Saturday, March 30, 2013

Are you moving any time soon? By Linda Kozar

A message from Linda Kozar:

I've moved twelve times in my life, so far and that's just average. How many times have YOU moved?

Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation is an anthology of true stories about moving. You'll enjoy reading about other people who relocated and re-motivated after their moving adventures.

For instance, the disastrous move Connie Power and her family went through...


A Murphy’s Law Move
By Connie Power
Of the seventeen moves my husband and I made in our thirty years of marriage, one was particularly memorable.

My husband and I had just sold our larger house in Arlington, Texas and were excited about an anticipated move to Colleyville. Our two oldest children were in college and our youngest would be starting his senior year of high school in the fall. We could now purchase a comfy, smaller home and trade time spent attending youth sports activities and doing yard work for more time for the two of us to pursue our own interests. We were very excited about discovering just what those might be!

Our pert, super-efficient, female real estate agent had done a remarkable job selling the house for us. She knew it well because she had sold it to us six years before. Knowing our propensity for relocating, she had kept in touch, driving over from her office in Grapevine each Christmas to deliver a very handsome gift. No stale fruitcakes from Julie Ann! She was, however, extremely vexed that she had been unable to find a house for us to purchase yet, but I had assured her that we could manage in a nice apartment for a month or two while we kept looking for a house.

Moving day arrived and while we waited for the expensive hourly movers to arrive, my husband was on his computer, giving away as many of our belongings as possible, so we wouldn’t have to pay to move them, store them, and move them again. Since we thought we would be buying another home within a month or two, we decided to use PODS, which are portable storage containers. Theoretically, your belongings can stay in the rented POD at the storage location until needed, saving wear and tear on furniture and other treasured possessions.

The man in charge of our move was Tony. The man had sworn up and down that he and his crew were experts at loading PODS. I had insisted on hiring the movers myself because my husband might have hired someone incompetent . . .

This is a good place to interject that while in the middle of last minute packing the day before, I had just found out that our oldest son, Justin, would be in from UT that weekend. He had to take the train from Austin to Ft. Worth because we had taken away his car (long story). I had no idea why he wanted to come for a visit, but didn’t give the matter much thought. I had more important things on my mind.

That drizzly morning, before the movers arrived, I walked one of our friends out to her car, apologizing that my husband had already given away the bookcase she wanted. Our driveway was on a steep incline (a hill, really) and the combination of my flat tennis shoes with rubber soles, the wet pavement, and my inattention, produced a disastrous effect. 

Suddenly my feet flew out from under me and my entire body was catapulted against the concrete. As I lay on the driveway, struggling to stay conscious, I somehow managed to reassure my friend I was all right. But I was far from all right.

I don’t remember how my husband found out what had happened. He was inside the house, still trying to give away our stuff, but I do remember asking him in a weak voice to call an ambulance.
I honestly thought I had broken my tailbone. Somehow, I had managed to scoot a couple of inches onto the wet grass, where I battled nausea and loss of consciousness. While waiting there for the ambulance and the expensive hourly movers, a morbid thought crossed my mind.
Is this it? Is this how I’m destined to meet my Maker? Wet, broken, and waiting on yet another moving van?

The ambulance finally arrived. After the X-ray in the hospital showed nothing was broken, I asked to be released as soon as possible. I needed to be at home to oversee the movers, though I still couldn’t stand up straight or lift anything.

My husband was home, in the midst of the move, so he sent our son, Justin, to pick me up at the hospital—an action that did nothing to relieve my stress level. But eventually I was back home—which is when the day actually got worse.

As I mentioned before, Tony was the supposed “brains” of the moving operation. But the man kept getting into long conversations with anyone about anything that would keep him from working or paying attention to important details.

Then it finally dawned on me why our son had come in from college that weekend. He thought he might be able to get his car back from us (long story). Fat chance. So my husband had to leave in the middle of everything to take him back to the train station.

Next, I discovered that the movers had placed our boxes of breakable items on the bottom of the stacks in the POD. Our expensive leather couch was packed standing on its arm!

That night, many hours after the whole moving fiasco should have been over, one of the movers fell through the roof in the garage! Thankfully, he wasn’t hurt. But I sure wanted to hurt someone.
After about a month, things were looking up. The pain in my tailbone and spine subsided. We hired different guys to unload our PODs and moved them to a house we’d leased short term. However, our “short term” leasing situation lasted for over a year.

But the good news is, a few months later we let Justin have his car back. 


Linda Kozar is the co-author of Babes With A Beatitude—Devotions For Smart, Savvy Women of Faith (Hardcover/Ebook, Howard/Simon & Schuster 2009) and author of Misfortune Cookies (Print, Barbour Publishing 2008), Misfortune Cookies, A Tisket, A Casket, and Dead As A Doornail, (“When The Fat Ladies Sing Series,” eBooks, Spyglass Lane Mysteries, 2012). Strands of Fate released October 2012 (Hardcover/Ebook, Creative Woman Mysteries) and her nonfiction title, Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation, released in 2013 (Indie-Published). She received the ACFW Mentor of the Year Award in 2007, founded and served as president of Writers On The Storm, The Woodlands, Texas ACFW chapter for three years. In 2003, she co-founded, co-directed and later served as Southwest Texas Director of Words For The Journey Christian Writers Guild. She and her husband Michael, married 24 years, have two lovely daughters, Katie and Lauren and a Rat Terrier princess named Patches.

Represented by: Wendy Lawton, Books & Such Literary Agency

Member of: CAN (Christian Authors Network), RWA (Romance Writers of American), WHRWA (West Houston Romance Writers of America), ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), Writers On The Storm, The Woodlands, Texas Chapter of ACFW, Toastmasters (Area 56) The Woodlands, Texas, The Woodlands Church, The Woodlands, TX.

Linda Kozar is the author of six books. Her latest, titled “Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation,” is a collection of stories from people who experienced the good, the bad and the ugly when they moved. www.lindakozar.com  http://bookishdesires.blogspot.com


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