance from each other, trading off eating.  They left, but came back soon after.  Interestingly, one actually started to drive the other off of the feed, with some aggressive posturing and jumping.  Then they went into the spruce trees and hung out there for an hour or more before one came back.  The other stayed in the spruces for a while, then drove the first one away from the food and started eating, while the first on stuck around and seemed to keep watch.

It was interesting behavior to watch.

I was able to get some good photos of them, too.

2018-01-15.whitetail.deer.looking

2018.01.15.whitetail.deer.profile

2018-01-15.whitetail.deer.bird

2018-01-15.whitetail.deer.scratching1

2018-01-15.whitetail.deer.tongue

In between taking photos, I finally started on clearing that linen closet, wrapping up a stack of mirrors to box up, then removing the plastic shelf liners.  The seeds that we think are mouse poison were only on the top shelf.  I swept most away, but didn’t get to vacuuming the ones stuck in crevices, because I didn’t want the noise to scare the deer.  Meanwhile, my older daughter was a sweetheart and started cleaning the set of decorative plates I inherited from my mother-in-law.  They had hung on her wall for many years, and my in-laws were both heavy smokers at the time, so they had to be washed twice.  Not all the nicotine quite came off, though, so a third washing will be needed to get the last of it off, but they look fabulous now.

Cleaning the hangers is going to be a challenge.  That and the one plate that is a relief of a Rockwell painting.  That one will need a toothbrush to clean it.

That will all wait until later, as my younger daughter decided to make up a double batch of sourdough dinner rolls.  I am looking forward to those!

All in all, a pretty good day.

Some updates

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

So, in between unpacking and rearranging, cooking with sourdough, feeding the critters outside and taking pictures of our deer visitor, other things have been going on.

First update: I did get an email back about our claim to the moving company.

Actually, I got two.

Continue reading →

When Small Goals Lead to Bigger Accomplishments

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

The last couple of days, I neglected to meet my “one box a day” unpacking goal.  Saturday, other things happened and Sunday, I tried to make it a day of rest (but we still did baking).

Today more than made up for it.

Continue reading →

Slaying the paper monster

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I like to think we made good progress today. The office is basically done; what’s left is stuff that needs to go elsewhere, not sorted or packed.

Then my daughter and I tackled a stack of boxes in the second floor hallway.  These had been stored in the laundry room until the hot water tank died, flooding the floor enough to damage a couple of them before I caught it and hit the shut off valve.  After cleaning up the mess and getting the tank replaced, they just never made it back into the laundry room.

I have discovered something about myself today.

Apparently, I never throw out bills.

Or notices.

Or bank statements.

Or receipts and newsletters and classroom materials or forms…

These boxes were still unpacked from our last move, when we went from a 3 bedroom townhouse to the 5 bedroom townhouse we are in now.  There was 6 of us at the time. Of all my moves, this one was the worst. We all got sick with colds and what should have taken a leisurely few days became a week that ended with us just throwing things into boxes and bins and dragging them over the half block to our new home.

We had a very large desk back then, and it would not fit with the new layout, so we passed it on.  The contents got thrown into boxes, but we never had a place to unpack them. So in the laundry room they sat, virtually untouched.

Until today.

As my daughter and I went through them, almost everything went into bins or bags for garbage, recycling, Goodwill or ReUse Centre. Oh, and the Eco-station. We seemed to collect old power and USB cables and cords.  Almost nothing was kept.

By far, the largest portion had to be shredded. I found old utility bills from before we moved into the Co-op. There were credit card statements for cards we haven’t had for years. Some of the utility bills were the first to encourage people Go! Online! to pay their bills.

I was even finding hand written prescriptions from 2003-2004, when we lived in another province.

And tax stuff that should have been shredded years ago.

The tax stuff made sense, but why did I keep all those classroom materials from when I taught crochet? I haven’t taught formal classes in over 5 years!  Class outlines. Sign up sheets. Pattern notes. Evaluation forms.

So. Much. Paper.

Some of it made sense to keep for a few years, and since they were in the boxes, there they stayed. But much of it, I don’t know why I kept them.  Shredding from just these 4 boxes filled about 5 garbage bags!  And there was still the stuff that went into recycling. Plus, this is after many, many more bags of shredded paper from the office and even some ground floor stuff.

As stressful as this move is becoming, finally slaying the paper monster is turning out to be a huge benefit.

The Re-farmer

One down

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, it’s official. I have completely finished clearing one room on the second floor. (My daughter has pretty much finished the entire 3rd floor.) It is now going to hold boxes that are packed and ready for the movers, as well as a few other things.  Not the box spring in the photo, though.  It’s damaged, and is waiting to be hauled out, along with two others we discovered were broken.

One of the things my mother dangled in front of us to entice us to move was the offer to pay for the movers.  She has followed through with that promise, to our great appreciation.  It simply would not be possible, otherwise.

The problem is that, because of the shortened time line, things we expected to be able to set money aside for slowly, over several months, aren’t going to happen.  What we have is it. There is no more coming in until after the move. Our total of funds must not only cover the cost of the movers, basic living expenses (like groceries at both ends of the move), stocking up on prescriptions until we can get a new doctor, etc, but also the extra costs in fuel for the drive out, travel food, and those million and one little things that add up, unexpectedly. I’ve moved often enough to know what to expect.

Movers charge by weight.  I got estimates based on the average weight for a 5 bedroom home, which is about 10,000 pounds.  We are going to a smaller home, so I got updated estimates for the smaller size, since we would have to pare things down.  Based on those numbers, we should be good. Even including the weight of our heirloom piano, plus surcharges for the piano and the (soon to be empty) aquarium.

Then I got two in home estimates. One by estimated weight, the other a flat rate.

Despite pointing out all the stuff we would NOT be taking with us (almost all the furniture, plus a lot of other stuff we would be getting rid of), we were still told the weight would be 10,000 – 12,000 pounds.  When I questioned that, I was told he had been doing this for 20 years and was sure, based on experience.  I also asked for the cost of a full pack, which was based on the same weight. The base cost alone was more than we have. The packing fee was completely out of budget.

The flat rate guy was actually a higher base cost, because he factored in the distance, plus packing fees were an hourly rate. And he estimated two days to pack everything.

We aren’t going with either company.

My older daughter and I have been purging like crazy. The only way to bring the cost down is to bring the weight down. Between the boxes and bins and bags we have already given away, donated, shredded and thrown out, I’m a bit surprised by how little is left to pack.  And some if it will be going with us in the van for the drive out, not with the movers. We will also be packing as much as possible ourselves, so that if there is anything left for the movers to pack, it won’t add more than a couple hundred dollars.

In my head, I know there is no way this move is going to be 10,000 pounds. I doubt we were ever that much to begin with.  We should be fine.

That isn’t stopping me from being in an almost constant state of low anxiety over it.

For the most part, I can look at the explosion that is the current state of our home, and know that most of what we are sifting through is not going with us. Intellectually, I know we will be fine.  And I know I tend to over estimate. The last time we had stuff hauled between provinces, I had estimated the weight and figured the cost out to be $1000.  The reality turned out to be half that. But in the back of my head is that constant niggling paranoia.  Those two high estimates are completely overriding the much more reasonable estimates I got.

In the end, we will not know for sure until the movers go through the government scales, which is what they use to base the final cost on.

And that uncertainty is like a worm, wriggling away in the back of my mind.

All I can do is just keep on purging.

The Re-farmer.