Please. Take this information and learn from it. Don't let unfortunate moving mistakes happen to you.
1. Not knowing how much stuff you have.
Boy, I could write a book on this. I
thought I had gone through everything and bagged up enough stuff for the local Goodwill-esque store. I
thought I had successfully de-cluttered my home. I thought wrong. How can two people collect so many things and pack it into a tiny 2 bedroom house? Well we did. And we paid for it. Long after I had filled 18 million boxes with our stuff, there was still enough crap to fill 20 more.
2. Not getting enough help to move.
Since we're basically poor college kids we decided to rent a Penske and move ourselves with the help of my in-laws. Two of Erik's friends from work came over on Friday afternoon to help us move the big stuff, but we really needed more help. This relates to mistake #1 as we had too much crap to be loaded. I think when people say, "I need help moving," everyone seems to scatter like roaches when the lights come on. Not to mention we moved at a time when school was out and everyone was gone. Thankfully three very nice people helped us unload once we got to Texas.
3. Not properly packing your moving truck.
You would think a 22 foot Penske could easily hold all of our stuff. Not if you don't pack it right. Being the moving-virgins that we are, of course we had no idea how to pack the truck. This lead to much frustration and lots of rearranging for Erik.
4. Don't go to the local grocery store in the new town at 6:00 pm the day after you move.
Now I practiced this principle when we lived in Martin and managed to avoid a lot of stress this way. However, going to nice grocery stores that are not named "Wal-Mart" is quite a hobby of mine, and plus we needed food. Everyone and their wheel-chair bound grandmother was at HEB when we went Monday night. Once we finally made it to the checkout after navigating aisles when had never been down, I attempted to fill out a form for their savings card while 3 women behind me gave me dirty looks and the cashier was rushing me. Then I forgot to give the girl my coupons because they were under the form and ugh! I will return to that store because it is freakin' awesome but never again at 6 pm on a Monday night.
So I hope you've learned something from our mistakes and I hope your next move will be easier than ours. One huge blessing-nothing got broken in the move! I will post some pictures soon, but first I must find my Picturemate somewhere in the 300 boxes left to unpack.
Here was our moving truck. Yes, it is true that our stuff barely fit into this monster.
My lovely new kitchen. Since I've donated a lot of my kitchen stuff to charity I have room to put everything. It looks small, but I have a rolling butcher's block that's tucked into the pantry that I use to do a lot of my prep work.
