We’re moving. Not by choice, really. When we moved to Virginia, we weren’t sure we were ready to commit to buying a house here. So we rented. From some people who now want their house back. Which means:
-Everything (or at least 97% of what we own) is now in boxes, color-coded and meticulously labeled so we know what we need to unpack now (like before Christmas) and what can unpack later (like by the 4th of July).
-We’re stressed. Apparently moving is one of the top-five stressors. I’m pretty convinced this is true. The only task bigger I can thing of is planning a wedding. (Last year, we actually decided to combine the two. I wouldn’t recommend it.) Not only is packing up everything you own a feat of physical strength, it’s really mentally strenuous too. And for being someone who is always pushing against routine, I’m not a huge fan of change. When I’m traveling for long periods of time for work, I even get attached to the hotel rooms I “live” in.
-We need to stop shopping. Forever. It’s taken 50lbs of packing paper to wrap up all our breakables. Thank goodness the big earthquake never hit while we were in San Francisco. We would been buried alive in a giant heap of glass shards. Not top on my list of ways to go.
The good news is that I broke away for a quick hour yesterday to hit up the Richmond Craft Mafia’s Handmade Holiday Craft Fair. It was one of my most favorite Richmond experiences my first year here and it didn’t disappoint this year. Even though those booths were just oozing with cuteness, I forced myself to seriously evaluate the value of every little atom I brought home. If there’s one thing that’s etched in our minds after this weekend it’s that things get a lot less cute when you have to shlep them out of one house, across the city and into a new apartment six floors up.
poor you…it will all be over soon! we moved into our first place (a condo) last year, and even though we plan on having kids & would love to own a HOUSE someday, I’m convinced we will live here forever because of my vintage dish addiction…so many breakables, so little moving…
good luck!
Oh I love vintage dishes! We packed everything ourselves but hired a moving company to actually transport the stuff across town. They dropped off the fifty pounds of paper for free, which turned out to be KEY in protecting all those little beauties. Otherwise, I might have been ripping pages out of magazines and scavenging for printer paper until next year!
We closed on our house when I was 37 weeks pregnant. I was the real estate agent, so I had to deal with all that stress. On top of that, our 100-year-old house had a busted sewer line that was shared with our neighbors and running under their new driveway. On the day I gave birth, there was a backhoe in our new front yard…no working plumbing…and boxes everywhere. Hopefully that will make you feel a *little* better!
Good luck with the move!!!
Oh for the love! In a sick way, that really does make me feel better. I have functioning plumbing, no backhoe and no baby, so it sounds like I actually have it pretty easy. Thanks for the encouragement, Lauren!
[...] my December has included packing up one house and moving into another (read more about all that here and here), my Christmas decorations currently consist of one strand of lights laying in a heap on [...]