Moving a Blue Hydrangea

You know the scene from Rocky Balboa where he's training by running up the stairs? Yeah, the one with the theme song playing ... da da daaaaa .... da da daaaaa ..... yeah that one.

That was me on Saturday. Well, okay, my sweatshirt was black, not gray. Okay, and I look nothing like Sylvester Stallone. But the stairs - that was me - running the stairs.

We were helping our friends move out of their apartment, way up on the third floor. Everything had to come down to the Uhaul parked below and be carefully arranged and stacked by these two guys - my dad and Mr. Gooseshooter.

Notice the hands in the pockets? The relaxed 'lean' against the Uhaul? They were busy. No, really, they were but they weren't running stairs!

All of our friends belongings had to be carried or hand trucked down this flight of outdoor, concrete stairs ...

.... and this flight ....and this flight ...My legs are still aching. I'm not complaining though! I'd still have helped out even if they'd had four more flights of those stairs! I'm just making note of how out of shape I am! I don't remember my legs aching after helping these friends move into this apartment last year. Maybe it's being a year older , maybe it's because I just had a baby 5 months ago? Yeah, we'll blame it on the baby. Still, that sounds wimpy, especially when joining us to help with this move were our friends 'Wilsonclan.' The female Wilsonclan member is 20 weeks pregnant and she too was hauling things down the stairs and I bet her legs aren't aching! Tiny little thing. I'm glad I'm not pregnant the same time she is. I'd just look pathetic. She and Mr. Wilsonclan hummed the Rocky theme song for us as we went up the flights of stairs - back and forth, back and forth.

Moving our friends is actually more like fun than work - this has become an almost annual tradition, gathered together with Mr. and Mrs. Gooseshooter, Mr. and Mrs. Wilsonclan and Wilsonclan's mother, even James was back from space ( or Korea ) to join in! We get a lot of visiting in as we pass each other on the stairs to grab another load. Our friends got safely moved into their newly purchased house which you can see at the Blue Hydrangea. ( We even moved the blue hydrangea - it was heavy - it will look great in it's new yard! ) and Mr Wooley, although he did not look too happy confined in his kitty crate, I'm sure will adjust very well to his new home. We noticed the little yapping dog next door looks to be slightly smaller than Mr. Wooley so shouldn't be a problem and maybe they'll strike up a friendship?

At any rate, these friends, we know, would drop everything to come help us out and have before in the past. ( They were there for us, bringing us hot food and coffee when the huge storm December of '06, took down the tent we lived in for 6 months and we had no power.) These are good friends, friends for over 25 years, and any chance to get together is a chance we grab, even if it means aching legs for a few days after. We can actually say, we'll miss the annual moving party and maybe we'll just have a party each year to celebrate not moving? Congratulations on your new house and can't wait to see how you make it into your new HOME!

(To view the blogs of our friends and family just click on their highlighted names. )