Moving’s Silver Linings

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Moving is a pain in the butt, there's really no challenging that. It ranks up there with birth or death on the list of marital stressors. The packing and un, the cleaning and arguing about feng shui (not really). Oh, and not to mention the actual hunting for the new place. As I write this, I'm waiting for my coffee and Tylenol to kick in so I can get back to work (I love my Ikea Expedit shelves, but dang that mofo is heavy!)

Simply put, it sucks.

Being the reluctant optimist that I am, I'm always on the lookout for silver linings, so here are some that I've been focusing on, as I'm up to my armpits in dustballs, bubble wrap and boxes.

1. It's actually kind of exciting. Getting to get a whole fresh start, deciding how to arrange rooms, where to put each knick-knack, arranging everything just so. My sister even said she's a little jealous that we “get to” move.
2. Ditching stuff. We've made one run (so far) to the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse, two to St. Vincent de Paul, one large charity pick-up and four full trash pick-ups (and counting). We're clearing out what we don't need; getting rid of the old, not to make room for new, but just to make room.
3. Finding stuff. My personal disorganization rock bottom: Jamie found about 30 rolls of toilet paper in our garage that we didn't know we had. 30 rolls. An almost totally full Costco pack. That's how bad our garage was! Did it never occur to us that “We just bought TP at Costco like 2 weeks ago! And we're out already?” Apparently not. I uncovered a whole box of warm weather clothes I'd forgotten about, including a couple of skirts that I've actually missed!
4. Everything's clean! As we move, everything gets dusted, of course. The tops of shelves, the backs of things… everything's cleaned, to move into a clean house. Our current house is close to the freeway with single-pane windows; everything gets a layer of dust thanks to the freeway, and it's gross. The new house is almost a mile further away, so it won't get as dusty! Can't wait!
5. Max's New Room. We're taking advantage of the move to put Max into a twin-sized bed! New house, new room, new phase of life! The crib is going to its new home next weekend (yay for pregnant friends!) and the John Lennon bedding that I've had since before Jamie and I were even engaged will be put away (or given away… I'm working on emotionally separating from it) In an effort to make this move as easy as we can for Max, getting his new room 100% done has been a priority… if he can walk in to everything put in place and ready for him, we're hoping that it won't be as traumatic as it otherwise might be. My mom and sister came over to help me work on it yesterday, and here's the result:

So, we're off on our next grand adventure! I'm hoping to get back to a real posting schedule soon, but in the mean time, wish us luck that no one gets hurt in the big appliance and furniture stage of moving next weekend!