if you don't have a home / you can buy one there

[raven]

In lieu of actually telling y'all about the Great House Move '11 (there have been tears! there have been fears! there have been BOXES), I think I will just heave a sight of relief and flump on the sofa.

...but we've moved! Thank you, everyone who helped and cheerled; it took three days, a transit van, a lot of loving and kind relatives (Shim's dad, on realising exactly how much stuff can fit in my mum's car, noted that "That car's like a TARDIS"; my mother, on the other hand, cheerfully said it reminded her of the human vagina) and me driving fifty miles down country A-roads swearing all the way, but somehow we've made it and we have a place and it has stuff in it. I am still a little thrown for a very big loop. Shim has been making lists and measuring rooms and contemplating bookcases. I have been wandering around going, "Wow, we have a bathtub. Wow, we have a kitchen table. Wow, we have supporting walls."

(Speaking of which, people who can actually drive, how can you? I started learning to drive when I was eighteen, passed my driving test in 2007, have intermittently driven since, have driven a number of different cars, have practised in car parks and pestered my incredibly patient and wonderful former driving instructor, and I still can't drive. It's amazing. I don't know how other people manage it.)

Internet is spotty - this is a dongle - so I may not be around very much. But... we made it.

Comments

[gool_duck]

*\o/* pom-pom waving for you.

[philomytha]

Congratulations on the move!

And beats me about the driving. Theoretically, I have a driver's license. In practice, I practically have a panic attack when I have to drive anywhere unfamiliar or on complicated roads. I look at people behind the wheels of cars and marvel at how they do it. It's evidently possible, but I think I have the wrong circuits in my head or something.

[eruthros]

\o/ for the move! I hope your settling-in process goes well :)

[livrelibre]

yay on the new place (and your mom is hilarious)! As for driving I was convinced I would kill someone at first and refused to do it but then ended up having to do it a lot to get around where I lived at the time. Now I don't often but I find it is like riding a bike. If I don't think about it too hard I am fine.

[petra]

This is how I feel about driving. There were various instances during my learning to drive in which I confidently informed the people in my vehicle that I was going to kill everyone in there.

Mind you, one of those instances was the time they stuck me in a pickup truck for the first time and pointed me down a road with a very steep hill and a 15-mile-an-hour curve in it. That was just asking for firey death at the bottom of the cliff.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Yay for supporting walls! Glad you survived it all, despite the driving.

[icepixie]

Yay for surviving a move!

have intermittently driven since

That's the ticket--you have to do it every day, and you have to do it without anyone else in the car. Having an actual commute, and having to drive to get anywhere from a grocery store to a library to anywhere else I needed to go on a semi-regular basis was the key to getting over my timidity about it. The more experience I got, especially with traffic, the less similar situations scared me. And now it's just another mildly unpleasant but necessary chore like washing dishes or doing laundry.

(YMMV, of course, but that's what worked for me. Good luck!)

[fyrdrakken]

I kind of felt that way when I took driver's ed in high school and discovered that A) the actual practice in physically driving a car would last only one week and B) I was one of only about four people in the class who couldn't already drive perfectly well. Which might have been because I was in a high school in a rural location, where older friends or siblings or parents were prone to sticking the kid learning to drive into a car on a country road or a large bit of private property and letting them get in a fair bit of road time even if they weren't old enough to get a learner's permit yet. My father said he needed to do that with me and never did, but my mother took me out to a few empty parking lots and whatnot, as well as letting me be the one to drive on short trips once I had my permit. Still took a while before I was really comfortable behind the wheel.

[eternalwings.livejournal.com]

That lack of driving is your problem :P I learnt to drive, then had to drive myself to college/uni every morning so you get used to it! It's like if you did something everyday without stop, you'd get used to it!

Driving still legit scares me sometimes though!

[manynames.livejournal.com]

My driving instructor told me that you passed your test, then you learnt to drive and it took something like three years of consistent, every day driving before you actually knew how to drive. I'm never going to be one of life's great drivers (five years if driving and I still get anxiety attacks if I have to drive at rush hour) but I'd definitely agree with that. And congratulations on moving with everything important intact! I moved the same weekend and I can so see now why it registers so high on the stressful life events scale.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

YAAAAAY!

my mother, on the other hand, cheerfully said it reminded her of the human vagina

I definitely laughed out loud at this. Such an accurate metaphor, too. :)

Re: driving: you know me, twenty-five and don't even have a learner's permit any more. It is beyond me how anyone ever drives.

[tau_sigma]

Do you like driving? Because I think that helps an awful lot. I love driving, I really enjoy it, and I had wanted to learn to drive ever since I was ten, because that's when my sister was 17. I think it helps.

Hooray for your move! Very many well dones, and oh, your mother. *g* Hee!

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

I dislike driving, and moving. Both are disruptions to the soul. I have had to do an awful lot of both over the years. Hope you can stay happily stationary for as long as you want, now. I am happy for you.

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

Supporting walls! Of your very own! *beaming*

[not-vacillating.livejournal.com]

Hurray for new houses, supporting walls, etc.! Re. driving, you are better than I am already so I can't help with that. I have suspended my attempts to learn to drive, after failing two tests, to try and get my health sorted out - bursting into tears randomly and being on medication that makes one drowsy all the time are contraindications for driving practice.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Shim's dad, on realising exactly how much stuff can fit in my mum's car, noted that "That car's like a TARDIS"; my mother, on the other hand, cheerfully said it reminded her of the human vagina

Your mum sounds as if she would get on wonderfully with my mum.

Congratulations on having accomplished the move! Enjoy shelving the books (no lie, I am deeply excited about the day I will have a place of my own with enough space for ALL THE BOOKS and will get to arrange them as I see fit).

[marymac.livejournal.com]

House! Awesome! It's the time of year for it. My new housemate is currently sitting in the living room surrounded by Piles Of Stuff going making pathetic meep noises.

[bekkypk.livejournal.com]

I struggle with my driving. I have days where I'm like an animal in headlights - I can see where I need to get to and I see nothing else - and I have days where I am pretty damn good considering I've been driving 18 months but the amount of times I've left the house in the car is probably less then 50.
But I do struggle with the road outside the house as weel - I live on the main road, on a bend in said road, so it's just bloody insane for most of the day. To visit my friend on the other side of the city I have to wait until after 7pm, or I can't get off the bloody drive!
I hate driving during the day. But! When I went down to P's (3.5 hour trip) I went at 3am. And it was absolutely brilliant. Best drive EVAH.

Yay of house!

The vagina bit made me lol :D
xx