And Now the Great Unpacking Begins

Well, we did it.

We're moved.

Well, we're almost moved.  It happens that the dishwasher at the old place is full of (clean) dishes that didn't get packed up.

There's still some cleaning up to be done at the old house and So. Much. Unpacking. to be done at the new house that I can hardly even handle it.  To contemplate the unpacking makes me want to curl up on the floor of my closet and go to sleep.

(Which I did on Sunday afternoon.)

(It was a very short catnap.)

Today is the day I find myself feeling very emotional and nostalgic about the old house.

I liked the set up of our old bathroom better.  The old bathroom had a better shower head.  I miss the drawers in the old bathroom vanity.

Also...

I have to walk a lot of steps to go from the sink to the fridge.  The old house had a small kitchen, but everything was right there!  The new house has such narrows drawers, our drawer dividers don't fit.  Where am I supposed to hang a hand towel for the sink?  The pantry is so deep, how will I find the items that get shoved to the back?

And...

This house doesn't have as much natural light as the old house.  I miss the big windows in our sunny back room.  

I could go on.  I know it's just a matter of getting used to a new set up and new placement of our old things, but you know how it is.  Change is hard--even really good change is hard.

As for the actual move...  On Friday, it rained here.  Not stormy, but ceaseless, steady downpour.  The puddles on the sidewalk in front of the new house were so deep my feet got soaked walking from the car to the front door.  The weekend forecast called for more of the same and I envisioned a Moving Day of Misery--the rain-soaked and chilly variety.

Thankfully, the rain held off and Saturday was chilly but no more than a little misty here and there.  Our movers were fantastic and friendly (and incredibly, ridiculously strong).  The old house got packed up and moved, with the help of a couple of really good friends and my parents, and there's really no way we could have done it without all of them helping out.  We also had the bright spots of a friend dropping by with some delicious gooey butter cake (there's exactly one piece left and I'm claiming it tonight) and a new neighbor popping in with warm-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies, so we survived.

I think I've mentioned that we moved just down the street from a Mexican restaurant.  It's a delicious restaurant and I'm super excited about walking down there on a regular basis (in fact, we got take out from there on Saturday night).  But we didn't think about the fact that we'd be moving down the street from a Mexican restaurant on Cinco de Mayo weekend.

Fortunately we had orange traffic cones to claim ourselves parking spots on the street.  It also helped that our new neighbors were super nice about helping us out so the moving truck could park directly in front of the house.  But still?  A rainy Cinco de Mayo weekend?  It's like the universe loves to mock us.

Now I would like you to imagine this:  You got up at 6:30am and you spent your entire day packing up your old house and moving into your new house.  You've made at least four trips in the car between houses.  You've made a huge run to Target.  You've been cleaning and sorting, but you still have no idea where many of your belongings are actually located--in what box, in what room, on which floor--at the new house.  You are exhausted and hungry and it's now 5:45pm.  What do you feel like doing?

If you're anything like me, you'd like to sit down on your butt, eat pizza, have a glass of wine, make a plan for organizing things the next morning, and go to bed early.

What do you NOT feel like doing?

How about getting dressed up and going to the theater to see a musical?

We had tickets to Million Dollar Quartet that David had bought months ago because he's a big Johnny Cash fan.  I had no desire to see the show, but I don't mind indulging him because yay!  The Fox theater!  Let's dress up and go out to dinner!

Except, no.  NOT ON MOVING DAY.  I was gross, unshowered, beyond tired, and I'd hurt my back when I lifted a box of books the wrong way.

I was getting ready to take a shower when David tried to tell me that I had 30 minutes to get ready and I LOST IT.

I seriously was throwing a childish fit.  But ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  There wasn't hot water because the water heater had gotten turned all the way down and no one had adjusted it.  I couldn't find the box that had my deodorant.  My clothes were in total disarray and I had no idea what I was going to wear.  I hadn't eaten dinner.  The LAST THING I wanted to do was go see this musical.  I told David I would pay the price of our tickets to NOT have to go see it.

And it wasn't that it was a show I wasn't all that interested in--I don't think I would have wanted to go see anything.  I was just too worn out.  There might have been some stomping and door slamming and maybe even a little bit of crying because I have the mindset of a toddler when I am tired and hungry.

Seriously, my mom had to pick out my outfit because I was in meltdown mode.  Not my best moment.

But we made it to the theater.  The show was okay.  I probably would have liked it more if I hadn't been so tired I was almost nodding off during the performance (the pain in my low back kept me awake, so I guess there's a positive side to injuring myself?).  The show wasn't bad and the guy who played Johnny Cash really did have an amazing voice.  It was just the right show on the wrong night, you know?  I was just grateful that there was no intermission and it ran less than two hours long.

We spent all day yesterday on the tedious tasks of trying to organize a kitchen and a bathroom, and I'm trying to remind myself that it took 9 years of living in our old house before we had arranged to suit us just right.  We did a lot of rearranging and moving things around in the kitchen and bathroom over the time that we lived there, so I shouldn't expect everything to be perfectly in place in one weekend.  But the task of unpacking all those boxes in the basement does feel pretty daunting.

Plus I need to get some bookshelves.

It's funny because I told David before we moved that it takes time to grow into a house and we're not going to have everything finished and put together in two weeks, but I'm the one who's really feeling anxious and overwhelmed by everything right now.

Deep breath, one thing at a time.

Oh, and let me just say that when my parents came up for the weekend, they brought Little Mac with them for a visit.  She's been doing well at their house, getting used to the cats, and she's only had one pee and one poo inside the house in the two weeks she's been there.  Both "accidents" were at the very start, presumably before she got used to their routines.

She spent ONE DAY in St. Louis and she pooped in the nursery at the old house and peed in the family room at the new house.  She also would climb the stairs to the second floor, then stand at the top of them and wail when we went downstairs and left her alone.  But when my mom tried to pick her up, she growled at her.  She was constantly underfoot as well.  I tripped over her at least seven times, and one of the movers also tripped over her in the hallway.  She was a menace.

Needless to say, we felt reaffirmed in our decision to send her to live with her grandparents.  As David says, we miss Little Mac.  But not that much.