What Not To Do

My hubby and I have moved five times in our marriage (counting our first move to Tennessee right before we actually were married), and of all of those moves our last one had to have been the move unorganized and chaotic of all. In the spirit of wanting to spare others from the mistakes I've made, I've put together a list of the top five things NOT to do when you're moving:



1. Don't move during the rainiest winter in ten years. I guess there's no way to know when this is going to happen, but if you can avoid it, I recommend doing so. Living in the Pacific Northwest, rain is part of the equation, and usually we all take it in stride. A few weirdos (myself included) actually enjoy the rain. However, moving soggy boxes and tracking mud and water throughout old and new house is not ideal. "Can't you just pull the moving truck up to the garage door?" you say. Yeah, you could if they had poured the concrete more than a week before! But since our concrete driveway was so "green," and it had been raining ever since the day they poured it, it was recommended that we allow it to cure another couple of weeks before driving a vehicle on it.


2. Don't give boxes that you've been saving to a coworker to use for his move first. My dear hubby (dh to those of us who use cyber slang) saved boxes at work for use during our move. However, a savvy coworker took note of that and asked if he could use the boxes for his move which was a couple weeks earlier and then bring them back after he was done. Sure, dh said, if you promise to bring them back. Well, after prompting he did bring some back. Of course he didn't bother to flatten the few he brought back and they were all squashed and almost useless, but who's keeping track. Also dh's assistant decided to "help" and threw out a bunch of boxes Ed had been saving as well. Needless to say, when it came time to move, we were short on boxes and had to go on a desperate search for the increasingly rare commodity...the unwanted, unrecycled box!


3. Don't find out the day before you're going to move! Again, probably not always something you can predict, but it is usually best to have at least several days advance notice that you are going to be moving. Don't misunderstand, of course I knew we would be moving sometime soon, but we didn't actually know until the day before that indeed we would be able to move into our new house the next day. When we set our closing date back in September, our realtor and builder said January 1st would be allowing plenty of time. Well, rain delays and other issues pushed our closing out another two weeks, which really isn't too bad in the scheme of things. Of course our neighbor with the bright blue house (whom the builder said had a gazillion addendums to be done) got to move in weeks before the rest of us though his house was on the same time schedule as ours. Hmmmm...what's up with that?


4. Don't allow one family member to contract a highly contagious stomach flu the day before you move! As I reflect on this list, I can see that these things are largely out of one's control. Still, I have to earnestly advise you to avoid this one if at all possible. Thursday evening (we moved on Friday) my sweet little boy came into the kitchen and was acting strange, but couldn't tell me what was wrong. Just as I was about to panic thinking he was choking, out it came...his entire dinner, all over the floor, me, and him. I am ever so grateful he came into the kitchen and got off the carpet! After cleaning everything and everyone up, my poor baby spent the rest of the evening sitting on the toilet. So began our family flu epidemic. Friday evening, hubby said he didn't feel well, and sure enough, that night saw him running to the bathroom every half hour or so. My dad who graciously flew up to help us move (and ended up unloading the bulk of boxes on Friday due to Ed's illness), had to have the truck pull over to the side of the road so he could empty his stomach. I started fervently praying that I would escape this illness and sprayed Lysol and broke out the hand sanitizer, but Sunday night was my turn. We skipped Monday without further breakout, but Tuesday my mom (who also flew up to help) came down with it. My dear daughter never threw up but had horrible diarrhea for days. Though the illness only last about 48 hours, our unpacking came to all but a standstill.


5. Don't schedule a surgery if you have any idea you might even remotely think you're going to move! I have no one to blame but myself for this one. I thought for sure we'd be moved and settled in, but I should have known better and scheduled Ryan's surgery for the next month. With all the stress of buying a new house, trying to schedule flights for my dad to be here when we moved, packing and moving, none of it compared to the stress of knowing my little boy was going to have surgery. We moved on Friday, and Ryan had surgery the next Wednesday. Fortunately, he was fully recovered from the flu (can't say the same for Gramie), and his surgery went just fine. I'm so grateful we have a faithful Lord. I prayed for about 45 minutes the night before his surgery and at last I had peace that he would come through just fine, but adding this stress to all the others was almost too much. It took us weeks to physically recover from the sickness and just the stress, I think. Even the kiddies were sleeping much later than usual, and we all just seemed exhausted for the first couple of weeks.

As we were going through all these unpleasant things, I kept telling myself that this would all be a funny memory one day. Sure enough, now that we've lived in our new home for a month, I have almost forgotten how miserable we were. I'm blessed to have such a beautiful home and wonderful family! I thank God for his blessings both big and small, and I look forward to making our house a comfy retreat for all who enter!