Things You Learn While Moving

There are several things I have discovered while moving these past few weeks. I thought I would share them with you in an effort to dissuade you from moving ever again in your entire life:

1.   I am a dirty person – Now, I clean as good as the next person.   I vacuum.   I wash.   I dust.   I mop.   But when you start moving your furniture around its a different story.   There are dust bunnies the size of small animals under my couch.   Its disgusting and I’m repulsing myself just writing about it.

2.   Marriage does not make all things fun – Nothing on this earth can make moving fun.   Not kisses, not tickles, not funny songs.   Nothing.   In fact, I would go so far as to say marriage makes moving even more awful because unlike a roommate, you jointly own everything you are moving.   Its not like you can say, “Oh, that’s not mine” and then just not pack it.   You are obligated by vows to move everything in your house.   Check your marriage license.   I’m sure there is a moving clause in there.

3.   Dogs will bark at anything resembling a box – Its like they just know that you’re on you’re last nerve and that you’re about 2 bubble wrap squares away from murdering something.   They bark in happiness (“We’re moving stuff around!   Yay!”).   They bark in fear (“We’re moving stuff around!   Oh my God!”).   They bark in anger (“Stop moving my stuff around!”).   And mostly they just bark because they can (“We’re moving stuff around!   I’m barking!”).

4.   Everyone loves to give advice – The next person that tells me how to take care of hardwood floors or how to pack a box of PEZ dispenser correctly is a dead man walking.   I know they say it out of love. I know they probably know more because they’re older.   I know they are just helping.   But give it a rest people.   I can barely dress myself right now, so there’s no way I’m processing what you are telling me.

5.   Nothing is free – Or cheap, or inexpensive, or discounted, or affordable.   About the only thing I have been throwing away during our Big Move is money.   There are utility connection fees, inspector fees, moving expenses, furniture, area rugs, cars, down payments, insurance, and all the alcohol I can drink and still physically function.   I balanced our checking account this morning and I needed a sedative immediately after.

6.   Husbands do not like being told how to correctly pack a box.

7.   You will always need the last thing you packed – Its like a law of Nature.   The pack of 15 post-it notes that have been sitting in their wrappers in your desk for 10 years will suddenly be the only possible solution to your dilemma of how to mark fragile boxes immediately after they are packed.   The same goes for kitchen twine that is only used once a year at Thanksgiving and the book on feng shui you’ve had since college.

8.   Things multiply when packed – Riddle me this:   How come the contents of your entire house fit so comfortably there for 3 years, but when you put it all in boxes there is suddenly no room for things like walking, sitting, or laying down on your bed?   Where did all this crap come from?   And why does it suddenly seem to take up so much more room?

9.   There is no way to defend keeping pom poms.   Unfortunately.

10.   Moving is the low point – I keep reminding myself that this is the hardest part.   This.   Moving.   And I’m in it, working through it, and almost past it.   Once this part is over, its paint samples and rainbows from here on out.