It's Not Perfect in Shafferland

Okay so here's the thing.

You know how it can be on all things social media. The complaining, the eternal verbal vomit, the dumping ground of emotions - all the things that make your roll your eyes and click NEXT!!!!!! I try so hard to make sure my Facebook page, my Instagram, my Twitter feed, and my blog stay free of that kind of drama. I don't want any of them to be places where people fear they may be reading another bitter diatribe. I want my world wide web spaces to be a mix of encouraging and funny and challenging, but never mean.

But I fear that in my quest to do that, some of you may have the {entirely false} understanding that things are rosy all the time in Shafferland. That we never get irritated, that we're super-people who do it all, all the time, with a smile.

Uh, no.

We get grumpy and cranky, just like everyone else. We have days that are not our finest and moments we are not proud of, and we go through our own set of injustices, irritants, and frustrations just like everyone else.

Enter today's story. I'm sharing it not to be ugly, but just because it got so flat out ridiculous, it must be told. {For our own Shafferland chronicle preservation, if nothing else.} So grab some coffee and sit right back.

Back in early March, Ryan ordered a package from ebay, which is not unusual for him...he's purchased from there many times. It so happened {much to my current chagrin} that while it was in transit to us, I went to the Post Office and updated our address so we could start getting mail at our new house. I was so excited that day; I'd never changed my address before, and I even documented the trip!

It took longer than we thought it should to start getting mail at our new house - and one of the things we were waiting for most urgently was this ebay package. Finally, when I thought enough time had passed, I went to the Post Office in Kokomo to ask for help. They told me it can take up to two weeks to start seeing mail again {no one mentioned that} and I needed to wait. That was fine, so we waited, and actually a couple of days later, mail started showing up.

We got all kinds of mail, including packages, but not the ebay package.

So Ryan got on ebay to check the status of the order and found out the package had been delivered to Marion and then returned to the sender instead of being forwarded to us, and we could not even contact the seller because in the meantime, the seller canceled her ebay account.

So Ryan opened a claim with ebay to at least get our money back, since we couldn't communicate with the seller or even leave a review stating what had happened, and days went by before we finally got a response from ebay.

They ruled in favor of the seller, stating we had an insufficient address and the package was therefore undeliverable. Our fault. End of story.

{I'm actually not sure how having TWO addresses is insufficient. Shouldn't that be classified as SUPERsufficient?}

I called ebay to try to get to the bottom of it, but of course they couldn't talk to me because I'm not Ryan. So I interrupted his project for him to give them permission, and I explained to the nice man on the phone that we did not have an insufficient address...we had taken every step to leave a forwarding address, and other packages got to us just fine, so why didn't that one? He said it was an issue with the Post Office, so I should take it up with them.

And you can know I did.

I called and they needed a tracking number, which of course was no longer on the ebay website because all the information regarding the purchase had been deleted along with Mrs. Seller's account. Ryan managed to find an old email with the shipping tracking number {YAY for email hoarding!!} and I called the Post Office back.

I got a very nice lady who took a long time researching it and even included a supervisor in the discussion, and eventually she told me that the seller had mailed the package in such a way that it required a return to sender rather than a forward in the event of a move. We would have to contact her to get it back, the Post Office said.

Yeah. Got that. Except SHE CLOSED HER ACCOUNT, REMEMBER???

So I called ebay back and unfortunately that time, I did not get a kind gentleman who oozed understanding. I got Mr. Impatient who wanted to interrupt my every sentence, and even went so far as to say rather sarcastically, "So you're telling me this woman knew you were going to move and did something just to get her package back?"

How in the WORLD did you get THAT out of my story? Of course she didn't know.

Mr. Impatient continued his rudeness and insults until finally he said he couldn't talk to me anymore because I wasn't the account holder {little late for that??} so I shoved the phone in Ryan's hand, gave him the "talk to the hand" and went in another room to count to ten about a hundred times.

At the end of that call {Mr. Impatient continued his loveliness with Ryan}, we were told we would have to get a letter from the USPS stating the package was marked returned to sender if we had any hope of getting our money back.

So the next day {because it was about 9 p.m. by that time} I called the USPS as soon as they opened and told my whole story AGAIN, and the lady said, "Oh we don't write letters here."

WHAT?? You're the Post Office! You know. CARRIER OF LETTERS.

She did give me another number to call, which I did, and I found out the entire menu of options only goes to voicemail, so I started calling back every hour and punching the next number on the menu, leaving the same message in every voicemail down the line.  

MERCIFULLY, because I think the Lord knew I was at the end of my pitiful mental rope, my kind-as-I-could-make it quip on Facebook about the debacle caught the attention of one of Ryan's co-workers. She asked him what was going on, and another co-worker overheard, and she had a connection at the local post office.

We have lift-off, people!!!!!

Her connection at the Marion post office was able to find a scan of our package when it arrived, and while it's dark and grainy, you can see where the package is marked return service requested. He faxed the scan to the Kokomo post office and I went to pick it up from the NICEST gentlemen I had encountered in this entire debacle. He was so sweet and I found out later he actually listens to WBCL and remembered me! Small world, and fun story!

So...we don't have a resolution yet, and I am thoroughly exhausted. Part of this exhaustion could be because in addition to the aforementioned adventure, I also spend every other day on the phone with our cable company, because every other morning when we wake up, the service is out, and we have to call and go through the menus and all the tests and wait 24 hours for a technician to come out and fix it so we can have cable for one more day before we start over. In six days, I met three separate technicians.

Ryan may be the one in our family who wanted to be a fire-fighter, but I'm pretty sure I'm the one who ended up with the job...this week, anyway!

The Shafferland Shuffle

* Last Sunday, we were still in Wisconsin, and we had the chance to attend church with Tom and Olivia {and hear the keynote speaker from the conference}. That afternoon, Olivia took us to a cute little coffee shop in their town, and that night, Ryan and I enjoyed some time alone together while they all went to their small group meeting. {Since it was our birthday trip, we figured, we needed some alone date time!}

 * Monday was our last day with Tom and Olivia, and while I haven't had a chance to tell you all about it yet, we got to visit a cheese factory {Ryan's big Wisconsin wish} AND go see the dairy farm where Tom works. Late that afternoon, we packed up our car to come home, since Ryan was still sick and needed to just get home to rest. The trip home was blissfully uneventful and MUCH less snowy than the trip UP!

* Tuesday, we had the entire day at home, and we had really been looking forward to that day of down time and productivity. Unfortunately we both had different goals out of the day and we failed to communicate them to each other and then everything that could go wrong DID {in the world of technology}, leaving us with no TV, no internet, and no smiles by the end of the day. {The one bright spot was we DID get to take a walk together!} Definitely not our best day and no way to end a vacation. 

 * Wednesday we returned to normal, and the cat and I curled up by the warmth of the sun coming through the window to work on computer stuff and do our devos and all that. I worked to do laundry and put things away, and I ended up with this one dish that I could not figure out my designated spot for. I'd had one, and then I used the dish, and then I couldn't remember where it was supposed to go. WHOOPSIE!!! And I spent my entire night on the phone with ebay and the US Postal Service, trying valiantly to win some justice for a purchase we made. My thoughts on THAT...

 * Thursday night, after Ryan got off work, we went back to our Marion house to get our lawn mower and some bookshelves, and spring was so beautiful there! :) On our way home, we went by Lowe's to pick up our new counter top for the wall we took down our first week in the new house. That thing is HEAVY. He's going to have to find muscular friends for that installation. I'm out.

* Friday was stunning, and I went for a walk around the neighborhood just because it was too pretty to stay inside! That night Ryan and I worked to clean out the shed, and then we put the cover on our new pirogi! Yep, our new house came with a pirogi, and while it is different from the last one we had, it is lovely and we are excited!

* Yesterday was a long day with hard work from sunrise to long after sunset, but it was so rewarding! We {along with my parents and our friends John and Sandee} moved all the stuff from our old garage to our new house. It was SO RELIEVING to get that all done!! There was a new{ish} donut shop in Marion that we ran out of time to try, so we made that our treat before the day began. OH. MY. WORD. It's good we're moving farther away. So grateful for the help of our friends and for a husband who perserveres in getting everything done well!

So. About This REST Thing

Between sniffles and travels, this was not the best fodder week for the podcast...SOOOOOO...we played a little game! Ended up having a lot of fun! Hope you enjoy it.

 Click to listen.

I've never been accused of being good at resting. And you know who is even worse at it than I am?

Ryan.

We like order, not chaos, which is why scenes like this make us crazy:

{That was our kitchen sink under there.}

Moving has been a giant test of our sanity. And it's tested Ryan's more than mine, since he's still been working full time throughout this entire thing.

It caught up with me first. I'm a writer, and I'm used to spending half my day at a desk, being creative. Two weeks of painting, wallpaper stripping, box hauling, and decision making left me hungry for creativity and just flat out exhausted from doing manual labor I'm not used to doing throughout the day.

My entire body ached, I couldn't keep my eyes open, and I felt like I needed to sleep for a week or two.

So I tried to rest. Tried to catch a 10 minute nap and slow down enough to let the aches work themselves out.

But Ryan never stopped. He worked hard all day, came home, and I could barely get him to sit down for dinner before he ran on to the next project. He hefted boxes, changed hardware, cleaned bathrooms, and did a million other little jobs on his way from one to the next.

So naturally, the day came when he strolled in the door after work and admitted he felt terrible. That his entire body ached, his throat hurt, he'd been sneezing all day, and whatever he just got over must be back.

It's hard to rest when you have so many things you want to do. I reminded him that we plan to live in this house for the rest of our lives, so we don't have to completely assemble it in one week flat.

We rush, rush, rush, and we shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't.

We should pause to rest. Pause to let our bodies catch up and our minds slow down. Pause to enjoy what's been accomplished so there can be an opportunity later to accomplish more and enjoy that.

God gave us a day of rest in every week, but that doesn't mean it's the maximum amount of time we can rest. It doesn't hurt to throw in a bit more now and then.

It's a lesson we haven't learned well, but I hope we eventually get the hang of it. 

SURPRISE! Howsabout We Move NOW????

Life has been nothing but a surprise this past week. We offer you our thoughts on the matter....

Click here to listen.

The same day we received an excellent inspection report on our new house {back in February} I started packing.

People teased me. People made flat-out-fun of me. Who starts packing in February when the anticipated move date is April 23rd?

People like me who have learned that nothing ever goes according to plan, and have the gut feeling that, in fact, this would go much FASTER.

I packed and packed. Every day. Organizing, purging, throwing away, setting aside for rummage, chronicling the journey in a scrapbook, sorting, wrapping, documenting in a binder, packing. The piles in our dining room reached almost to the ceiling {and we had tall ceilings} thanks to Ryan's superb Tetris-esque stacking skills.

I'm not kidding.

When we initially made the offer on the house, we asked if we could close on March 24th, which was the last possible day the previous owners could wait to close {we wanted to buy time for our own house to sell}, and they had asked for 30 days to leave the property. So we arranged a mental move date for the weekend of April 23rd.

In the counter-offering process, they threw in a concession to move out in 15 days instead of 30. And in our eagerness to move, we decided to leap forward and close as early as we could, which ended up being March 14th instead of March 24th. And on closing day, the sellers told us they'd be out within a week.

That's how we came to have our keys to the house on March 21, THREE DAYS before we ever thought we would even CLOSE.

This is why I started packing early.

And because our friends rock and helped us out so much in demo and painting and cleaning and {as you're about to read} MOVING, we were actually nearly fully moved to our new place by March 31.

WHAT!?!?

Here's how it started. {Part of this story is told in the podcast, too, but I wanted you to see pictures!}

Our friend Shawn had an unexpected vacation day last Tuesday. The weather was nice {for apparently the LAST time for a while} on that day, and he essentially donated his vacation day to help us move. Ryan was at work, and I was at the new house, cleaning with the {heavy} assistance of my friend Sandee. Shawn borrowed an enclosed trailer, drove to our old  house {probably an hour and a half drive for him}, loaded up every one of those Tetris-stacked boxes BY HIMSELF, drove back to our new house, I helped him unload, and then he and Sandee and I drove back to the old house, half-filled the trailer again, and unloaded a second time.

This was SO not in the plan. And yet it was SO amazing. We never dreamed we would get such a blessing!! {Of course when the three of us went back for load #2, Sandee and I just started dumping the remaining kitchen items in boxes that we didn't even bother to seal. I held the Kitchen Aid mixer in my lap on the way back to the new house. It wasn't organized. But it got done.

Because of Shawn's EXTREME generosity, we were able to go back two nights later to move the rest of the furniture and other things that we hadn't had time to grab on Tuesday. We had planned to load it all up into pickup trucks and flatbed trailers {again...friends who offered to help!} but the weather made that a questionable move, so my parents helped us out with a box truck - a blessing and a half! Ryan's brother came over to help carry the heavy stuff and my Mom stepped in to document a bit along the way. {Moving in fast forward meant FAR fewer pictures of the event than this scrapbooker is comfortable with. In fact, can someone pass me a brown paper bag? I need to breathe.}

It was dark and late when we got back to our new house, but Ryan and I unloaded everything off the truck except the heavy furniture.

And the next morning, his co-worker, Nick, came to help with the rest.

And that's how it happened that we moved almost a month early, and with a healthy mix of organization and extreme CHAOS!!!!!

Moving Braeya

I have to tell you guys about the day we moved Braeya to our new house. We hadn't known, going into all this, when we would actually move her over.

My original moving plan was to have one grand moving day, in which we would load up one house in the morning and unload at the new house in the evening and have all manner of Pinteresty signs for food at both locations, a photographer to capture the day, and the delivery of planned speeches for how loading and unloading would go.

In that moving plan, we would just take her with us when we went. Well, as you will soon read more about, that plan got ditched early on, so we had to decide when we were going to take her over. We decided to do it once we planned to sleep there full time, so last Tuesday morning was the day.

I had tried to warn Ryan about the intensity with which she hates her carrier and car rides. We'd gotten the cat carrier out of the garage as soon as we signed for this house, hoping she would get used it, want to sit in it, and be ready to travel on moving day.

F.A.I.L.

The problem with her carrier is that she IS the size of the carrier, so the ONLY way to get her inside is with her consent. She did not grant that. So this was as far into the carrier as we got her that morning.

We tried taking the lid off and putting her in from above and then putting the lid down over her. No.

We didn't have any sturdy enough boxes left.

Ryan remembered we had an old covered litter box in the garage, so we put her in that, slapped a piece of cardboard torn from an unused box over the opening and triple taped it shut.

We got her to the car {she was HOWLING so mournfully and I was sobbing} and got us all inside. We had not made it to the end of the block before she had busted through the front of that and started slinking through all the pillows and blankets we had put in the back of the car.

I was scared she'd go crazy and become a driving hazard, but in truth, she was too scared for that and just hunkered down at the back of the vehicle. We found her here when we opened the door at the new house:

I wondered if she would bolt, but she didn't. We petted her for a while, she glared back, and finally, she let Ryan pick her up and carry her inside.

We had previously carted over our loveseat, mostly so we had something there to sit on, and it turned out to be a blessing that it was there, because she actually loves that piece of furniture and seemed really happy to see it. Well, as happy as an angry and 100% traumatized cat can be.

She sat, very quietly, ignoring her toys that I gave to her, and completely not even caring about food or water.

Eventually I took her on a tour of the house, and I don't know if she got scared or lost, but she just plopped down here and refused to move for several hours:

My dad wanted to come see her; he thought it would help her if she got to see someone familiar.

Must have worked.  After he left, she walked around and started exploring. By the next day, she seemed much more at home, and as we brought more of the furniture in the house, she sort of figured out that this was really HER stuff, just in a new space.

So it's official. We can't move again in her lifetime. EVER.

The Shafferland Shuffle-Til-You-Drop

My goodness. WHAT A WEEK!!!!!! Let's just say it went NOTHING like we envisioned heading into it, but it was really wonderful anyway!

* Last Sunday was Easter, and while you've already read about that, I'll recap by saying we went to church and then to my parents' house for lunch, followed by a visit to Ryan's family for an Easter egg hunt. We were really excited that the day was so gorgeous, because by evening, it was a raining, hailing, windy mess. That wouldn't have been good for an egg hunt!

* Monday morning we were at Lowe's BEFORE IT OPENED. And when it opens at 6:30 in the morning, I submit to you that is TOO EARLY. I spent the day painting our kitchen {and touching up other paint around the house} and then that night, our friend Shawn came over WITH COFFEE and helped Ryan reinstall some kitchen cabinets that had been taken down during demo. He was such a blessing. I never would have been able to wrestle those cabinets. It took them forever and they knew what they were doing!!

* Tuesday will be a multi-post event, but just to preview for you what is coming...that was the day we moved Braeya to the new house. T.r.a.u.m.a.-r.a.m.a. It was so awful. She cried, I cried, and I was pretty sure she might have a little kitty heart attack on us. But we got her moved. And MUCH to our surprise, Shawn {see Monday} offered to drive to our Marion house, get all the boxes I'd packed, and move them TO our new house. We had no idea we would have all those things so quickly, and it was such a blessing! By the end of the day, I was able to start setting up the new kitchen, which I sorely needed for some normalcy in my life.

* Wednesday I worked at the new house all day, trying to get the kitchen fully set up and functioning, and then that evening, we drove to Marion {in the rain} to take down our built in bookshelves and take apart Mo and pack up a few more things. We had some helped lined up for Thursday evening to haul over furniture, so we wanted to be as ready for them as we could be. When we arrived, we discovered a "sale pending" sign in our yard. THAT MADE US SO HAPPY!!!!

* Thursday morning, I had to take our car in for servicing, so I took advantage of the dealership's free wifi and caught up online, since we still didn't have access at our new house. That night we planned to have a caravan of friends who owned trucks help us move our furniture. There was a 100% chance of rain and heavy wind, though, so my parents urged us to go the box truck route instead, and they were wise with that idea. Our crew for that evening ended up consisting of Ryan's brother, my parents, and the two of us, and we loaded up and headed for our new home!!

 * We had unloaded as much of the truck as we could do on our own Thursday evening, and then Friday morning, one of Ryan's strong co-workers came over to help him unload the heavy stuff. I worked all day, unpacking boxes, setting up the closet and the bedroom and even doing a little decorating in the kitchen. We also got our living room furniture in place and had our first Mo slumber party that night!

* Yesterday was our 40th monthiversary, and we actually had the day together! A Christmas miracle! {And it actually felt like Christmas, as the entire day was an Indiana nightmare of wind/sun/rain/snow that literally cycled through every five minutes.} Ryan and I started a project of putting stone on a wall, and I made my first dessert in our new house! It was a perfect day at home together.

Thank You Lord, It's Calmer This Year

You know how Facebook likes to remind you of your memories from a year ago on this day? Or two? Or three?

My feed has been flooded lately with pictures from three years ago. Three years ago when things looked a little bit like this:

Okay, so some things never change. We're still picture freaks with coffee in our hands. But this was day one of our engagement photo shoot. Day one of worrying about whether or not the weather would hold...if all the pictures would get taken before the sun slid down...if the hair would sit still on a breezy autumn evening...day one of marking things off endless to-do lists.

Days like this one:

 Days when my hair was bad but I couldn't do anything about it because I was growing it out for a wedding. Days when we took the ONLY free day we had for miles to come and spent it road-tripping to bigger cities to knock out important stuff like finding a wedding ring for Ryan, a wedding outfit for Ryan, outfits for our groomsmen, bouquets for our bridesmaids...and this stop at Build-a-Bear to make the honorary bridesmaid and groomsman bears for our posthumous duo.

Days like this one:

...when God was gracious enough to let me find "the one" on the second try. When something I liked online actually worked ON ME. Days when my family and friends and co-workers sacrificed their time and came to be part of one of the most memorable days.

Days like this one:

...when I had a bridal shower and a bachelorette party in the same day because it fit for the one weekend my best friend could fly into town for pre-wedding festivities. Days when I met people in Ryan's family I'd never met before and tried to keep all their names straight. Days when I opened present after present and tried to balance between lingering in joy and moving along for the sake of those watching. Days when I ate delicious food {but with the dress in mind}.


And there was so much more. Evenings spent designing invitations, writing our program, writing our ceremony, making favors, going over the detail list AGAIN...

That was then.

And I loved everything about that season. It was so short and I made myself focus enough to savor every little bit of it. I wanted to remember it forever, and I still remember.

But ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh how glad I am it's this year and not three years ago. Not because it was bad then, but because breathing now is such a joy. SUCH a joy.

Ever have a season like that? You loved it and cherish it...but you are thanking the Lord it's calmer now?