*Truck beeping.
'Here we are' my mum announces in a cheerful voice as we pull up in front of the house. Well, this is it.
Our new home, a corner lot home in a family friendly neighbourhood. The house is over 200 years old, but has had extensions and updates over the years, but its roots are over 200 years old. Mum has already chosen our rooms, I'll be on the first floor. In the old study. In total there are eleven bedrooms and seven bathrooms in this house.
It has a finished basement, and the fourth floor is basically just a loft. So the attic is in pretty good condition. I like the character of this house.
My room, you have to enter it under the staircase. There is a slight hallway, on one side of the wall, has a walk-in wardrobe on one side and the other has a bathroom. The walk-in wardrobe actually used to be a panic room. According to some people, but really, it was a place to store valuables, collectables and rarer objects, because you don't just have those things laying around.
My room is really nice. It's 400 square feet, a wall, could say it's a feature wall, it has built-in bookshelves all the way from the ceiling to waist level, there is a track where a ladder used to be on. The bathroom is really nice, the walk-in too. My view is to the side of the house. On the side of the house, where you enter the front gate, so I just see our white fence and plants in the garden bed along the house, and there is a small hedge along the fence.
My things are brought in, I have a queen size bed, two rugs, bedside table set, a desk, a comfy office chair, a couple plants and then my book collection. It will be a while to sort those out. I also have a couple bags and my wardrobe. My wardrobe fit in two large suitcases, then my shoes I just placed in a duffle bag.
My books, I bubble wrap, because I can. My books are my prized objects, I spend a lot of my time reading. I often read to my younger siblings, they love hearing the stories.
While we all gather in the living room, on the main floor, just on your left when you exit the mudroom, now mum is telling us, she has some documents to fill out at the hospital. Mum is a trauma surgeon, so, yeah, it becomes clearer how we can afford to live in such a place. She takes off, leaving us here. On her way out she takes out her card, tells me to go buy groceries with my siblings.
So, after the trucks are all unloaded, we'll go out shopping. There is a map for the movers to know where to go. And two moving trucks later and they were all done, we had our other two cars towed here. Mum insisted on us all arriving at the same time. Our cars are a family van, a SUV and a Jeep. The jeep is like a right of passage?, when you get your licence, you drive that car. A fact about our family, we all started school a year early.
I locked up the house, and took the family van.
Mum took the SUV.
It was about a 10-12 minute drive to the nearest supermarket, had to use the GPS, we get there, we take two trolleys, I get one, Scott and Justin take another, I got Isaac in the front of my trolley, I got a trolley with a baby holder, while Scott and justin got a trolley with a toddler and small child seat, for Anna.
We go up and down the aisle, I did tell them, they must stick to the list, our list has over a 100 products on it, we start at opposite ends of the supermarket and work our way to the middle, Scott and Justin are both very responsible, I trust them to get what is on the list, and if they want to get a treat to reward themselves for helping me, they can go ahead.
We got a pantry to fill, we also have a two door freezer and a two door fridge, as well as a snack fridge in our basement, and a mini fridge in the second living room.
It's kind of a tradition, when you turn 13, you are seen as a teenager and you get a mini-fridge in your own room. Because normally at that age, you would get a job and start buying things, things you don't want everyone to eat. Hunter left his, so I will set it up in his room, Kimberly took hers with her to her new apartment, to save her having to buy herself a fridge, and mine is in my room, this year Scott got his fridge, year before Justin got his.
So, this is when we first officially got noticed by the local people living in this area.
A woman, with her trolley, above the side rails, our carts bump as I go around the corner, as she did, 'you are going the wrong way' she says, 'sorry… didn't see arrows on the ground to tell me I am going the wrong way' I say, there are no arrows on the ground, I will clarify.
She gives me a look, and a moment of silence, 'well, aren't you going to move?', 'no… don't think I will' I say, she scoffs, 'do you realise who you are talking to?' she asks, 'Lilith' a man says coming over, 'must you pick a fight with everyone?' he asks, obviously her husband, and he has to keep her in check often, I hear Scott and Justin, 'thanks' I say, while looking at him, 'no bother, do it all the time', I smirk, 'I bet' I say, I go down the aisle, 'better not have gotten those $12 yoghurts packs' I shout down the aisle, 'why not?!', 'because you got the same brand, in large packets, for a $1 each, get 10 for $8 get those' I scowl at them, they groan struggling to turn the trolley around.
We reach the checkouts, two trolleys, cold things first, I get the freezer bags set up, Landon jumps up and down with excitement, as I let him get a marvel magazine with a watch in it. Despite being like $14.99. It's so worth it, to see him so excited.
'Feeding an army?' Lilith mumbles to herself, 'eyes on your own cart' her husband says, 'Jeremy, something seems off about those kids' 'you are being paranoid… again, they are new to the area and you are not making the best of impressions' her husband says, lucky the conveyor belt was long enough to just fit an entire trolley on it, so we can start packing it up.
Doesn't seem as much as it really is when it is neatly packed into bags. I use Mum's credit card and pay for the $317.42.
We recently got out of hibernation. We are in the first days of November, when we left water, our things were already in a storage shed, just needed to be loaded into the trucks, we spent two nights in a hotel, before officially moving into the house.
We go out to the parking lot, we begin loading things into the trunk of the car and leg spaces on our seats, even packing it onto their laps. We're a fully stocked car, but we made sure to get Isaac and Anna in first. Justin being the second eldest gets the front seat. He beat Scott with a shotgun. Justin helps me put the trolleys away, as no one can get out of the car, because they are packed in.
Lilith just watches us, as her husband loads up the car. 'Whatever you are thinking, no, now, help me by packing these in' her husband says, 'I know, I seem like I need to know everyone's business Jere, but I feel something is off about that family?' Lilith says, (her husband's name is Jeremy).
He ends up packing all the groceries away, almost left without her, when she continues to watch us, even as we drive out of the parking lot, I have a P plate on the car. I was lucky enough to finish my L's before we went into hibernation. I'm turning seventeen on the 17 on the fifteenth of December.
We unpack the car, with everything loaded up, I can make a start on dinner, while I make dinner, I unpack the cutlery and tupperware. Using my label maker, everything has its place. Everything checked off of the list, while dinner cooks, which I set a timer on, I get some more of my books on the shelves, I packed them away to my liking, so it'd be easier to put them back up on the shelves, I actually have a lot of leftover shelving, I own a total of 178 books. I've managed to fill up an entire three shelves, so I move the books to the middle of the wall and just put some things on the higher shelves.
I serve dinner, we eat. I stack up the dishes, gathering the mess to the kitchen, letting their dinner settle. Before I give Isaac and Anna a bath, everyone in their pyjamas and brush their teeth, all of us sit in the second living room, on the second floor, which is just to the right as you get off of the staircase and I read a couple chapters to them, or to be more precise twenty-seven pages.
I carry everyone to their beds. Before I go downstairs, and clean up the living room and kitchen, ready for tomorrow, I keep the baby monitor with me. Isaac is in the bedroom on the first floor, just across from mine, there are only three bedrooms on the first floor. The house was originally only a storey tall, there is my room, Isaac's nursery and the master bedroom. There is also the basement which is also original. The first floor has had extensions, like the front and back deck, a bathroom, knocking down walls, to make the space more open, covering up the hardwood in the living spaces with carpet, the first floor living room, you have to go down a step, a nice touch, floor to ceiling, thin windows. With long curtains, a fireplace out of commission but still beautiful.
I finished cleaning up the kitchen and it was almost a quarter past eleven. I take a hot shower, before climbing into bed. Well, onto my mattress, I didn't set up my bed frame quite yet, my mattress still has its plastic on. I like it having no stains. But after putting a comforter on it, you can barely hear the plastic when you move around on it. Getting to bed, it was almost midnight.
Hopefully tomorrow will be better, I have the alarm on my phone set for six in the morning. So I can get the house in order without everyone around me. Good Night.