To You and Yours, Happy Moving Day 2002
There's more to it.
I wish there weren't.
If only it were that simple. "Oh, yeah, we moved. One minute we were at our old house saying it would be nice to be in a new house, the next minute we were at our new house enjoying frappuccinoes." But it isn't that easy. You don't just move. There are months of aggravation before such an endeavor can occur.
It's an epic tale. Five or six years ago we were walking around our neighborhood and saw a house for sale that looked good on the outside. We called the owner and found out the price was out of what we considered our range, so we didn't so much as tour the house. But we caught the moving bug. After a couple weeks of searching, we found a good starter home. (A starter home is a home that is cute but not really big enough for a person or family who has accumulated ... well ... ANYTHING. see also quaint.) So we moved to what is now our old house but what was then our new house.
Two days later, the phone company finally connected us.
Skip ahead several years and end up in October of 2002. Stephanie was looking through the house listings in the newspaper and saw that that same house was for sale. We laughed, but that laugh soon became a visit to the house to see the inside. (Fortunately, it was "soon", as otherwise we would have probably passed out from lack of oxygen.) I didn't much care for it, but Stephanie liked it a bit. We decided to go looking at other houses to compare assets and costs. We soon discovered that we could get much better houses for much higher prices. (What luck!!)
So we looked for a few weeks. Then it dawned on us that, if we're going to buy a house, we have to get our house ready to sell. We had improved our house a lot since we purchased it. We replaced the front door with a working front door. We replaced the bad front windows with a bay front window. We replaced the attic insulation with insulation that wasn't just newspapers from the 1930s. We replaced other windows. We replaced the furnace with central air. We replaced checks in our checkbook with regular air.
But we had more to do. We had to paint the rooms in the house. Well, some of the rooms. We had recently painted a few rooms in the house yellow. (Different shades for different rooms, but still very yellow.) We had to paint the basement, too. Word to the wise -- basement paint is gritty. When you roll it on, no matter how slowly you roll it, it sprays grit. Do NOT let your spouse wear your nice slippers to paint with basement paint!!!!
A couple more improvements then it is off to clean clean clean. It's amazing how much stuff accumulates when you buy stuff yet never throw stuff away (including the little twisty ties for the computer cables). But excess must be removed, so we removed the excess. A big shout out to the sanitation engineers who accepted the dozens of garbage bags full of refuse over the course of several weeks. Kudos!
Once we had the house clean and up for sale, it was time to continue looking for a home to buy.
But, wait! Within four days of putting our home on the market, we had an offer. A counter-offer or two later, IT WAS TIME TO CONTINUE LOOKING FOR A HOME TO BUY!!!!!
Even with dragging our feet and using the weekend's shortened real estate office hours (if there are no other laughs attributed to this piece, I'll at least get laughs from any real estate agents for that one) to our advantage, we had an agreed price within a week of when we put it on the market. That sounds all great ... IF you have a house to buy. We didn't.
When we started looking for a house the interest rates were low, but there wasn't much competition for houses. When we went looking AFTER we put our house on the market, the interest rates had plummeted further and everyone and their newspaper real estate section were out looking for houses. We went out one evening to look at five homes. By the time we arrived, two of them had already been sold. The agent told us about one house she heard of that not only had an offer, or two offers, but a triple offer. Three parties were bidding on the same house at the same time. So much for it being a "buyer's market."
But, after looking at about twenty homes, we finally found one worth bidding on.
So we bid on the house. A counter-offer or two later, we needed to find money for the place.
But first we had to get the house inspected. It turns out that we need new windows, new siding, new tile, repaired staircase rail, etc. We kind of expected all of this going in and, lo and behold, the inspector concurred.
So we got the house inspection, the insurance transfer, the loan application, the time off from work, the ulcers ... The whole kit-n-caboodle.
Then we had to reserve a truck. That's a chore: 15 foot? 24 foot? We went for 24 foot truck: just in case. I was actually a bit concerned that wouldn't be enough, but Stephanie assured me that it should be plenty since we only had a 23-foot house. It ended up that 24 foot was the right size ... barely.
In the weeks before the move, we put all of our stuff into boxes and made sure all of the boxes and such were on the main floor. No one wants to spend moving day carrying a lot of boxes around, much less carrying boxes up or down staircases. (Of course, no wants to carry boxes around on any day, but the previous sentence seemed to make sense when I wrote it.)
Finally, the day before moving day (Moving Day Eve?) arrived. The plan was to load the truck on Moving Day Eve. Then, on Moving Day, finalize the paperwork, head on off to the new house, unload the truck, attend the holiday church service, exchange gifts, and, of course, decorate the Moving Day birdbath.
I'm very pleased to inform you that Stephanie is very artistic and very craftsy. She could sew Martha Stewart into retirement (here's hoping) and she could decoupage Rosie O'Donnell into oblivion (oh, please try!). I'm NOT very pleased to inform you, however, that when one moves, the artsy and craftsy stuff must be moved also. Not only that, but the artsy and craftsy supplies must be moved also. Stephanie's arts and crafts and affiliated supplies took up almost the entire truck. Well, her arts and crafts, her supplies, the furniture, the appliances, pots, pans, china, decorations, toiletries, clothes, games, electronic devices, books, etc.
Speaking of books, we had several boxes (HEAVY boxes, mind you) full of books. Why? Does this make sense? My brother Robert claims it is because I work in a library and Stephanie is a full-fledged degreed-from-an-accredited-institution-of-higher-learnin' librarian. Naturally, we'd have a lot of books. Stephanie and I agreed. Upon further reflection, we're all idiots. First, when a plumber moves, does he or she have boxes full of clogged toilets? I don't think so. Then why should a librarian have lots of books? Well, you say, because librarians usually like to read in their spare time. Okay, that's my second point: of all people, LIBRARIANS should have figured out the concept of the library. For those of you who don't understand libraries, here's the skinny. You BORROW the books you want to read and RETURN them when you're finished so, when you move, you don't have heavy boxes full of books to lug around. Really, when you think about it (and please do because I don't want to have to explain the next part to you), plumbers are the ones who should have the big collection of books.
You might be saying, "Mark, you're sure quick to point out Stephanie's contribution to the excessive amount of possessions. I bet you have some things that added to the size and weight problems." No, not really. Just my anvil collection and a few commemorative anchors. So be quiet.
That night we went to sleep on the futon mattress. (I originally and accidentally had typed photon mattress. I'm not sure what that would be, but I'm thinking it would be described as "pretty cool!")
The next morning we got up. We put our mattress in the back of the truck and went on our merry way to the closing. The closing should be the most stressful part of the process. I mean, really, you're forking out tons of money for a building you're assuming won't have burned down since you last saw it. But you're so worn out from the OTHER massively stressful parts (like the uproar after you blame your wife's arts and crafts "habit" for the truck being half-full when you've only loaded a quarter of your stuff) that you don't even care anymore. ("Oh, I see you've added a zero to the end of the price. Fine. And I see you've crossed out 'house' and wrote in 'diseased goat.' Looks good!")
The folks moving out of the house we bought had a bit rougher go of it. I'm not sure what size truck they had asked for, but they didn't get it. Instead, they got two 24 footers. That turned out to not be enough, so they rented a trailer. Turns out that wasn't enough because the ended up with a 15 footer besides. Wow! FOUR vehicles! She must do LOTS of arts and crafts! Maybe she'll decoupage Rosie to oblivion. (Oh, please try!) Okay, okay, I bet he also had a lot of anvils and an anchor or two.
Finally, we were able to unload the truck at our new home! It took us a good six or seven hours to load the truck. Unloading it took about 3 hours. I'm not sure why it only took half the time, but I'm not going to argue.
After we were done unloading the truck, we took that days' helpers out for lunch. Then, for a break, Stephanie and I went to see the recently released Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers -- clearly the worst part of moving. But I did get some much-needed sleep. I'm just kidding. It was much too loud to get a lot of sleep.
While it didn't go exactly as planned, we started packing the truck on Moving Day Eve and had emptied the truck by the end of Moving Day. Overall, the event was pretty much a success.
So, after a couple months of stress, enjoyment, anticipation, and work, we had a couple days of stress and work. But then we were moved into our new home where we will spend the rest of our lives because neither one of us wants to put up with that commotion again. Amen.
Four days later, the phone company finally connected us!
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The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer and do not neccessarily reflect those of the rest of the family.
© 2003, Mark Wentz