I’m totally planning on punching out a post as part of Mommy Melee’s Girl Talk Thursday feature, but first I just wanted to take a little time here and post my most and least favorite things about moving. Because of course you care.
I love
- Fresh, clean, new spaces. I always feel like a new apartment/home is filled with hope and promise of something better. Better habits, better family dinners, better living space, better memories. It’s so easy to look at that semi-blank canvas and envision the best.
- Finding new ways to organize. I love the sense of accomplishment I feel when I put Cupcake’s hair ties in a little silver basket in the bathroom to keep them contained, or adding a bakeware rack to the cabinet so that my baking sheets stop falling over and crashing in the middle of the night.
- Hanging pictures. I absolutely love hanging pictures. I think that weilding a hammer makes me feel very handy and powerful. Also, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Everything. Even DaddyGeeks.
- New neighbors and (in the case of an apartment) new leasing office workers, eager to impress you and make you feel welcome so you don’t terminate your lease during the 30-day move-in guarentee timeframe.
Things I hate
- Everything is in boxes. Boxes that I packed that I may or may not have been too lazy to label (I labeled half!) so I can’t find anything. I’m missing a huge bottle of ibuprofen, a large griddle, a light socket cover, the top to a broiler pan and more. Jeez.
- Boxes. I have a texture issue, and cardboard (along with chalkboard, unfinished wood and ohmygodcardboard) makes my skin crawl.
- Steps backward in potty training. Though I knew it was inevitable, some small part of me hoped we might triumph and recouperate easily! That part of me was just laughed out of my body, so no worries.
- Tantrums over silly things because toddlers and babies get stressed by moving. I wonder why!?!?!?!??!?! ::pulls hair out methoidcally by the roots::
- Not enough time to unpack things. I swear it takes twice a long to unpack as it does to pack.
- Learning a new commute. I am a creature of habit, and that usually means I make the wrong turn to go home. Sigh.
How have your moving experiences been? Horror stories? Funny stories? Give it to me, baby!
When we moved to Virginia we had bought our own home. It was the first time I didn’t live in a dorm or an apartment and hubby’s first time not in barracks. The moving company was awesome and we were prepared for a smooth move. We drove down from RI to NY on a Friday, spent the night at my in-laws, and continued the next day to VA. We arrive at 7pm and it’s dark. I naively thought we could call the electric and water people at that time to turn on our utilities. Silly, silly me. We had to drive around town looking for someplace to buy camping lanterns so we could see. We spent the next 2 days “camping” in our living room with electric lanterns, no water, no cable, no internet. Now I know better!
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I hate moving. Full stop.
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I am ridiculously happy to say we’ve not moved since we had kids. However before that we moved regularly like most college kids. We had it down to science at one time save for the moving misplacement of my favorite sweatshirt of all time. That loss I still grumble about yet today…a full 10 years after the loss.
At one point I had my list of “musts” that got packed into my car: my goldfish in a basket, my box of special things, my computer, a weeks worth of clothing and my pillows. Man those were fun times moving my fish from place to place (Not really…!)
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Love the “everything looks like a nail” line!
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