Moving Day

I hear people say things after moving like; “I managed to unpack all my boxes over the weekend! I’m all done unpacking!” and I imagine they moved with one box and one suitcase.
Or they accomplished it because they live alone.
That must be it!
I have found a whole new area of inadequacy in myself. Well, to be fair, I have a handicap. Namely Mr. Sarcasmica.
Mr. Sarcasmica alone takes up 3/4 of our new three car garage. The man has an entire video game museum that is moved from place to place. It’s a carnival complete with sideshow mutations that would make PacMan turn blue and roll over.
The woman we bought the house from had lived here with her family for 19 years.
She had not accumulated half of what we moved into it with!! The worst part is the amount of ‘stuff’ we have is a result of downsizing over the past six moves. Four of those six were state-to-state moves.
Four of those moves were the holy grail of moves: corporate.
For those of you who don’t know, corporate moves (the type we did) consist of a moving company coming to your house, packing up your shit for you, loading it all onto a truck, moving it, unloading boxes (and in one case, unpacking the boxes) and leaving you to organize it yourself. As little stress as possible. This move has been all on our own, and we are TERRIBLE movers!
We found a beautiful home in a seemingly ideal neighborhood. We desperately want to make a good impression. The first day we had a UHaul parked, three sets of neighbors came over to introduce themselves and bring gifts! I was so surprised and hopeful this truly appears to be a perfect place for us. I picture the friendliness to continue until the day one of them drives by or walks up to the house when the garage is open. They see the amount of boxes and just run screaming from the packrat freaks.
As it stands now, we are finally into the new house, but we still have ‘leftovers’ to clean up at the rental. We have the nasty job of going in and picking up all the single socks, underwear, and legos that managed to work their way beneath the beds, couch, & desks. The random tupperware that was lodged at the back of the shelves and behind the trashcan. The dust bunnies that have turned into abominable allergy snowmen and then reproduced into clans of them all about the house.
We only lived there 18 months!
After three days of packing and moving ourselves, one day with professional movers, one UHaul breakdown with my husband and 7 yr old in 30 degree weather, resulting in three hrs of overtime for said movers (due to their equipment stuck in the UHaul) and one day in front of us for movers to return and finish the job so we dont have to sleep on mattresses on the floor again, we are nearly back to some semblance of normalcy.
We are at least six months from, “All the boxes are unpacked!” (which translates to an actual time frame of 17 months)
So for those of you out there who manage it in one weekend, I say pashaw. If you aren’t moving with a museum of unwieldy, out-dated, miscellaneous paraphernalia valuable to 2% of the population, you are lightweights!
(and can I come live with you, please?!!!)