This kept us busy today.
Today was the day. A great big truck pulled up to our house and picked up about 99% of our belongings.
Yeah, we’ve done this before…but it’s still a really big deal, and really exhausting, despite the gentlemen from the moving company physically hauling everything out of the house.
I can’t believe this is the THIRD military move I’ve been through since I started this blog in 2008. Here are pictures from the 2008 move, and more pictures about our 2010 move.
I’ve been scarce lately, even though I have lots of pictures and stories of this past month to share. From Colorado to the kids’ baseball to our wrapping up the school year here. But for this post, we’ll talk about our moving adventure so far.
For most of the month of May, starting about when I returned from my last work period in Nebraska, the focus has been on moving preparations. We flew to Colorado over the first weekend of May (that’s for another batch of posts) and bought ourselves a house. It’s a good sized house (thanks to amazing interest rates!) with an unfinished basement. We plan to finish out the basement as soon as we can…hopefully by the time I have to go to Nebraska next at the end of August right after the boys start school.
One of the things we had to do was re-sod part of the front lawn. Due to a combination of factors, we had essentially killed about 1/3 of the front lawn. I don’t have any before/after pictures, but here is a picture of the amount of sod we had laid down (less about 1/5 of one of the pallets).
A lot of sod goes a little way. We were nervous we didn’t have enough, but we turned out coming in VERY closely to what we need. Phew!
Then we went through the traditional preparations for a military move. Many of the blog’s readers are familiar:
- Removing batteries
- Pulling candles out of candle holders
- Removing light bulbs
- Unplugging items
- Designating a “No Pack Room” and “rescuing” items from the packers — such as the boys’ favorite stuffed animals and DVDs
- Enact Operation EAT WHAT WE HAVE! In other words, I stop buying pantry goods and attempt to use what we have. This might mean meatloaf with panko breadcrumbs and two different kinds of barbecue sauce, but no one has minded too much so far.
The packers had been here since Monday, since we only had two people packing, they couldn’t do the entire house at once. Back in the day Dave and I would experience a pack and move-out on the same day. No longer. We now have to dedicate four full days for this…we have that much stuff!
Slowly, but surely, our world turned into a Tetris-ed wall of boxes.
After 3 days of packing by one company, on the 4th day a moving truck from a different company comes to pick up our stuff. In this case, the crew came all the way from Chesapeake, VA to Florida to pick up our stuff and haul it to Colorado.
Apparently there some sort of voodoo routing magic that caused them to make this roundabout-looking trip, but I won’t complain. The gentlemen who worked with our belonging this week were all professional and competent (I promise to one day discuss publicly the hell that was our Melbourne, FL to Apex, NC move in 2005).
We took a leap of faith and let Howie freely roam during today’s chaos. In the past we have corralled him in the backyard (against his wishes), or else kept him contained in one or two rooms (also against his wishes). Howie ended up sticking very close by even in our yard…and had plenty of adventures to keep him busy:
We didn’t realize how many frogs were living on our back porch underneath some of the bins and our smoker. Howie chased them all afternoon.
This little guy’s world was turned upside down when we lifted Dave’s train layout on the porch today. He kept trying to leap back onto the layout.
Close up!
As the rooms slowly cleared out, I was at the room’s door with a dustrag in one hand, the vacuum cleaner in the other. Even before the movers drove away. I wiped down the baseboards, blinds, and windowsills, then vacuumed the carpet.
I didn’t take a picture of our two “DO NOT PACK” spaces today. One was in Dave’s former train room, and we also had some space in the garage where we stashed the boys’ baseball equipment, our tools and our beach gear. It wasn’t worth photographing…it was pure mess! Once the movers finished, we could spread out a little. The boys’ suitcases and sleeping bags could go into their empty rooms, and I could spread out our kitchen gear again.
For the kitchen I had “rescued” one medium pot, one medium frying pan, one medium cookie sheet, one medium colander, one wooden spoon, one spatula and one medium knife. You can do a lot with that little bit of cooking equipment…at a minimum we can enjoy our favorites: pasta, tacos and baked chicken.
Once the movers were completely finished and had driven away with our belongings, I gathered all the left-behind items. I had to smile at the pile of things that were found under the kids’ beds and dressers.
The aftermath of 2.5 years of items falling behind the kids’ furniture. Timmy would plop magazines on his headboard and they fell behind it. The photographs were from one of Timmy’s school projects and they were found behind his dresser. And there were over a dozen LEGO pieces found throughout the house.
What now? We had our belongings picked up over 2 weeks before we leave the area. It was by design: first of all, we are going to Dave’s family reunion next weekend and I will be up in the northeast for 8 of the next 14 days. Secondly, the sooner we have the furniture picked up at this end, the less we have to wait at that end!
Now that I’ve documented our week of moving, I can play catch up! Stay tuned!
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