The Nitty-Gritty of Do-It-Yourself Moving, or Why I Hope We Never Have to Do This Again...

I'm writing on only about four hours of sleep, with an endless to-do list, and with two boys around me, so I probably won't sound very coherent :) , but I wanted to write about moving while I'm still in the thick of it. (oh, and I started this at a short break I took at 12:48 am)

First, The Numbers:

- 12.5 years of marriage

- 8 moves:

• 1) 1994: into our first apartment after the honeymoon;
• 2) 1996: packing away, moving, and storing all our belongings in my mom's house and traveling to the U.S. with 7 pieces of luggage;
  
• 3) 1996: into our tiny first apartment here in the U.S.;
  
• 4) 1997: into a nice apt. near university town for graduate school;
  
• 5) 2000: into a larger apt. in university town;
  
• 6) 2001: into our first home (a townhouse);
  
• 7) 2004: into our current house (a twin);
  
• 8) 2007: out of our current house and hopefully into the new one (a! single! house!) within 8-9 days.
  

Modes of Transportation:

1) We hand carried most items, maybe including the [foam] full mattress;
2) We used part of a small truck [which was already transporting something else] to move our belongings to my parents' house one hour away since we sold most of our furniture. Obviously we dragged the suitcases in airport carts or by hand;
3) We squeezed all of our paltry belongings into our "new"10 year old Honda Prelude;
4) We rented the smallest UHaul moving van since we had hardly any furniture;
5) and 6) We rented the medium sized UHaul and then Ryder trucks (by now we had nice sofas, a computer table, etc.);
7) We rented the biggest Budget truck available -- I'm sure glad I didn't have to drive or ride on that thing!! And I can't believe they allow people with regular driver's licenses in this country to drive such big trucks! My poor husband did a great job, though, even though I think he was quite scared.
8) We are filling five boxes of this "pods"-like company. They were delivered last Friday and we started filling them over the weekend. We're still not done. [I'll post some photos when I unload them to the computer].

Anyway, on Sunday we started clearing the huge piles of boxes in our living room and basement by almost filling the first box, then on Monday we had the assistance of four guys from church who helped us load the big pieces of furniture (including the washer and drier) and many cardboard boxes into the big wooden boxes -- what a "fun" Labor day we had! :( Yesterday I went to Center City to say goodbye to my LLL group and took the boys to the Please Touch Museum since I just renewed our membership and I don't know when we're going there again (tomorrow is a big day for our family, but I want to write a separate post about it). Then, we stayed up most of the night and now most of the remaining kitchen and basement stuff is packed.

So today we put a humongous amount of stuff out for the trash collectors, including old carpeting and padding, and other junk that my dad had picked up from the trash (wooden planks, some metal pieces) when we were building the shed in the backyard. I felt just SOOOO guilty for polluting this already dirty planet with more trash! It didn't help that upon seeing our big pile of stuff one of the collectors screamed from the top of his lungs: "What is that? What? Hello?" and I felt very small and guilty inside as I laid in bed trying to relax and not succeeding and hearing the grinding noises of things breaking inside the compactor in the belly of the truck. Old pieces of wood and metal, glass jars filled with spoiled food that I unearthed from inside the fridge in the wee hours of the morning and didn't have the energy to wash and then take to be recycled. This town here, BTW, only picks up paper, so I didn't recycle for 3 years because I didn't know where to go to dispose of my plastic and tin cans. The town only had a recycling station for glass and even that one I didn't use :( ...

Guilt.

We did quite a bit last night and I think my husband didn't even sleep, BUT... we still need to pack all our clothes and linen, selecting clothes for the next 9 days to pack in suitcases. Sigh... We've been sleeping on the floor since Monday, the boys on their own crib mattresses and us on two foam mattress pads. I'm exhausted and yesterday while I worked I wrote this post many times in my mind, but now the words have just vanished. I'll try to recapture some of my scattered thoughts now...

I wanted to say so many things about moving! Let's see... I planned to write that I wished that the eve of our move could be like my friend Anjali's. On this post she describes how she cried while washing the dishes on the night before the move and how she dried them and put them away since the movers were coming the next morning (I was very struck by these simple tasks since I am yet to move like that, with the house intact and only our bags packed -- I'm not saying it was simple, Anjali, I know you had 3 moves and I didn't even have to organize our home for the showings, my husband did -- lucky me!). I won't have any dishes to wash tomorrow night, though, since we're using paper plates and cups from now on... but at least I hope the house will be empty and clean and I'll have a sense of accomplishment that we did it!! The two of us!! With two little boys in tow at all times!! (I tried to have a friend come over the weekend to play with the boys, but had no success. We could have taken them to stay with at my brother-in-law's house, but Kelvin said he wouldn't go and we were to tired and didn't have time to drive there anyway...). Oh, and I also have Sandra and her recent move in Korea to envy (even though her movers' unpacking-and-putting-away policy would also annoy me to no end!!).

All in all, I hope with all my heart that next time we move we can hire a moving company and only have to pack our clothes and other personal items!! My mother-in-law just moved from one apartment to another in Massachusetts and she was complaining about the "do-it-yourself" approach to moving that many people use in this country. Believe me, you probably don't know a family who has moved more times than my parents-in-law, not only through ten cities all over Brazil in the past 37 years (the time they've been married), but going through an average of two different houses or apartments in every city. I think she must have moved no less than 20-25 times, many of those with 4 boys in tow. But there were movers doing the bulk of the job every time, so no wonder she's complaining about her "do-it-yourself" move from a 2 bedroom apartment to another. I think she knows what she's talking about and I trust her on this.

I don't want to do this again. Ever. Period.

P.S. So many things to do and here I am blogging. The second post today (the first one also started last night), no less...

Guilt. Again. I'm so tired, though, that I need some "cheap therapy" so I can keep going.

P.P.S. Happy Birthday to my dear friend Marco in Brazil!