The Moving Diet & Exercise Program

I don't mean to sound like a whiner, but I have to say that moving was a really really terrible experience. Something about putting every single thing I own in the entire world into 24" boxes was almost enough to send me over the edge. I felt so overwhelmed. My husband has more experience with moving and living in limbo. I have to give him a lot of credit for taking the lead and pulling me along. He knew what packing materials to order, and how to pack all of our glass while I stood stunned and motionless in our bedroom. Time was limited, so I knew I needed to do something, but I looked around and just didn't know where to start or how to do it. He takes everything in stride, and it didn't bother him too much, but the disarray in our house, having to decide what to put in storage for three months and what to keep, and the pressure of having to make everything disappear in three days was a lot for me to handle. We purged a lot of things from our house in preparation for selling...and still I felt so disgusted by all the stuff we had to move. It really makes me want to get get rid of everything! Burn it all!! Well that won't happen, but this experience has definitely renewed my desire to continue working towards becoming a minimalist or at least a quasi minimalist.

After the final inspection and after the buyers released all contingencies we were left with exactly one weekend and one day to move. We spent the last weekend before our move in Lake Tahoe, so the pressure was really on that Monday before heading into the work week to get everything done.

Didn't happen.

Not for lack of trying though. We were packing the moment we woke up and and well into the night. We were so busy packing we barely even ate that day. We just had so much to do. And the funny thing about packing is the more you do, the more there is to do. You spend hours putting things into boxes, then you look around at the mess, and all that remains and feel as though you've accomplished nothing. We focused on the two extra bedrooms, and the kitchen during that first weekend of packing. Then, we moved into the bathrooms, the loft, the living room, and then we still had the downstairs closets, and the master bedroom/bathroom, and that's even before we touched the garage. It's a lot. It takes so much work, and it never seems to end. MJ did some stuff during the week, but I'm useless after work, so I already knew I wouldn't get anything done. He took Friday off and I did a half day. We got the keys to our apartment, dropped off clothing, and refrigerated food, then continued packing at home.

We rolled out of bed and started packing immediately, because the movers were set to arrive between 8-9am on Saturday morning. We STILL had boxes to seal, and odds and ends that needed packing. MJ ran out for some McDonald's breakfast around 10:30am. We took a breather, and devoured egg white delights, hash browns, and iced coffee on the couch before they took that away too. We did the refrigerator before they took it, and as our house emptied I started cleaning whatever I could get to. I stayed behind doing that, while MJ led the movers to our storage unit.

One of two major hiccups for the day is that we had too much stuff to fit into the truck in one trip. They had to drive to our storage unit, come back, and load up the rest. This takes more time and time is money, because the movers are paid by the hour. The other problem is that our stuff wouldn't fit into the one storage unit we reserved. Thank goodness they had another available! I drove up there, and reserved a separate one next door in my name so we could take advantage of a first month free special. I went back to continue cleaning, while MJ stayed to help them unload and lock up the units.

It took three men nine hours to move our belongings. I was hottest day of the week, at 98 degrees. I don't even know how they survived it. Moving is so physically demanding. My husband gave them a good tip. They really did a good job taking care of our things, and they earned it.  

We also had to move the stuff we kept to the new apartment. We went back and forth in two separate cars loaded with stuff  twice that day. I think it was twice. We did a night run together in one car later on, because we had internet problems at the new place, and needed wifi to get that straightened out. We finally stopped for food around 9:30pm or something insane, and ate sub sandwiches from Jersey Mike's on the floor of our old house before heading back for our first night in the apartment. I hadn't even thought about soda in a long time, but after such a long, hot, physically exhausting day, the bottle of diet coke I drank that night was so satisfying.

I cried a little on Sunday, and it wasn't just because I was cleaning the stove at 7 o'clock after two long days of moving. Yes. That part sucked. And I still had to finish off the kitchen floor, load up the goodwill pile, ditch the trash, and round up the last few odds and ends. Meanwhile, MJ was in the garage hosing down the floors, loading up the car, and taking care of all the "outside stuff" I wouldn't touch. I was exhausted, hungry, dirty, and ready for this to be over already, but the tears had nothing to do with that and everything about what it felt like to remove our house keys from my key ring for the last time. I still remember how we ran over to take another look at the model, and hugged after signing the purchase agreement. We'd done it. We bought a house. In freaking California! We were so excited. It was such fun, watching it be built, and we got to close two months before our wedding. For the last eight years this house was really good to us. It may not have fulfilled all of our wants, but it certainly provided us with all of our needs and then some. It was our first home, and I will forever look back fondly on that time in our lives and the precious memories we made there.
 

By the time we left our old house for good it was after 9pm. I still had to make a quick stop at Walmart. MJ still had to run some stuff to the storage unit. That night dinner came from Yard House, because everything was shutting down on us, and it was nearby. It took an entire week to get back to any semblance of meal prep, and I still have yet to engage in an exercise routine. No real excuse. I just can't. Almost three weeks later, I'm still rolling around with a brave heart replica sword, and two king size pillows in my trunk, among other things.

I may or may not ever find my favorite workout shorts that went missing. I'd also like to know what happened to the wooden spoon I like to use for mixing ground turkey. I was so sure I packed it! I've also been drinking wine out of a mug, because we didn't bring any wine glasses. Moving is complete and utter chaos. We still have to move out of the apartment and into our house, but I think the hardest part is over.

I'm not even kidding when I say I was on the moving diet and exercise program. You can't grocery shop, when you are loosing your refrigerator in a week, you can't meal prep when you have no food, and the majority of your kitchen supplies are in boxes, and there's no time to eat, when you have to spend every waking second moving things from one place to another. Moving was my cardio. I lost about three pounds over the course of that weekend without trying. I got results, but I don't recommend it.