Movin' On Up, Part 2

Having committed to move, we knew the toughest task was going to be de-crapping our life of a great deal of excess stuff. Fortunately, we had over two months between lease-signing and moving day to get it done. Eleven years is a long time to live in one place, and we had a lot of stuff we had accumulated during that time that fell into the category of "excess."

A quick trip down to the basement served as a rude reminder that when we'd moved into the house in 1995 there was a lot of stuff that had been indiscriminately dumped down there and had never been seen or heard from again, so in 2006 it probably wasn't very important to us. The new apartment had ample basement storage, but it would be stupid to move a bunch of stuff we didn't care about just to stash it in another basement. Some people are very good at weeding unnecessary stuff out of their lives on a regular basis, but sadly my wife and I are not among those people. So it was very emotionally healthy for us to have to assess and cull our belongings in preparation for the move.

Of course when moving day was a few days away, we still weren't where we needed to be, but is anyone ever totally ready to move? (Probably those same people who weed out their unnecessary stuff on a regular basis.) The movers were due at 7:30 AM, so there we were at 6 AM on moving day, making a massive trash pile out of stuff we no longer wanted or needed, couldn't manage to give away, or that was just in such poor shape it was destined for the trash anyway. To be sure, I would have preferred not to throw away so much, but sometimes it's inevitable.

We hired Father & Son Moving, based on their estimate and the fact that the Mrs. had used them for a work-related move. When they arrived (on time) they couldn't get the truck into our dead-end street because of a car parked on the corner. One of the movers went to the nearest house; the owner was home, but the car had no gas. She was willing to go and get some, but for whatever reason, she couldn't do it until later in the day. The movers decided the best course of action was for them to do their other scheduled job for that day first, then come back to us. That was actually a good thing for us, because it gave us several more hours to finish packing (like I said, we just aren't those people...). The car was moved, the movers got the truck into the street and did a terrific job, and eventually (before dark) we were in our new home.