Moving SUCKS!!!

[OrionGirl]

So I'm in a hotel tonight.

An update snce Last Friday.

My last day of work...Sort of. Since the individual hired to replace me was offered more money by her current employer (after accepting the position with us and 4 days of training), this left my job open. So, I start as a part-time emplopyee working remotely until they can hire a replacement. All the previous 'office packing' was done, but now I had to pack up all the stuff I'd need to be able to work remotely....Great, another box!

They had a party for me, so packing was crammed in between talking with people, eating (they forced me to eat cake--a lot of cake), packing, working, andwering phones--hugging (why do people I've said 15 words to in 7 years feel they should hug me?!?), more packing...I wanted to leave at 3, managed to escape at 3:30 by dint of refusing to speak to anyone who wouldn't help me lug everything to my car.

We'd planned on picking up the moving truck on Monday. Determined that Monday and Tuesday, our planned packing days, were going to be really busy, might not have enough time, so went to the rental place to see if I could pick the truck up earlier. They had no problems with that, would let me get it on Saturday, no extra charge, same drop-off day. Woohoo!

Gas the car up, grab some smokes, visit the bank, get stuff from the cleaners, make it home by 5:30. Sort through the packing, box up a few more things.

Saturday morning! My Mom and sister come up to help us. Pick up the truck weigh it, start loading up. Get 8 feet into a 26 foot truck, and I think-and say "This truck isn't going to be big enough. All our stuff will not fit in here". Everyone looks around the house, and says I'm being silly, there's plenty of room. Fine. We pack in 6 feet more of stuff--playing Tetris is FINALLY giving some dividends! I'm still thinking there's no way everything will fit-we still have a 10 X 15 storage unit that's about half fill, and there's still 3 big pieces of furniture, a california king mattress, and a queen mattress...Not to mention 2 120 gallon tanks, their stands and canopies, and a 65 gallon and a 110 gallon water tank!

Sunday: Pack a few more things, then head over to empty the storage unit. It's snowing, blowing, and cold. We get a friend to come help. Get all the boxes in, get the tanks in, and FINALLY, everyone agrees, there is not way it will all fit.

Crap.

Crap.

Crap!

So, come home, bootup, reserve a trailer to be pulled by our truck (the moving truck is already towing my car). It's too late to call the place and confirm, but it looks good.

Monday morning: my husband has to go to work and do some of his paperwork, then go pickup the trailer. I have to close on the house. He leaves, Mom takes me to the closing. Printer isn't working, so they can't print my check. We ran errands, go to lunch, go back and get the check, run more errands. Meet back at house, start loading up the trailer, and the back of the truck. Get almost completely done loading, just a few more things--need sleep.

Tuesday morning: Mom leaves. This is the first time I've moved more than 300 miles away. I'd been holding up well, but Mom started crying, so I started crying. My husband was at work--(WHY ONE EARTH does the military hammer the point that we don't wait until the last minute to finish everything up, but then won't let him finish out-processing until 24 hours out?!?)--so I'm at home, by myself, in an almost empty house, and sobbing. Even the CAT won't some near me! Sheesh.

Hubby comes home, holds me until I quit crying, smiles as I mop up the tears, and says it's okay, he understands.

We finish packing. Everything I own is now packed, and ready to go. I'm feeling a BIT stressed, but so far, this move is going okay. We're definitely going to have to 'reduce' a bit before the next move, but that's 4 years out. We'll see how much of the stuff survives the trip and work from there.

Sorry for the length!

[Hurley]

Well good luck with the move! I have never had to move that much stuff before or at least I wasn't old enough to remember it but I know it amazes me how much stuff I have in my dorm room when I come home from college over the summer. It never quite fits the way you want it to!

[Lauren]

It will all be over soon. :) where are you moving to?

[Rbishop]

We did 8 moves in 22 years with the Navy, two were "self" moves where we rented the truck, packed all, and hit the road. Even when the company took care of things, they were very trying times, especially with three sons. (one NY to CA move, and all three 6 and under!).

Probably no help, but we look back and laugh when we think of them now...well except for the time we were having lunch at an A&W root beer place in Indianna, looked back at the boys in the rear seat, and two of them had broken out in measles!

Hang in there! Wish you a good trip.

[Native American]

...well except for the time we were having lunch at an A&W root beer place in Indianna, looked back at the boys in the rear seat, and two of them had broken out in measles!

Hang in there! Wish you a good trip.Really, it does get better. Take if one day at a time, and if that doesn't do it, one hour at a time, etc. So far it's been 6 moves in 18 years for us, and we were both in the service for 9 of those years, 6 years with kids. We always swore we'd adjust our mix and amount of possessions to be more "moving friendly" each time...but we didn't. :rolleyes:

My wife had so much stuff that she filled up the most of a 54' long semi-trailer. I wasn't too happy with her on our most recent moving day..... :rant: (I could've and should've put away the attitude and been more supportive). She wouldn't part with any of it until after we got to the new duty station. Had to set a standard: no storage unit, and both cars will fit into that new garage. We made it!

+1 on the "Hang in there!" Yes, the military does have some strange rules for a move (they trust us with a rifle or sidearm, but won't trust us with outprocessing outside of 24 hours...Lord, I know the frustration!)

v/r, N-A

[mishi8]

It doesn't matter how smoothly everything goes...moving is stressful! We've finally been in one place for 3 years now, and hope we'll be staying put for a long, long time. Before that we had moved 4 times in 4 years, the most recent being the most difficult emotionally, since we were moving to a place we had planned on never coming back to (remember to never say "never!")

Good luck! Once you're on the road, I'm sure you'll feel more relaxed...consider it an adventure. :)

[Lauren]

I don't think I could handle the military life, I've moved twice in the 20 years I've been on earth, last move was 15 years ago. My dad was a navy brat, until highschool, he was never at a school longer than a year. He was born in Oakland, moved to Virgina before he was 3 months old, and just kept moving. Too much moving, IMO.

[kyle3]

YUCK YUCK! i know exactly how you feel!

moved in December(don't ever move at x-mas time!) 1 had 2X's as much stuff as i thought i did!

and when it was all said and done, packed and all, i felt like a zombie!

hope the unpacking goes like a dream for you!!!! good luck OG!

[loaches r cool]

I know how you feel! I have moved exactly 10 times in a 6 year period. The first 4 moves or so werent too bad as I only had a few carloads of stuff. Most of it was DeVry's fault as they dont have on campus housing - instead they rent out various blocks of apartments across town. And after every trimester (3 times a year) it never failed, had to move. Either because roomates dropped out or they lost agreement with aprtment complex.

For a college guy I had a ton of stuff. I got into alot of hobbies plus I am a pack rat. When I moved in with my wife we had to put most of my stuff in sotrage. I filled a 10x20 unit, thats packed to the cieling over half way and about 1/2 way to the ceiling the rest. Since we bought a house my stuff has exploaded lol. I want to move out of the city but the move will be daunting. I havent moved yet with fish - that will definetly take more work.

Look at the bright side. Now you get arrange stuff in a new way. Thats always fun right? Practice some of those 'trading spaces' skills.:rolleyes:

Just remember, it will all be over soon. :coffee:

[Genral72]

well except for the time we were having lunch at an A&W root beer place in Indianna, looked back at the boys in the rear seat, and two of them had broken out in measles!

Hang in there! Wish you a good trip.
That is the worst. being sick while moving. I wish you luck OG I'm moving in a couple weeks as well. Hopefully nobody will get sick this time.

[smoses]

I know EXACTLY how you feel. I am in process of moving and selling my house and buying another house.......What a joke!!!
They tell me "no problem Mrs Moses, We will have the escrow done on both houses in time to get you and your family into the new house........Well here I sit. Waiting. my house is all packed up, my kids toys are all packed, EVERYTHING is packed and guess what??? I dont have a house to move into.
They tell me that it will be 3 more weeks before the escrow closes on my new house. What do I do with my fish tank??? With my 110lb dog and my cat??? I dont know. I do know that I better LOVE my new house.....because I NEVER want to go through this CRAP again.

[FreddytheFish]

That sucks. :rant2:

[OrionGirl]

;) As an update...We made it.

We went to put my car on the dolly, and discovered that the steering wheel wouldn't lock on my car--my car that we bought new in November, mind. After a tense few hours trying to figure out a way to get it fixed or something, we decided to leave it at a friends house, and then had to take the dolly back to the rental place. So we pulled out about 4 hours too late, minus one car. The drive out took longer than we planned, but that wasn't too big a deal. The weather cooperated once we got out of Evanston WY (where we stopped the first night--nasty weather coming out of Laramie till just past Rawlins, so much blowing snow that at times I couldn't see the moving truck in front of me!) We didn't get to SHOWER that morning, because the hot water heater in the hotel broke. Sheesh. We made it to Virgin River NV the second night, and stayed in a casino that had lots of good parking. We spent a little time in the casino--I started with $5, got down to 50 cents and won $60, so I quit! Bakersfield was a complete nightmare--bad directions, miscommunications with the hotel for our reservations--getting a full size long-box truck towing a 12 foot trailer and 28 foot moving truck out of a teeny-tiny (that notorious bikini was bigger) in the pouring rain was a nightmare!

But, once we made it to town, we found a great storage unit right away, from less than I'd feared, and got everything put in the storage unit in 6 hours (how it took 5 days to load it all, and only 6 hours to unpack I will never understand). Then we spent about a month living in the on base campground in our camper. It was a little tight--2 dogs and 2 cats and 2 adults in an RV makes it tought o keep clean!

We've been in our house now for about 3 weeks. It's smaller than what we moved out of, and there's no WAY we can setup all the tanks we had in Cheyenne, but we're working things out and will have something going soon. I'm flying out the end of May to pick up my car, and my sister will drive back with my for a quick visit, and I will be REALLY happy to get my little car back!!!

Thanks for all the prayers and support! I won't be moving for another 3-4 years, and I AM reducing. Now. Not later. Won't say that it won't accumulate again...But I'm going to try really, really hard.

[rosita]

OG, it does just take time to adjust, but things even out. Moving is traumatic, I don't care what ANYONE says. As an Air Force Brat, then school and jobs, then divorce, at 47 I just counted 31 moves in my life. Whew! So my heart goes out to you, just don't forget to breathe and smile and laugh!!
Best of luck!!! Happy trails, Renee :dance2:

[greeneyedlady]

Congrats on an almost uneventful move. I think the worse move I ever made was when we were moving only a couple of blocks away I was 8 months pregnant and tripped and tore a tendon in my leg. Talk about moving with grace :eek:

So far in my life I have moved 11 times and I am not leaving this house unless it is feet first I absolutely refuse to pack up all this garbage and move again. You think you have alot of stuff try doing it with 5 kids, that was 5 years ago and I don't ever want to do that again.

[nursie]

My wife had so much stuff that she filled up the most of a 54' long semi-trailer. I wasn't too happy with her on our most recent moving day..... ....wow..it was alll HERS? You don't use any of it?? Hmmm...


My parents moved 3 x while I was growing up and it was torture every time. I swore I'd not move my kids around like that. And I haven't. Hubby and I moved around a few times in the area after we were married...also torturous...but at least we didn't have to say goodby to friends and family. We've been in the same house for 19 years...yeah!!! Remodeled..added on, but same address.

[mishi8]

....wow..it was alll HERS? You don't use any of it?? Hmmm...


My parents moved 3 x while I was growing up and it was torture every time. I swore I'd not move my kids around like that. And I haven't. Hubby and I moved around a few times in the area after we were married...also torturous...but at least we didn't have to say goodby to friends and family. We've been in the same house for 19 years...yeah!!! Remodeled..added on, but same address.


I'm with you on not moving around with kids. We made a long distance move once (with several local moves before and after) before my eldest started preschool, and thought that we'd be staying put for many years. Turned out we had to move again when my DH had to find work, and the job required moving again...to a town we vowed we'd never come back to. :o

Now the kids are in school, and we do not want to face ever moving them again. But DH is looking for a career move, and of course the jobs in his field are plenty elsewhere (in cities we moved away from!) It will take a long while to find something, cause we're not moving (I hope)!!!

[OrionGirl]

My husband tried to convinve me that much of what needed to go was my kitchen stuff--to which I replied that I would gladly give it up, but that means I don't cook anymore, and he's left with cold cereal and going out to eat. So, I'm keeping my kitchen stuff, and we're lookng to get rid of some other stuff. ;)

I think part of the problem is that this was our first move from our own house, not a rental we shared with room-mates. All my other moves, I didn't have a full household of stuff--and I can not even imagine trying to move with children! The pets were more than enough. And, they were actually pretty good--the dogs, of course, travel very well, but even the cats were pretty good after about the first half hour. Although they did both manage to get into the box-springs on a bed in one hotel--we were able to get them out without too much hassle, and learned to check the room a little better before letting them out!

[Native American]

....wow..it was alll HERS? You don't use any of it?? Hmmm...


I said MOST of it. I got the first 5 feet of it, then we concentrated on the kids' bedrooms, kitchen and livingroom (that got us to 50% of the trailer length). I was feeling pretty good about this, knowing that my workbench wouldn't take much more, and we could load it with clothes and kitchen stuff plus stack additional wife items on top of them all the way to the ceiling...but then we started moving her stuff. Unbeknownst to me, she had purchased $20k in furniture and clothes over the past month, and rented two large storage units to hide it all right before our move. I didn't catch the financial carnage until I got the credit card bills online while we were travelling XC. It was a case of "Gee, honey, I didn't know the kids had so much stuff...look at these winter clothes from Land's End and L.L. Bean for 10-yr-olds...but David is only five...I don't recall getting any of this stuff when we last went shopping for school clothes...wow, these are some really nice dresses...lots of really nice dresses...yup, you're a size 6, so are these, so why haven't you been wearing these hot numbers? Hey, this is Ethan Allen furniture...ALL of it is!...where did you get it? Are we moving somebody else's stuff to the new duty station?"

I actually had to get a smaller cab-over truck to make multiple trips to the storage units so that we could load the semi-trailer.

My workbench stuff didn't fit after that exercise, so I had to get a small U-Haul 4'x8' enclosed trailer for the tools and firearms plus the overflow from her 2nd storage unit. Had to leave the break-down construction 16' bench and under-bench workshop cabinets behind for the new house owners. We'd planned on putting them in the semi-trailer, then loading them with clothing and soft items, plus fragile kitchen items in between, then stacking heavy furniture items on top. No way that was going to work, now. I was pretty hot at that point.

Then she announced that she had more stuff at another storage unit. Too late now, we're committed. I put the U-Haul on her Honda Odyssey, hitched the boat to mine, then drove our boat to this other storage unit, and started stacking stuff on it. I began to worry when the wheels got close to the fenders, so I drove on base and weighed it...holy cow, we maxed out the trailer axles w/ 1,400 pounds of her "stuff" in addition to the boat and trailer.

Oh, there was more stuff in two closets she hadn't told me about, so she asked me to fill my Odyssey to the brim. Only room for the driver now (barely, and I ain't so wide), so she got the four kids (we'd planned on splitting kid duty, but it didn't work out that way...so now she's worried about me being fuming angry, and the kids are miserable, she's pulling a trailer as well...actually, I was pretty worried she might have an accident).

Really unpleasant drive out west. Wife was so addled at me being angry that she accidentally followed the wrong car in our little 2-car convoy and exited the interstate. Called her on the cell phone ("Was that silver Honda towing a boat loaded with your kr@p??!!" "N..N...No." "Well, then why did you follow it?" "It looked like yours...except it didn't have a boat attached to it.") I told her to stay put, then drove miles to hunt her down. This happened a couple times during the trip.

What a way to start a new job.

v/r, N-A

[nursie]

I Unbeknownst to me, she had purchased $20k in furniture and clothes over the past month, and rented two large storage units to hide it all right before our move. I didn't catch the financial carnage until I got the credit card bills online while we were travelling XC.

:eek: Wow..that is a problem!!!

[OrionGirl]

Oh, man--I would have killed! We were really good about not buying anything new for months before the move--we even risked my mother-in-laws wrath by saying we didn't want any gifts that we'd have to move for Christmas! My husband didn't know how full our little storage unit was, but only because he'd been too busy working to help get stuff out of the house for showing it. We didn't have to leave behind anything but my car, and that really was for the best. After weighing the moving truck, pulling the car would have pushed it over it's load-limit!

I can't even imagine buying MORE stuff just before moving. That's crazy! Not to mention that we went from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom house, so it's pretty tight just fitting the stuff we already had. We've swapped some pieces--going from a sprawling corner computer desk to a compact armoire, for example, and deciding that we really don't need to have 4 tents (we both agree that we'll never tent again, now that we have the camper), and bar stools with no bar really aren't useful. Could have pared about 3000 pounds off, I suspect. :)

[OrionGirl]

Oh, and I do highly recommend having radios. We had them to use when hooking up and backing up the camper, but they were great for the trip. We could always talk to each other, and we only got seperated once--pulling out of the gas station in Vegas, he made it through the light and I didn't. But, I caught up before we made it out past the city limits. We could communicate before pulling off the highway.

[born2lovefish]

Oh yes it does. I moved last year with my parents from Illinois to Indianapolis. I got out of school on friday and had to drive to Illinois. I got there and had to take down 5 tanks and pack everything up. I got back to Indy about 3am. Then I had to set a tank up to get the fish out of the containers. I bought all the water for one tank so it was all ready. I got to bed about 5:30am. About 14 hours job. Yep moving totally stinks man.

[mishi8]

Unbeknownst to me, she had purchased $20k in furniture and clothes over the past month, and rented two large storage units to hide it all right before our move. I didn't catch the financial carnage until I got the credit card bills online while we were travelling XC.

(snip)

... Then she announced that she had more stuff at another storage unit. Too late now, we're committed.

(snip)

Oh, there was more stuff in two closets she hadn't told me about, so she asked me to fill my Odyssey to the brim.

Wow, that's sounds like a pretty serious shopping addiciton! It's a big warning sign when someone hides purchases. I know too many women who do it (my mother being one of them!)...starts off innocently enough...and then turns into a major financial (and space) issue. :eek:

[Native American]

Wow, that's sounds like a pretty serious shopping addiciton! It's a big warning sign when someone hides purchases. I know too many women who do it (my mother being one of them!)...starts off innocently enough...and then turns into a major financial (and space) issue. :eek:

In spite of that, I did, do and will love that woman. We're still together. She's always had problems with hoarding, probably from having very little when she was younger. :( We worked together for 8 years to get her to kick the hoarding habit, and it almost worked. At the end of that last move she had over 200 boxes of recently purchased "excess stuff", while the rest of the family items (4 kids, my things, plus her essentials) almost totaled 150 boxes (which would have made for a leisurely, comfortable move). She was pretty worried when I parked both cars in the the garage of our new house and started ejecting boxes onto the lawn when we ran out of interior space to put more boxes. Hey, that was the deal I made when we left town...the garage is NOT a storage place, not even temporarily; it's where we park our cars.

I've told her that unless she pares down un-needed items, we won't move again. She wants to make one final move, but I won't go through that again. I was born and raised in the Los Angeles area, but SW Oklahoma is okay by me and the kids!

Like the title of the thread says...MOVING SUCKS. It sucks worse when you can't get an interested party (like your spouse) to cooperate. :mad:

v/r, N-A

[rosita]

Native American, you are a wonderful, understanding human and a caring, loving husband. I honor you for understanding the source of your wife's "problems" and working together. It is a beautiful thing to see. Best of luck to you and your family--it's truly great to hear that humans CAN be like this. Stay that way!!!!!!!

[125gJoe]

... ...
My wife had so much stuff that she filled up the most of a 54' long semi-trailer. ...
v/r, N-AYou mean "53" foot semi-trailer?

Sorry, couldn't help it...

:D


_____________

[Native American]

Thanks, Ms. Rosita...actually, I had a lot of help from friends in our neighborhood. Believe me, I wasn't exactly the picture I'd like to see of myself during that week.

Moving is truly the pain this thread makes it out to be.

And BTW, you're right, Joe...it was a 53' trailer, you ham! You know more about stuff in general than a body has a right to, and I mean that in a good way.

v/r, N-A

[wildthinglmd]

I've moved so many times I have it down to an art!!!! One of the things I do is color coordinate everything... the boxes that you pack get a color mark for that particular room... Kitchen=red, bathroom=blue, son's room=green, my room= yellow, etc.... then when you unload you know what room to put the boxes in! :duh:

[mishi8]

In spite of that, I did, do and will love that woman. We're still together. She's always had problems with hoarding, probably from having very little when she was younger. :( We worked together for 8 years to get her to kick the hoarding habit, and it almost worked.

You sound like a wonderful partner to your wife! ;)

I know it's a really tough thing to kick. And it's so important for the person to be ready to do the work, and they need such strong support from family.

I find it hard watching my parents go through it. The really tough thing is that my mom doesn't own up to it...she still denies it, blames it on all sorts of other stuff, and now she's begun compusively lying. Their house is so full of stuff that they can't keep it repaired, and can't have anyone over. There is no way they could sell, let alone move! And I can't step in, or intervene because my relationship with my mother is not strong enough...but if/when she is willing to make a change, then I'm more than willing to help any way I can.

Interesting talking to an acquaintence who does home clean up/counselling for compulsive hoarders. She's seen it all, of course, and she was saying that it never does work well if the work is initiated by a third party. She was also telling me that she has some clients who hire her once a year to help keep them on track.