Packing the Boxes (Misnomer Alert)

So it's a very long story how I came to be in this position, but I have two houses.  One is far too big and costs way too much money (but no one wants to buy it).  The other is fine for just me, but its not free and it is far away from work.  The solution is to move into the small house (mobile home)--and commute by train and rent out my rooms in the large house (while retaining one bedroom for me or Adam if he ever moves back, one bedroom for my sister and a third bedroom--the smallest for a guest room, I mean the junk room--let's be honest).  So I must move.

Someone was complimenting me recently, telling me how they admire how organized I am--they like that I make lists and have so many different things under control.  At the time they made this observation, I was in the middle of packing my rooms for my big move.  I did not feel organized.  Oh, I was making lists--I have about 20 lists ranging from what furniture goes in what room, to what repairs need to be done where, to budgets, to more budgets, to contingent budgets, etc.  My lists do not feel very productive, since the budgets never balance and I'm always forgetting something really important, but I digress.

So I was feeling really unorganized and not able to motivate myself into organization, when I hit the wall.  I have to get the rooms at my house rented by September 1st, but I can't rent them until I get them painted and fixed and pictures up on the internet to advertise.  And I couldn't do all of that until I got all my stuff out.  So I hired the mover and figured, it will all have to get done.  The mover (my handiman and his son) couldn't come on the weekend, so they came on a Friday (one less day to pack--no worries--it has to get done, it will get done.)  So Thursday night, I still had not packed much from my room.  I started just putting together boxes and shoving stuff in.  Box after box.  When you don't care about organization, it is not that difficult to fill a box and somethings were ackward sizes, so some boxes had less stuff than others.  I had plenty of boxes.  On Friday morning, I still hadn't touched the closets and one side of the room, but the large furniture was empty, so I figured the movers would have plenty to get started while I finished packing (I mean throwing things in boxes).

I had to go to the office for a minute (read the hour it turned into) and when I got back, the movers had taken the unpacked side of my room and thrown it in the truck.  They put stuff in bags and big stacks of books just traveled unpacked.  Hey it got done.  They left the closet (I think I scared them by yelling when they were moving something without wrapping it and I told them to leave the closet).  So except for the closet, my rooms were empty (sort of--there was still lots of stuff, but I kept saying--no, don't move that, I'll take that in the car--a lot of stuff was left to go by car--four car trips later, I'm almost done).

Now the night before the movers came, I had gone to IKEA.  I found a beautiful kitchen island that I want for the new place.  I could not lift the box.  At all.  No Adam.  What to do.  So when the movers (my handiman and his son, Ozzy) had the truck all packed and it was time to drive to the new place, I asked Ozzy to come in my car so we could stop at IKEA.  Ozzy is a big straping youth, probably stronger than Adam, but he could barely handle the Kitchen Island.  Those were some very heavy boxes.  (Now I have to figure out how to assemble something I can't lift--I'll worry about that tomorrow--its on the list).

When we got to the new place, the plumber was still there and had everything ripped up because the plumbing needed to be replaced.  The cleaning lady left a few days before, in the middle of getting the place ready for me because the plumber was just getting everything dirty.  The dryer was in the middle of the kitchen and the fridge had been unplugged (melted ice--lions, and tigers and bears, oh my).  So to say that the new place was a mess before I got there is a fair statement.  (It was two weeks before the dryer went back to its place and the cleaning lady finished the floors).

I had made a list to tell the movers what room to put the furniture in and I had this really cute packing tape that had the name of the room it went to on it (of course, I only used bedroom, since I was moving my bedroom and sitting room only, but I digress).  The movers still asked me for every bag, box and piece of furniture, what room?  Dad was hanging around and I was so tired that I just said second bedroom for everything and Dad said--do you want me to make a sign that says "second bedroom"?  Meanwhile when I wasn't looking almost all of the boxes and bags of books went into the living room.  Even the boxes that said bedroom.  Oh well.

Years ago, I helped (I use that word very loosely, because I had hardly nothing to do) Erika move.  The boxes were all perfectly organized and we were finished unpacking in the afternoon of her moving day.  Completely finished.  The only left to do was to recycle the boxes and we brought them to the recycle place right before they closed at 4 p.m..  That move was a thing of beauty.  When Adrienne and I moved to the condo, we were pretty darn organized.  We had the excess boxes out of the garage in a matter of days.  When we moved to the house we are in now, I don't think that we even put any boxes in the garage.  Nothing close to an Erika move, but we were fairly organized.  I'm getting old.  This move, not organized.  Actually really, really bad.  If Erika is the gold standard A++ and my previous moves with Adrienne are good solid B's and C's, this one gets a failing F right down the road. 

Last night was the first night I spent at the new place.  I have no cable, no tv, so I was going to set up music.  The cords were in cute little white boxes.  I remember seeing those cute little white boxes in the sitting room and I remember putting them in a bag, because they would fit.  I looked through a lot of bags--no cute little white boxes.  Then I thought, maybe I put them in a box with miscellaneous stuff.  I looked through every box--no cute little white boxes.   Man, I have a lot of boxes of junk.  I turned on my iphone ipod without the headset.  I could hear the music just fine.  But now I was too tired to do any unpacking. 

The move was more than two weeks ago--I've unpacked three bags and some clothes that I needed to wear.  It is a good thing that I don't have a tv anymore, because I'm afraid that I'll see myself on the show Hoarders--making a path from the kitchen to my chair and another to the front door.  Lions and tigers and bears.