As you may have guessed from this month’s multitude of moving-related mayhem, the last few weeks have been a wee bit busy for the likes of me!
About four or five weeks ago was when I first took on the ever-daunting task of packing up the wagon and moving to a new home. It was a local move, mind you – in reality, only about a 15 minute drive from our last house, but don’t let the mileage fool you … moving is a crazy, sinister proposition no matter how great the distance – I’ve got handfuls of my own hair after this one to vouch for that…
Still, with it all behind us now as we work towards getting settled in our new humble abode, at least in hindsight I can say that I learned a lot from the whole experience – things that I can now pass on to folks like you so that you might not suffer the same frustrated fate yourself … or at least you won’t be able to say that I didn’t warn you, anyways!
Specifically, I learned a total of seven things…
1. Give yourself more time.
It doesn’t matter how much time you set aside for yourself, you’re going to need more! We started three weeks early this time and in the end still found ourselves running around like chickens with our heads cut off. To try and get a leg up for the next time we move, I think I might just start packing now…
2. Throw some of that crap away!
Don’t worry, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to accumulate brand new crap once you get to your new house, but in the meantime, anything that you can pitch out or donate or unload onto unsuspecting friends is all the less that you actually have to move! Seriously, you’re never going to fit into half of those clothes ever again anyways…
3. Splurge for the bigger truck.
It’s like, what? An extra $10 more?! My friends, let me tell you that ten bucks is a bargain compared to that extra trip that you’ll otherwise be making at 1:00am because everything didn’t fit the first time around! Like pizza and clean underwear, it’s always better to have too much truck than not enough.
4. Hired hands make light work.
Sure, you could just ask some friends to come over and help you move … but then sometime later in the future they’re gonna ask you to come help them move in return, and you can’t say no because they already gave up one of their weekends to help wrestle your gigantic couch down two flights of stairs. Or you could pay somebody else to move it all for you and save yourself two weekends worth of lugging heavy furniture around … seems like a no-brainer to me!
5. Things will get broken.
And I’m not even talking about picture frames and wine glasses and your favorite Mickey Mouse coffee mug that was absolutely perfect for hot chocolate on a cold Floridian winter’s day. I’m actually talking about your motivation, your willpower, your hopes and dreams of ever doing anything that isn’t moving related ever again!
Mind you, there’s really no avoiding all of this, per say – just something to be aware of, really…
6. Move out cleaning sucks.
It’s more like punishment for not keeping the house cleaner for the previous three years, if you ask me. Sure, of course you’d rather be hanging out at your new place, unpacking and getting settled and doing all of that fun stuff around your new house – and maybe had you ever actually fired up the vacuum cleaner every now and then, you’d be there right now already! Just saying…
7. Stop moving so much!
Of course, none of this moving misery even needs to happen if you would just pick a place and stay there! Is an extra bedroom and a fence around the backyard really worth three weeks of packing, a back-breaking weekend from hell, another three days of feverish cleaning, and then two months of sorting through cardboard boxes in search of the one that has your wife’s curling iron in it???
You know where it is now – that’s not something to take for granted!
And that said, I promise – no more columns about moving for at least two or three years!
Unless, of course, I find myself having to move again next month out of the blue, and in that case I might as well just book reservations at the loony bin if I do, but otherwise, let’s talk about something else for next week’s column.
Anything – anything else at all, really!
We could talk about sandwiches – who doesn’t like a good sandwich?!
In fact, I’d offer to make you one right now … except I have no idea where we packed the plates. Or the bread. Or the assorted cheeses and lunchmeats.
Maybe we should just go out to grab a bite instead…