Without a doubt, moving is one of the most stressful things you can do in your life. And it doesn't matter how many times you do it, each iteration presents its own unique challenges.
This time around, we had the luxury of professional movers. How professional, though, is really just luck of the draw. We caught the short end of it when one of our two "packers," the guys who come to box everything up, was on his first day at work. What should have taken 6-8 hours of packing lasted almost 12 hours. Watching him count our CDs and DVDs one by one was like watching paint dry, when he could have counted in multiples of 8 as they were all organized in a CD/DVD book. A third guy had to come and help them finish at about 6 pm, otherwise, they would have been there till midnight.
We hit more snags: an unwanted lawnmover ended up in the moving truck, but not a much needed handheld vac; a $150 memory foam mattress topper was unproperly packed and arrived in a dirty heap on the floor; another vacuum never made it to the new house, lost somewhere along the way; and I'm still looking for little odds and ends that ended up in who knows what box.
While packing was a relative breeze, since I didn't really have to do anything but supervise, unpacking is another story altogether. Two weeks in, there are still boxes in the garage, waiting for my attention. The house is still a mess, though progress is being made everyday.
And though this house still doesn't feel quite like home, we're getting there. The chemical-y smell left by the cleaning crew who prepped this house for us is slowly being replaced by our own unique scents: coffee brewing in the morning, V's shaving balm, and Briscoe's BO. On another positive note, she now knows how to "go to bed."
