Sunday, April 26, 2015

Why moving sucks (possibly part one)


We moved!


I'm thrilled to be a homeowner and I love the house. But holy crap moving is a freaking nightmare.


There's a nursing home around the corner. That will be our next and final move.

One thing I really do not recommend is moving out a third floor apartment with an infant. And I can't even really complain because I mainly hung out with Dalton while Eric moved stuff. I did wear him and move most of our clothes down to the car and various other things.

There are two main problems with moving.

1. WHERE THE HELL IS ALL MY STUFF?

We carefully packed up and labeled all the boxes, thinking that would help. Tuesday morning, our first day in the new house, knowing that my hair gel (ESSENTIAL for a curly haired girl) was in a box neatly labeled "bathroom" somewhere in one of the giant towers of boxes in one of the rooms, probably Dalton's or the guest room, where people were sleeping, was absolutely no help. We'd also left the coffee in the apartment. I could, however, immediately locate important items like my cupcake carrier, and other things that I use about once a year. Those were right on top, naturally. We had about 40 people coming to observe our school that day, so an excellent time to show up at work looking terrible.

Maybe if it had just been the two of us, we could have planned better and this wouldn't have been such a problem. Everything essential for Dalton was no problem to find right away, so I guess we focused our efforts on that. Because GOD FORBID he sleep without white noise.

2. You still have to do daily life tasks.

The natural inclination, for me, was to immediately open and unpack every single box. It was insanely annoying to discover that I couldn't devote all my efforts to that. I still had to cook, clean, do laundry, do dishes, teach children, be a mom. and, most importantly, blog. Since I had barely been able to stay on top of all those things pre-move, it didn't allow for much time to unpack. We also moved during the week report cards are do, so I had that other huge task on top of my normal work responsibilities.

Eric really wasn't able to help much with unpacking because he was dealing with insurance after finding out his car was totaled, an immediate drainage problem that resulted in the need for a plumber, and just the general heavy lifting of moving and owning a house. Insurance paid for a rental for a generous three whole days after telling us the car was totaled, so that was helpful, especially with two of them being work days.

We're currently a one car family. We were going to rush out Saturday and buy a second car, but luckily the new house is super close to my job (like walking distance) and we really want to think about this big life decision for half a second. Not to mention we can't exactly test drive cars easily with our need for one of our family members to ride in a car seat.

For all my bitching and moaning, it's really not all bad. There's some serious happiness in my life, despite all the unpacked boxes.

First of all, WE NOW OWN THESE.


I knew I would be thrilled to have a washer/dryer after FIVE YEARS of using quarters and recently carrying laundry around while wearing a baby. And washing poop in the bathtub. But there was truly no way to predict just how much joy doing laundry anytime I feel like, no quarters required. It's just such a beautiful thing. I could stare at that picture all day.

2.
A lawn!!
We are in a weird cold snap, severe enough that I had to wear capris and long sleeves to run at 2pm yesterday. So we haven't enjoyed it as much as we want to yet, but we have a lifetime to do so. Around here, it's a huge deal to find a house in our price range with a real lawn. What doing laundry meant to me, mowing the lawn meant to Eric. Yes, we know we are invited over to your house to do those things since we love it so much. We've heard that joke from everyone and their mom, including the Walmart employee who sold Eric the mower.

3. Our knight in shining armor
He took his life in his hands for us.

My stepfather came down for over a week to "help" us paint, but really paint for us, so beautifully that no one would know we didn't hire a professional, unless they read the blog.

Behind the fridge

 He also was here for comcast, the plumber, comcast again when it didn't work, etc, so we didn't have to take off from work. His help also included just general "man" stuff that he was able to help Eric with, which had the added bonus of me not even needing to hear about it, much less help.

4. Two bathrooms

I think we can all agree that sharing one bathroom isn't helping anyone's marriage. As adorable as the ducky tub is, it was a real pain in the ass to move it all around, all wet, when we wanted to take a shower. Now the duck has it's own tub.


6. This face


That's not really move specific. I did complain about moving with a baby, and logistically, there's no doubt it's more challenging. But anytime I would get stressed about something stupid, like not being able to do dishes or find my hair gel, that smile instantly made everything better. If I didn't have him to cheer me up, I probably would have been miserable. The other night, the three of us were sitting on the floor in Dalton's room. He was rolling around between us and being all cute and cracking us up, and we were doing silly things to try to get him to laugh, and I was just like...this is it. Life does not get better than this. 

Let's share! Choose one or both.
  • Moving horror stories
  • Organizational ideas, especially for limited kitchen cabinet space and people who love cooking gadgets

13 comments:

  1. When we moved into our house, we decided to never move again. And that was before kids and we were going from an apartment to a bigger house. I don't want to even think about what it will be like moving from this house.

    I'm going to have nightmares now.

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  2. Roll out kitchen shelves! We have a TINY kitchen, with very limited cabinet space. We hired a guy to make and install rolling out shelves in the bottom cabinets (total cost about $300), and I swear my storage space tripled just because I can pull out each shelf and see everything. He accidentally made an extra shelf, so I had him install it right under (like, 2 inches below) one of the other shelves and it is where all the tupperware lids live now. You have no idea the luxury that this is in my world.

    Also these: http://www.amazon.com/Shop-Fox-D3067-Full-Ext-100-Pound/dp/B0000DD4AJ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1430076836&sr=8-3&keywords=soft+close+drawer+slides

    And these: http://www.amazon.com/Blumotion-Hinge-Adapter-Compact-Spacer/dp/B006X2W3T0/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1430076755&sr=8-4&keywords=soft+close+cabinet+door+damper
    (Ikea sells a plastic version of these, they are crap and break right away.)

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  3. My worst moving experience wasn't even my own. I'm just an awesome sister who was wrangled into helping my younger brother move into my older brother's townhouse, my older brother into his new apartment that he would share with his girlfriend (who we also moved that day). So that was 3 moves in the period of about 16 hours. I showed up at my little brother's house at 8 in the morning to be promptly sent out again to pick up some more garbage bags because he didn't have enough and needed to finish packing his stuff! That was about 6 years ago now. The 3 of them still owe me :)

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  4. People have as much advice about buying a home as they do when you're pregnant. It's a magical time.

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  5. Last time I moved I packed my suitcase with the clothes/toiletries I would need for the next few days so when it takes longer than anticipated to unpack (as it always does) it wasn't as much of a pain.
    I was also coming off of a 12 hour midnight shift last time we moved I was both delirious and totally irrational by mid afternoon. Not recommended.

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  6. I think I've blocked all bad moves out of my head. I have to say that if I had to choose between lawn*, laundry**, and two bathrooms, I'd go with two bathrooms by a mile.
    *People with lawns here are stressed out because there's no water.
    **I don't usually mind shared laundry as long as it doesn't require quarters.

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  7. I am in no way one upping you with this story, but merely corroborating the title of your post. We moved smack in the middle of "The Derecho Event." It knocked out the power right away, which left me scrambling around looking through boxes for flashlights and candles. As I was doing so, the storm proceeded to uproot and throw a fully grown tree from our front yard and rip the satellite dish from its bolts on our deck. For the next 7 days we were without power and it was in the 90's and humid each of those days. We ended up losing our entire chest freezer full of meat/frozen foods. The kicker? Our old house just 35 minutes away still had power, but all of our stuff (except kitchen stuff) was at the new house. Needless to say, my next move will be when I move into a retirement home too. :)

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  8. I always like those shelves that hang on the inside of doors. Awesome space saver. My friend lives in a super small apt in DC and always has to think of space saving ideas. They have those IKEA racks where you can hang your pots/pans overhead - that's nice if your pots/pans don't suck.

    This is the door idea: http://sandandsisal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Door-Spice-Rack-Storage.jpg

    Happy space saving! (and we'll need pics)

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  9. I was so glad that when we moved, we didn't spend every available penny we had on the down payment. Keeping several thousand in the bank was essential for all the little things we still had to do buy to make our house "home," like window coverings, and basic stuff. We've moved 4 times in 5 years and EVERY time I say "we'll hire movers next time" but spending $1,000 on top of the costs of buying a house is just ridiculous. Good thing my husband is a firefighter and can call on those fire guys to help us move!

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  10. Before I get in to all the horrible encounter you had with finding your stuff amongst those pile of boxes, let me just say that Dalton looks very adorable! Especially the last photo of him – makes me giggle inside. Haha! Anyway, moving can be quite a mess. You’d think that you’ve got everything settled when you finish packing those boxes, but once it arrives at your new house, you wouldn’t know how or where to begin! Anyway, thanks for sharing this with us, and I hope things are getting together now. Cheers!


    June Griffith @ Arnold and Self

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  11. Whoa, that was a lot of stuff. I can certainly understand your frustration. With all that hustle and bustle, it's easy to get things misplaced – especially if there are quite a lot of them. However, what also matters is that they are packed tightly; because there is a possibility of them being damaged during travel. I hope you didn't have other problems when you moved out.

    Clay Delgado @ World Packaging Co.

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  12. Congratulations on the little bun in the oven. This is certainly a busy time for you. I've always been very athletic myself, but I've never run in a marathon. I admire women that can do it all. Take care of home and do their own thing. I've got 3 little girls keeping me very busy. Definitely do not have the time to train.

    Vanessa Walters @ Stellar Movers

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  13. Moving is definitely a drag, but you have a lot of great perspective on the rewards of it. My young family is on the hunt for a new home to call our own. We have a buyer's agent working on it right now. When we move, I hope I can remember that there are great rewards after all the moving.

    Julia Stewart @ Daytona Buyers Agent

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Thanks for commenting! Comments make me probably more happy than they should.