This time next week I'll be in a new town with new people, in a new house. For the first time my DP and I feel like we have arrived into the middle middle class of America. Sadly though there's evidence we want be here long with the economy. All the sad stuff aside.
I have been doing my best to pack up the house, keep the kids entertained, and make sense of all thats happening. Not 7 months ago I was in this situation, we packed the care and moved nearly 6 hours away.
So how am I coping. I am doing things very slowly. This house has a grand total of 6 rooms plus a garage. What does that mean. I am taking one room a day for 6 days. All that should be left is the furniture. I don't think I could handle a lightening quick move. I am trying to stick to some sort of routine. In past moves, they happened and it was over. The entire world for the family was thrown out of balance. This time packing a few boxes a day, and asking a few extra chores of the kids seems to be working.
The kids and i are both extremely excited and we cannot wait to get to our new home. My DP knows that just one day after we arrive we has to start his first day of work. I can only imagine. I will be left at home with three kids, a pile of boxes, and not a friend for more than 2 hours a way in any direction.
Things I am looking forward too. More room. This particular house we are moving in is over 1200 square ft. Two Bathrooms. We've lived with a single bathroom for nearly 2 years and now its time we up grade. A dish washer. I once lived in a apartment with a dishwasher, LOVED it. For the past 4 years though I have been toiling away over a sink, handing washing every dirty dish. 3 spacious bed rooms. We've spent most of our time as a family living in two bedrooms dwellings. There was a time when we lived in a single wide that had 3 bedrooms but one of the rooms was taken as our office.
The other biggie on my list of things I am looking forward to is the School system. I have wanted for a long time to home school my child. Mostly because everywhere else i had lived the schools systems were marginal at best. Yet, now we are moving to an area where people from neighboring counties pay extra for use of the public schools. The preschools are also said to be top of the line. I haven't fully researched the schools just yet but I most certainly will.
That's all for now.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
On Moving
As much as my family has moved in the past 5 years one would think we are a military family. Well not really we moved 4 times in one county. Still moving takes a bit of fortitude and organization. The first 4 times we moved I had the help of my DP. It was easy he and I packed boxed and moved our things together across town. We packed and unpacked like a dual machine.
The last time I packed up a house I was primarily on my own. My Dp was working full time and it was all on me to find boxes, schedule a storage unit, and pack up the house. For this particular move I had about 4 yard sales leading up to the move.
Now six months after we moved our things across the state of North Carolina we are moving half back in the direction in which we came. Once again its up to me to pack up our mountain home, schedule a U-haul truck and find a storage unit in our new location. Now this isn't the norm. This move is happening super fast. We don't even have time to find a place to rent in the mean time. So we'll be seeking a Hotel for accommodation for a few weeks and then move into a rental.
I realize there are domestic engineers who have the benefit of calling the local moving company. I am not really sure how to go about finding a reliable moving company. In fact I wish we had the luxury of it but moving three times in one year doesn't afford me the joy of watching someone else move my things.
This move is starting like the last successful move. It will start with me cleaning each room as if we were going to live there long term. I would move furniture, clean and polish furniture, toss anything I don't want and then start packing. This method I adopted from the world renowned Flylady. She is the one who taught me the baby steps to house keeping and home organization. The benefit to this method is that you don't move with anything you don't want and you don't have a lot of cleaning afterwards. Twice I have moved and it felt like it took me longer to clean the house after our things were packed and moved than it did for the actual packing and moving. So for me cleaning my home as it is, is the first major step.
The next thing is the "box hunt". It maybe tempting to go down to the local U-haul and pick up a few packing boxes for nearly $7 each but please save your money. There's LOTS of places to get cardboard boxes for free. The number one place in most places in the U.S. is the local liquor store. Now unfortunately for myself, I live in a liquor free county (unless you count the moon shine stills hidden in the hills). So I don't really have the option of stopping by the liquor store for boxes. My other option is the grocery store. I am lucky our local grocery store offers boxes at the front of the store. They are there for a good portion of the day but sometimes they are taken to the compactor. I have lived in places where fire codes prohibited retail facilities from keeping boxes in the store. They either had to be compacted or disposed of in a cardboard recycling bin. Now if you aren't willing to spend money on boxes, you live in a dry county and local fire code prohibits card board boxes from hanging out in the store, you are going to have to suck up your pride and go diving. Dumpster diving! Before you do that put out a line on freecycle or craigslist. You might be fortunate enough that someone is willing to pass along their moving boxes. Now back to dumpster diving. This is one of those things that sucking up self pride and saving a dollar really counts. Just think you are doing the enviroment a favor by not buying a new box, and you are saving yourself a bit of money as well. First and foremost there are some rules for dumpster diving for boxes everyone should know.
#1 Never get in a dumpster if you are alone. You may be able to get out !!!!
#2 IF the dumpster doesn't say "card board Only" don't waste your time. There might be a box in there but its probably got some really disgusting food on it.
#3 Do this in the day time. Most Dumpsters are located behind stores that are poorly lit at night. If you have to go at night take someone with you.
#4 Don't dive in a dumpster after it has rained. Now this a no brainier right? I wish, but even several days after it has rained the cardboard in the dumpster can still be water damaged. Its best to wait until you know the dumpsters have been emptied and its hasn't rained for a few days.
#5 Medium sized Collapsed boxes are the best boxes. At first looking in a dumpster of flattened card board can be a little upsetting. However, you can rebuild any box that has only been collapsed to flatten it. Just a roll of packing tape you are on your way. Also, you can get a lot of collapsed boxes at one time in your car.
#6 NEVER get in a dumpster when you are a lone. I realize this is a the second time I have mentioned this, but its VERY IMPORTANT. If you do get in a dumpster when you have help with you, its also important that you can get out. Yes free boxes are tempting but if you get stuck in a dumpster it would be pretty embarrassing for that to show up in the police blotter (Jane Doe 29 was rescued from the local dollar store card board box dumpster Friday evening after she went in for some free boxes. ) Now moving is also a good reason to grabbed a refrigerator box for the kids. I will get to what I do with my kids when moving day comes.
With every move I have spent lots of money of good quality tape. The last time we moved our things stayed in storage unit for nearly 8 months. Its important to purchase tape that will make through the move. Ideally duct tape is a bad option. The adhesive on these types of tape don't hold well in heat and humidity. Scotch tape for gift wrapping is too weak to really hold a heavy box together. The best option is clear packing tape but even that can be cheap. Its not a bad idea to buy the good quality stuff. I personally like the clear tape that gets damaged if it sicks to itself. If tape sticks to its self and pulls a part easily its probably not very good tape.
Now I have been fortunate with my last move. We decided while unpacking that we should keep all of our boxes. We had intended on moving from our current home into something bigger.
If you have childern moving can be difficult. The emotional toll of moving shows in each child differently. My DS said he didn't care that we were moving. My step kids were sad we moved over 4 hours away from them. One of the things Have done over the past few years is pick up a Large box for the kids to play in while I am packing. Its up to them what the box becomes. The first time I gave my DS a box for moving he was just over a year old and destroyed the box in only a little while. The last time we moved, the box I gave him was a master piece of coloring and scribbling. I was also surprised how much time he spent drawing and playing in the box. It was his on little world away from all of the chaos of moving.
So I am off to start on my home I have less than two weeks to make this move happen as smoothly as possible.
The last time I packed up a house I was primarily on my own. My Dp was working full time and it was all on me to find boxes, schedule a storage unit, and pack up the house. For this particular move I had about 4 yard sales leading up to the move.
Now six months after we moved our things across the state of North Carolina we are moving half back in the direction in which we came. Once again its up to me to pack up our mountain home, schedule a U-haul truck and find a storage unit in our new location. Now this isn't the norm. This move is happening super fast. We don't even have time to find a place to rent in the mean time. So we'll be seeking a Hotel for accommodation for a few weeks and then move into a rental.
I realize there are domestic engineers who have the benefit of calling the local moving company. I am not really sure how to go about finding a reliable moving company. In fact I wish we had the luxury of it but moving three times in one year doesn't afford me the joy of watching someone else move my things.
This move is starting like the last successful move. It will start with me cleaning each room as if we were going to live there long term. I would move furniture, clean and polish furniture, toss anything I don't want and then start packing. This method I adopted from the world renowned Flylady. She is the one who taught me the baby steps to house keeping and home organization. The benefit to this method is that you don't move with anything you don't want and you don't have a lot of cleaning afterwards. Twice I have moved and it felt like it took me longer to clean the house after our things were packed and moved than it did for the actual packing and moving. So for me cleaning my home as it is, is the first major step.
The next thing is the "box hunt". It maybe tempting to go down to the local U-haul and pick up a few packing boxes for nearly $7 each but please save your money. There's LOTS of places to get cardboard boxes for free. The number one place in most places in the U.S. is the local liquor store. Now unfortunately for myself, I live in a liquor free county (unless you count the moon shine stills hidden in the hills). So I don't really have the option of stopping by the liquor store for boxes. My other option is the grocery store. I am lucky our local grocery store offers boxes at the front of the store. They are there for a good portion of the day but sometimes they are taken to the compactor. I have lived in places where fire codes prohibited retail facilities from keeping boxes in the store. They either had to be compacted or disposed of in a cardboard recycling bin. Now if you aren't willing to spend money on boxes, you live in a dry county and local fire code prohibits card board boxes from hanging out in the store, you are going to have to suck up your pride and go diving. Dumpster diving! Before you do that put out a line on freecycle or craigslist. You might be fortunate enough that someone is willing to pass along their moving boxes. Now back to dumpster diving. This is one of those things that sucking up self pride and saving a dollar really counts. Just think you are doing the enviroment a favor by not buying a new box, and you are saving yourself a bit of money as well. First and foremost there are some rules for dumpster diving for boxes everyone should know.
#1 Never get in a dumpster if you are alone. You may be able to get out !!!!
#2 IF the dumpster doesn't say "card board Only" don't waste your time. There might be a box in there but its probably got some really disgusting food on it.
#3 Do this in the day time. Most Dumpsters are located behind stores that are poorly lit at night. If you have to go at night take someone with you.
#4 Don't dive in a dumpster after it has rained. Now this a no brainier right? I wish, but even several days after it has rained the cardboard in the dumpster can still be water damaged. Its best to wait until you know the dumpsters have been emptied and its hasn't rained for a few days.
#5 Medium sized Collapsed boxes are the best boxes. At first looking in a dumpster of flattened card board can be a little upsetting. However, you can rebuild any box that has only been collapsed to flatten it. Just a roll of packing tape you are on your way. Also, you can get a lot of collapsed boxes at one time in your car.
#6 NEVER get in a dumpster when you are a lone. I realize this is a the second time I have mentioned this, but its VERY IMPORTANT. If you do get in a dumpster when you have help with you, its also important that you can get out. Yes free boxes are tempting but if you get stuck in a dumpster it would be pretty embarrassing for that to show up in the police blotter (Jane Doe 29 was rescued from the local dollar store card board box dumpster Friday evening after she went in for some free boxes. ) Now moving is also a good reason to grabbed a refrigerator box for the kids. I will get to what I do with my kids when moving day comes.
With every move I have spent lots of money of good quality tape. The last time we moved our things stayed in storage unit for nearly 8 months. Its important to purchase tape that will make through the move. Ideally duct tape is a bad option. The adhesive on these types of tape don't hold well in heat and humidity. Scotch tape for gift wrapping is too weak to really hold a heavy box together. The best option is clear packing tape but even that can be cheap. Its not a bad idea to buy the good quality stuff. I personally like the clear tape that gets damaged if it sicks to itself. If tape sticks to its self and pulls a part easily its probably not very good tape.
Now I have been fortunate with my last move. We decided while unpacking that we should keep all of our boxes. We had intended on moving from our current home into something bigger.
If you have childern moving can be difficult. The emotional toll of moving shows in each child differently. My DS said he didn't care that we were moving. My step kids were sad we moved over 4 hours away from them. One of the things Have done over the past few years is pick up a Large box for the kids to play in while I am packing. Its up to them what the box becomes. The first time I gave my DS a box for moving he was just over a year old and destroyed the box in only a little while. The last time we moved, the box I gave him was a master piece of coloring and scribbling. I was also surprised how much time he spent drawing and playing in the box. It was his on little world away from all of the chaos of moving.
So I am off to start on my home I have less than two weeks to make this move happen as smoothly as possible.
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