The Long U-Haul is Over

We are finally finished moving and the relief is palpable. It's not quite on par with the wedding being finished but watching "Bridesmaids" this weekend reminded us how great it is to be on the other side.

We learned a lot during this move, mostly about clutter and the fine art of culling. I am resolved to do a major clear out at least twice a year. As much as we love this house (and boy do we!) we are renters and the possibility of having to move will remain on the horizon, in a looming Big Bad Wolf way. And although it's unlikely we will clear out to the point that all we have can fit in two duffel bags, we can try to make it a one-day affair.

The three week move did not go as planned, at all. We got lazy, I can admit it. After several days of small hauls we felt accomplished and soon rested on our laurels — embarrassing but true. By the last day I think we both would have preferred to burn down the old house and salt the earth afterwards.

Lesson learned, and although we did not burn down the house (oh, David Byrne you just took up residence in my brain) we are finished and a little wiser. I have a lot to do in the next few weeks but my priorities are as follows:

• Unpack (obviously)
• Donate a large portion of our possessions that we have not used in ages. 
• I have a box by the front door that is over-flowing with knick-knacks and clothing we know longer need/want.
• Create a new chore schedule — print out and laminate for display in kitchen
• Pare down clothing — risk an angry husband by enforcing the removal of most t-shirts
• We can use our plastic tub for winter clothing storage now!
• Catalog all of our books
• Mail thank you notes from the wedding (once I find them in the boxes of the office :/)
• Get back on the meal planning horse 
• Begin exercising and tracking food again 
• Plan our reward for all the hard organizing and cleaning: housewarming party!

I'll take some photos of our progress tomorrow and there will be clutter, oh yes, there will be. But, that's how moving goes!

Faustian Bargain Basement

The state of our basement in the old house is abhorrent. At our New Year's Eve party two years back I found a dear friend asleep down there and almost passed out with embarrassment and a wee bit too much bubbly. I'm excited that we will be forced to change this and please let us keep it that way ::fingers crossed::

The biggest issue is just plain STUFF. We have way too much stuff (shocking, I know.) This is mostly my fault, I am a keeper. I was raised by a grandmother who taught me to wash out zipper bags and keep every rubber band and twist-tie beneath the sink. I think she still takes crackers home from every restaurant. To be fair, this is a good thing for the new house since we are need of my air conditioner and microwave from when I was in high school and when I first moved out. The two boxes of dishes from when I first moved out on my own when I was 19 (eight years ago...?!) are however, decidedly unnecessary.

Gotta love a Scottish engineer!

Lucky for us, there was a sale on 20 gallon plastic storage tubs. We got some in teal and in green because this girl has color favorites. The goal is to take all of the excess in the basement and fill those tubs until "she can't take any more"

James rented a van for us to heave and ho all the crap out this afternoon. We were going to do it this weekend but James didn't feel well, then yesterday when I got some stomach bug. But no more excuses!

Now, does this mean that I will no longer take advantage of good deals? Heck no! We just inherited a beautiful dining table and chairs from my Grandmother. This frees the Ikea jobby we have to become our desk in the office and thus save a few bucks.

It does, however, mean I need to pare down on extraneous items. That mixtape I made in 1996 that's unplayable? Time to go, sir.  Every single note passed between my friends and I in high school? Just keep the juicy ones and let the past stay there. This is all pretty straight forward and I really should know better. Luckily the house is coming along really well and I quite like the way it looks without being jam packed full of trinkets. Because before you know it...

Goose: Throw it away and add it to that nasty collection of yours!
Be careful - a rotten egg can be a regular stink bomb!
Templeton:[patting the egg] I know what I'm doing. I handle stuff like this all the time

Moving was created by the Devil to get more folks on his side

There is no plausible explanation other than that, just sayin'. I curse, cry, and become willing to bargain my soul more during packing than any other time! I can just imagine Crowley making a comment about that now...

Good Omens is one of those books I'd like to make everyone read. Granted, a lot of the people I know have read it but it's the kind of book I'd probably get in a lot of trouble for giving to a teenage cousin. "But they have to read this— they just have to!"

Anyway, there has been some packing and even a little unpacking. None of course, done in the schedule I so carefully created a few weeks ago. I know that's a big surprise to everyone. (The devil's other instrument is Instagram, I betcha.)

Doesn't everyone label their book boxes by genre?

But the big, ugly, sweaty U-Haul fiasco is going to be this weekend. If anyone sees an explosion across the Baltimore skyline it's me and I've napalmed the whole neighborhood.

Is it clear that I hate moving? I do, however, love unpacking!

Dante: You hate people!
  Randal: But I love gatherings. Isn't it ironic?

And since we don't have any furniture upon which to unload our prized possessions we started with the kitchen. The kitchen has lots of cabinet and drawer space. More, in fact than we need — especially in the summer when it is viva produce — so I will have a fun time making sure I use all of them in a clever manner.

Let's do a Before and After reveal.

Mayday!

We have one month to get all of our stuff together, streamlined and moved. This is a slightly longer distance move than I've done in the last eight years, almost a mile! (I've averaged a half mile in the last few, but the shortest was three blocks in which I moved most of my stuff with a handcart).

Looking at the calendar this morning I'm making a game-plan. If we don't stick to it strictly, oh well, but knowing that there is a relative time-line will keep me from going bonkers. It turns out to be a really good month to reduce my work load to part-time.

What is going to become a major concern is my current landlord wanting to show the place to prospective renters before we leave. I've never had that happen in a rental before and I'm a little creeped out by it to be honest. I can understand his impetus to get new people in the house as soon as he can though.  I need to ask the husband to get a ballpark date that these folks will be coming through.

Our Packing Schedule

May 1- 6

Office Area: This is currently the least-used room in the house (except for Lola who hides in the there from Chloe). There is a dresser to be given away/listed on Craigslist and I need to return the photos from my sisters' last exhibit that live in there. I need to sort through the old desk of my grandfather's (so gorgeous but in need of a good wood worker to clean up some of the rough edges). I think I'll begin to part with stuff that I've had since High School at this stage, which will hopefully be less traumatic than the last time i tried.

Cataloging of Books and DVDs: This is a monster job to be honest, at least with concern to the books so this will be an on-going job. There are a heck of a lot of them (especially with the influx of some of my father's). I'm reviewing Cataloging programs on CNet today and will do a test-run on Wednesday. as far as DVDs go we need to cull. I ordered a DVD binder from Amazon on Sunday that will allow us to reduce the physical space our collection takes and force us to sell/trade in/give away all of the movies we haven't watched in years. 

May 7-13:

Bedroom, Half of Basement & Storage Room: We started working on the basement this past weekend. We're donating towels to the animal shelter and clothes to the Goodwill. We both need to cull our collections of clothes. For me it's pants that are so ripped I don't wear anymore and cannot be donated and for him it's tee-shirts he hasn't worn since so-and-so stopped being an Oriole. I'd like to at least locate all of the boxes for things like my stand-mixer and get them in the same general area so we can pack up the kitchen easier. This will also make the basement seem less like something from The Inferno when hordes stream through to rent a hot new house on the rental market (sigh). I'd like to dismantle James' massive wardrobe sometime between here and the 20th. I'm sure we will Craigslist that piece too and Lola will sulk as she has for years attempted to get to Narnia. My poor cat. All necessary clothing can be housed in the dresser and the rest packed away.

May 14-20:

Half of Kitchen and Dining Room/Library: Once books have been catalogued I can begin to lovingly pack them up. The liquor cabinet will hopefully be drained during my Retirement/Birthday party this Saturday. I can pack up all our serving dishes, extra wineglasses, etc. After the wedding I have a bunch of glass storage and C&B crockery that I just unpacked and found homes for, oh well! I will of course leave the essentials at this point, like espresso machine and cutting boards.

May 20-31: 

Remains of Kitchen & Basement, The Living Room & Bathroom: The latter doesn't take much to pack up; most of the stuff in the Living Room is books, DVDs and records. And it's the same with the bathroom, the essentials we will be using right up until the end, obviously. What will be left in the basement at this point should be all of the boxes for the remaining items in the house (read: kitchen) and some laundry, ideally.  We can even break down our bed at a much earlier stage because our couch is a sofa bed - but a really comfortable one not a bar-across-the-back nightmare.

Oof, that's a lot to look at right now. I'm really avid to try out book cataloging, that's what I want to do after work today more than anything! 

What I need to remind of is that I have done many times before (this will be move number ten in my career). And I've done it relatively on my own before, too. This time i have a husband (and yes, a bunch of husband's stuff) but it's not like we're packing up Versailles! 

I just keep thinking about a Library Database and how much my father would smile to know I did it!

Ours!

We finally heard from the landlord on Thursday night after spending an anxious afternoon wondering why we hadn't heard. In all honesty, I was the anxious party while James tried to reassure me (pretty commonplace with us, really). Turns out there was an emergency up in New Jersey where he is from but we are totally approved and will be moved in June 1st! What a relief! I took a photo of our front (though I really wanted to go inside and start measuring!).

Obviously the front garden area is going to need some care and a few swings of the weed-whacker. I also noticed that there in a pattern in the concrete on the front porch that mimics the inlay of the hardwood floors in the front two rooms. I'm sure no one else will notice or care but it makes me really happy to know they match!

As we walked away we saw one of our friends and (yay) soon-to-be new neighbors. He filled us in a bit on some of the other neighbors and everyone sounds very pleasant. There was a band practicing a few doors down which is no problem for me, they sounded pretty good and it's so much better than my current next door neighbor. He blasts everything from Journey to television (not the band, sadly, that would be awesome) at all hours of the day and night. 

Speaking of staying up all hours, I'm now in the phase of having difficulty falling asleep for all of the ideas swimming through my head. The space is smaller so it's going to involve some trickery. The new kitchen is, unfortunately, not nearly as nice as the one we have now but I like a challenge!  

Now I'm off to design little "We're moving" cards to drop in the thank-you notes for the wedding which I am still slogging through. Unfortunately this is a Kate only job as the hubs will fully and freely admit that he's "pretty crap". But that's what this wife is for, har har.

New Home, New Host

After some thought I've decided that this will be a better spot (pardon the pun) for DNS. I still love Tumblr and will keep my account there, but with the impending new house and all the fun projects this summer I decided to be an opportunist. 

Time to Pack the Boxes

Well, it looks like the hubs and I are going to have to move. Sigh. Our landlord has decided to raise our rent, which, after five years I can’t speak a word against. He is a very sweet guy and although its a little sad it may be time.

It’s harder for James than it is for me. This was his “first place”. His bachelor pad straight out of college. It’s where he came home after his first day teaching, not just subbing anymore, the first day of his career. It’s where he checked the internet for dates and left, hoping to meet the girl he would marry. It’s the house he slumped back to when he <I>did</I> meet his future wife - who, at the time had a boyfriend. Across the street, and visible from the front window, is where we had our first kiss. It’s the house I moved into and he lived with a girl for the first time. It’s where we came home after our wedding. It is, our first home, as much as a rental can be.

I’ve moved so often in my life that it’s like water off a duck’s back. In the last seven years I have lived in five places in this neighborhood alone! The only really difficult aspect of leaving our house is memories of my Dad. The last time I saw him before the second stroke was when he came to my birthday party last year. There is one little spot in my living room where I picture him sitting, talking to the dog and I still dissolves into tears.

But, it’s time to start fresh and new. We are newlyweds, afterall, this is part and parcel I guess. And now I get to envision other floor plans and kitchen organizing — everyone knows how much I hate that!