So amid a sea of boxes and rubbermaid totes (of which I got 24 into my Ford Focus, a miracle, I must say) I realize its Thursday night. Shoot. I haven't written my blog yet. A slew of curse words follow as I dash into the office, shurking my packer's assistant duties to type this.I may have a dash of brilliance and write more later, but if not - tell me your best or worst moving story. I know its my personal version of hell, so I'm certain y'all have some frightening stories to share. Maybe later I'll tell you about the 40 foot long mud trench and the tow truck...
Your turn. I'll pick one story to win a copy of Body Movers by Stephanie Bond. If I haven't packed that box... :)
SP
15 comments:
I helped my mother move last year and we got the rental truck stuck in the backyard and had to call a tow truck to haul it out. Not fun.
I moved a lot growing up. I attended 4 different schools in the space of five years from 2nd to 6th grade. It was difficult on me, making new friends only to lose them again several months later and have to start all over. One of those years we even returned to my home town and I went back to the same school I'd attended 2 years before. The kids were the same...and yet they weren't.
One thing I remember really liking though was each time we moved our job was to find and collect all the little moving stickers from the furniture and boxes. Each different colored sticker (from different moves around the country) were worth different amounts of money. The best ones to find were the red ones (worth five dollars) from my parent's move to Florida from California several years before I was born. And I still managed to find a few during the last move my 6th grade year. I have no idea how they got past us kids for that long.
Good luck with your move this weekend, SP!
Instigator
We moved a LOT for a long time. My husband was working industrial construction, so if we got to live in the same town for two years we thought we were growing roots.
When we moved to Cary North Carolina (many, many years ago) the truck driver called for directions to the house. Somewhere along the way I told him left instead of right. He did eventually find us, but he was not happy.
There was a hill, and we had the movers take the old refrigerator to a storage room there. They dropped it. I didn't care much about the dent in the side of hte fridge, but the gash in the moving guy's hand was terrifying. This is how we found out that one of our neighbors was a nurse.
Did I mention it was raining? Our neighbor (not the nurse) told us much later (after we'd become friends) that he'd stood at the window and laughed, because it had rained when HE'D moved in and apparently watching us move in the rain somehow made it all better.
Then there was the time one of the kids' suitcases got packed on the truck, and we had to buy him new or he would've had nothing to wear for a week. Yes, we had movers for most moves, which came with the job, thank goodness. They even packed for us, which was great except when they packed things like sink plugs and oven grates. If it wasn't nailed down . . .
When we moved into this house, the previous owner (my brother) had not gotten his butt out as quickly as he'd said he would. We were moving in the back door while he was moving out the front. (we were on our own, this time.)
Good luck with the move!
LJ
When we moved from my apartment to my current house, it was raining, of course. My apartment was a long walk from the parking lot, but a straight shot. We rented a 24ft moving truck from UHaul and recruited a couple boys. We told the boys - DO NOT BACK THE TRUCK UP ONTO THE LAWN. It would tear up the grass and we'd lose our security deposit.
While we were out getting lunch, they backed the truck up onto the lawn, leaving a pair of 40 foot trenches on each side of the sidewalk. Sigh. So then they loaded the truck as it continued to rain. When they were done, the truck wouldn't move. The tires were spinning in the mud, making deeper and deeper trenches.
Men of course, don't want a woman's advice when they've done something dumb, but eventually they did what I said - took some of the furniture out to lessen the weight, poured some kitty litter behind the tires and sheets of carboard in front of the tires. As I was giving up and calling a tow truck, they were able to get the truck moving and drove with one wheel on the sidewalk to keep it going.
So then, in addition to packing, we had to go out and push the mud and sod back into place. I ruined my clothes, my shoes...great stuff.
Then...yes then...the key broke in the ignition of the truck. UHaul (yes, this is why I'm calling them by name, I want everyone to know) said it wasn't their problem and I had to call a locksmith and pay for the fix. The cost was approximately as much as the truck rental, so when I dropped off the truck, I refused to pay and after throwing a righteous fit about it, they agreed.
It's a wonder I ever got in this house to begin with.
There is nothing good about moving.
I moved every year until college. (Sometimes with Father's job, other times because my mom got "spring cleaning" confused with "moving"--that's what happens after you've moved so many times.)
Since DG and I got married, we've moved 3 times. That's it. I'm not real keen on the house I have now, but I'm just too lazy to move.
I hate moving; haven't done it many times, and absolutely detested the whole process. The only good thing to say about moving is you get rid of a bunch of junk you never should have kept in the first place.
To make moving as easy on myself as possible, I developed a system: I sold all my old furniture, bought new, and had the furniture company deliver the new stuff and set it up where I wanted. Much easier than moving it yourself. Now, I only moved about every ten years or so, so stuff needed to be replaced anyway.
I also discovered Sears contract sales. They're independent salesmen who can sell the appliances much, much cheaper than you can buy them in the stores. So I'd sell my appliances, too, and use the money to buy new ones. It was never even-steven, but close enough that I'd get all new stuff at a fraction of the cost. The trick isn't to keep using stuff until it dies . . . sell it while it's still working, and use the money to buy new!
This also meant Sears delivered the appliances. I never moved anything except our personal belongings, and that was bad enough.
Linda
For the first 2 1/2 years we were married the DH and I were professional gypsies. His job as a government auditor sent him all over the southeastern US and because we had this crazy idea that newly married couples should be together, we didn't have a regular residence but rather just went wherever he was doing an audit and rented a furnished apartment for the length of the audit. We spent a summer in the Orlando area and a spring on the beach on Sullivans Island, South Carolina. We also had one audit where it was just a week in each location so that meant staying in motels, but one of those motels was in Key West. Of course that meant that we could only drag around what we could fit in the trunk and backseat of our car. I makes you seriously think about whether you need something or not. His professional gypsy job then got moved to Europe and we moved there. But they gave us a nice apartment to use as home base and the locations of the audits were awesome -- Paris, London, Vienna, Nairobi, all over Germany (the country where we lived). I didn't get to go to Kenya with him but I did get to travel to the other places and more.
I like Maven Linda's idea about selling stuff and buying new. We did that with our last move, but the stuff was all 20-30 years old and we'd raised two boys on it so it was pretty rough. Even just moving the personal things, office and kitchen items, the truck had to make 3 trips from the old house to the new because the idiot mover didn't investigate the old neighborhood and didn't see that although we were almost in a dead-end, there was another street that lead out of the neighborhood. Had he seen that he'd have brought the truck and trailer and we'd have been able to make the move in one trip. Oh yeah... and it was cold and rainy that day.
My next move is to the nursing home.
Ah, moving! I've moved every 2-3 years since I was born until the past 10 when we finally put down roots. Memories. Taking an Italian Language course, moving to Italy, getting off the plane first thing only to have your proper use of the Italian language corrected when you ask where the bathroom is (think dialect). I think I've already mentioned the Italian couch that arrived with one arm hanging to the side reminding me of Monty Python's Holy Grail, the lost box with my bathing suit in it (Remember the AAFES store didn't have much to chose from and I was a 'teenager' who mourned such a great loss), Herbie, my Love Bug dying 1/3 of the way from upper Kansas to lower Oklahoma and having to rent a UHaul truck to carry said Bug to our new destination while I was 8 1/2 months pregnant with 3 kids, 1 dog and 1 cat, being 8 1/2 months pregnant and having a doctor I've never seen in my life deliver # 4 3 weeks later, being stuck in a hotel for 30 days in Italy while waiting for housing, being stuck in Guest Housing with 1 bedroom & 4 kids for 35 days (animals in Kennel) while waiting for housing, watching packers wrap and box up my glassware and heirloom furniture and hoping for the best (this is where eyes pop out!), having a new neighbor ask "Who is that old man" when your DH is walking back into the house, passing government housing inspections, stuffing two cars with your belongings, pets, and kids, and traveling across country to visit family and meet deadline of reporting for duty while finding a new home.
What I remember most is being the new kid, leaving behind friends, fearing never making new friends, and always, always moving during December when school is out and the year is half over so that you stick out like a sore thumb when you finally get to go to school and after the other kids had already formed friendships. (We made sure our kids had summer rotation because of this.)
All in all, I'd moved 8 times by the time I was 15, and by the time I was 35, 9 more times. Whew!
Good luck with your move, SP!
Kathy
I tend to grow roots. I moved to college. Then to two apartments and now this house. Aside from the fact that this house is almost paid for, the idea of moving is enough to make me stay put. However, I LOVE Maven Linda's idea of buying new. ;-)
When we moved to our house our daughter had brought home a lovely stomach virus from pre-school which she gave to her little brother and myself. So I'm cleaning the bathroom but we keep getting sick in it so I have to keep cleaning.
I think my mother might have the best moving story actually, now that I think about it.
I was one and we were moving from Florida to Michigan, knew no one had no family around. My mother was 8 months pregnant with my little sister and ended up going into labor. She spent 24 hours at the hospital on an alcohol drip in an effort to stop labor (which made her very drunk) while our neighbor - a woman she'd met once -told the movers where to put everything when they showed up to unpack. My little sister was born the next day, 6 weeks premature and spent several weeks in the hospital.
How's that for a nice welcome :-)
Instigator
I have moved 17-19 times; lost count.
the worst one was: our wedding was in 4 weeks time so dh to-be started moving a lot of my bigger items to his home app. 2 hrs. drive away. The items I needed stayed in my apartment. 2 weeks before the wedding dh to-be was told he was being transferred to another locale. We had the wedding and then proceeded to move his/my stuff at his place, and my stuff from my apt. into the house where the current dwellers had not moved everything yet. This started they day after our wedding because dh only had the long weekend off and then had to report to his new job location.
Growing up I moved 10 different times before I reached the 6th grade. This really sucks when your young, just get settled in to a new school and meet new friends and then we'd move again. Then finally reached the 6th grade we stayed in the same place till I graduated. Thank god!
My husband was a state trooper and was called out to a surveillance. Ihad to go pick upthe older daughter at the movies and had very few minutes to do it. I too the younger ones who were dressed int heir pajamas. I locked, told them to behave and went in to retrieve my other daughter and friend. I returned to find my car surrounded by people and the police. I should note the car was bouncing up and down as the kids played. Someone reported me to the police, saying I went to the movies and left my kids in the car.
My kids still remind me of that. They did let me go after I explained.
I decided my moving car story was not good enough so here I am to tell you another. I am an Army brat and have lots of stories but I will tell you the one where we moved and our mattress wound up on the roof. Our dog was in the river and was no longer light red but a disgusting shade of brown. We found out our new phone worked when someone called to tell my husband his grandfather died. We never forgot that day.
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