.:our series of unfortunate events:.

So if you're wondering where your photos are...

WARNING: Ignore all grammar and typographical errors. I'm sure this post is full of them, but I don't care to proofread and fix them this time. Consider it part of the charm of this text-heavy post.

I am absolutely 100% sure that this will be extremely comical in the near future. Right now... it's only slightly funny.

Here is a timeline of events from the last two weeks of Brian and I's life. I like to to call it, "Mallory & Brian's personal testimony of Murphy's Law"

Monday:

Call internet provider and have them turn off internet at old house and turn on in new house on Thursday as move-in date is set for Wednesday

Tuesday:

Get call from management company of new house stating the owner hasn't cleaned it and it will not be ready until Friday.

Wednesday:

Sit in frustration that you can't be moving when you really need to. Walk to the new house (which is in sight from old home's front porch) and find there are still items from the last renters in the yard that do not appear as if they will be picked up.

Thursday:

Lose internet connection--no photography can be uploaded.

Friday:

First day in new place: discover that the internet doesn't work in new place. Call internet company who says they can get there on Monday. Find the kitchen is absolutely full of some insects that appear to be gnats but are probably fruit flies (yum!) and that there is a water drip under the sink that appears it has been in existence for some time as the board underneath is completely rotten. Make note to self to get fly paper when we return. Get a few minor furniture objects moved and then head out for wedding to shoot in another state.

Saturday:

Shoot said wedding (which was absolutely lovely and lifted our spirits from the past few days' fiascos) then find out when you get to the hotel (in another state) at 10 p.m. that your room was apparently booked for the previous night and there's no hotel rooms open for 50 miles because of several events. Oh well, the pool closed at 10, anyway, and that was the part I was looking forward to the most. Drive an hour and a half to in-law's home and stay there.

Sunday:

Drive back to Missouri to new house and move bed. Have your truck just mysteriously die. Get a chance to look at the house. Find multiple murals that the previous renters left behind that will have to be painted over. Kind of endearing. Explore new basement (the door of which to get to it still has one of those super old keyholes to which we do not have a key--but it looks cool!)

and notice multiple "fixed patches" that surely mean that the foundation and all that is contained within it are structurally sound. Find raccoon tracks. Joy. Several people offer the suggestion of trapping the animal. Then what do you do with it? I personally do not want to meet a wild raccoon face to face--dead or alive. Maybe if we ignore it, it will go away?

Monday:

While waiting for internet company to show up to connect internet so you can help your customers, discover that large quantities of water are streaming through ceiling/window of back room. Spend all day moving buckets of water into the kitchen sink to avoid catastrophe. Find out when said internet man shows up that apparently out of the 6 telephone jacks in the new place, none are actually connected to a phone line. Internet man offers to run line for $85/hour. Call internet company and cancel service and call other internet company and start service--they can't come out until Thursday. Guess no one's getting their photos this week. Try truck again. Get stranded at pharmacy across the street because it breaks down again.

Tuesday:

Management company comes over and tells you that the hole in the back room with the water streaming is the owner's problem because they can't patch the roof anymore. Will have to wait for him. Discover that the garage, where the studio was going to go, has major roof leaks. Will have to come up with new plan.

Wednesday:

Move most large furniture items with help of family and their truck. Tow non-operating truck to repair shop in hopes they can figure out what went wrong. Discover that with previous foundation work done the stairs are now too narrow for washer and dryer to get to basement where the hookups are. Have to remove part of the wall to get them down there. Surprisingly find that the last tenants didn't correctly hook up their washer with the pipes, which probably caused a lot of the flooding that is apparent in the basement. Inspect the non-working koi pond in the backyard which now seems to not only be filled with water from the rain, but also contain several other foreign objects that I am positive do not belong in a koi pond.

Thursday:

Have internet hooked up only to have it go down ten minutes later as they are "working on the lines" to upgrade everyone's internet. Perfect timing. Get a call from management company letting you know that they have scheduled your check-out date on Monday the 22nd rather than Tuesday the 30th and did not inform you prior to the call. Will somehow have to move everything without the truck (still at the shop) and clean other house by Monday at 9 a.m. all the while shooting a wedding and rehearsal an hour away.

Friday:

Wake up to discover that there is now green mold and water damage on the ceiling of said back room. In addition, there are three claw-like black stringy things growing out of window frame below hole in the wall that look like a spawn of Satan is trying to rip into the house. [It looked more menacing in real life when you walked into the room.] Call to management company that we are not inhabiting this place until this is fixed.

[UPDATE: The management company came immediately on Friday after we called them in hysterics and did find the leak, patch it, then got rid of "Satan's claw," which apparently was a fungus. The head maintenance fellow they sent out reiterated that the mold was not harmful and, to prove his point, wiped some off of the ceiling in front of Brian and licked his hand. Needless to say, we feel better now that there is no longer a fungus claw staring at us every time we enter the back room. In addition, I also figured out that the raccoon probably got in the basement when the management company left the door from the garage to the basement open the day before we moved in as it was open when we got there. The raccoon apparently was just curious. I think he's just confined to the garage. Whew!]