Movin' In: First Day Confessions & CONTEST!

 

Wish I had packed myself in a carton, taped and labeled it
to ship off to some exotic island.

I did start off organizing everything, room by room, carton by carton but  the day before the van pulled up (and same day) the last of the last kind of got thrown in to the remaining cartons, the trunk and back seat of our car. Everything made it over to our new home - almost everything.

Since we've downsized some had to go to a storage unit - that's where the chaos began. Some cartons ended up in the wrong place - I'm not sure how  the carton labeled "Jake's Computer - OPEN" got buried behind the furniture in our storage unit but two days and several $$$ later the movers had to unpack the unit in order to find it. BIG UGH!

As a parent  the very last thing you want to lose, even temporarily, is your kid's computer.  I did manage to keep this a secret until we found it - couldn't handle the inevitable outcries and additional stress.

More to come:
 The "still missing",
We're still disoriented,
And I'm still fantasizing living with Jake, the two cats, and a laptop in Bali. Think I can find a "hot spot" on the beach?

BusyBodyBook's "A Moving Experience" CONTEST

Three readers can win a new 09/10 or 2010 BusyBodyBook with a post of
"A Moving Experience" (funny or nightmare) story here. Winners chosen June 30th!

Comments

[Stephanie Lee]

Well we just recently moved and are still unpacking boxes while trying to plan a birthday party for our twins who are turning 4 next week. We scheduled to pick up the moving truck on Friday at 9 am. We go to pick it up and it's not there. It doesn't get there until 12:30. I am type A personality so I was about to blow by this time. Not only that but my husband only asked 1 person to help us in the morning and 1 person in the afternoon. Well, the morning guy never showed up and the afternoon guy was late. My husband figured he could have the truck loaded in an hour and a half ( I tried to tell him that we would need way more time than that but he wouldn't listen). Anyway, he finally pulled out of the driveway at 8:30 that evening. We were moving 3 hours away and his original plan was to be halfway unpacked by then. As if the day hadn't been long enough already, about half way there he go redirected. There had been an accident on the interstate and they rerouted traffic to a county road. We live in Arkansas so our county roads are traveled by lots of tractors and farm equipment, and there were a lot of ruts in the road. Well, that detour set him back another hour. When he finally got into town it was 12:30. Well, wouldn't you know the gas company never showed up to hook up the gas that day and so we had no hot water for showers. So we were going to stay at my sister's house. Then my husband realizes that his extra bag of clothes somehow ended up in the back of the moving truck. So we are in Wal-mart at 1 am trying to find him some clothes for the night and next day. We finally got to bed at 2 am in the morning. We are sooo glad that is over. Howver, my husband did tell me that he was sorry he didn't listen to me and he would from now on. But, I don't plan on moving again for a long, long, long time.

[Jeannette Jones]

For our last move, we bought a house about 2 blocks from our previous, smaller house. We handled most of the moving ourselves by piling stuff in my car, driving down the street and unloading it. Some in boxes, some not. However our dilemma came when it was time to move our custom-made iron and glass chandelier. It's very unusual and was brought to our 1st home hanging on a contraption in the back of the pickup truck of a friend of the artist's. We knew we couldn't pack it without breaking the glass, so my husband and I carried in down the street one evening. We saw some neighbors eying us with strange expressions, so my husband calmly replied, "What! You've never seen anyone taking their chandelier for a walk?" I laughed so hard I almost dropped it!

[Tess Weir]

I'm hoping it's our first and last move,it's been 2yrs since we moved into our new home, and I still get a giggle when I think back on it.Hubby and I rented a Moving Van for 24hrs and had everything moved that day into our new home with the help of many family members.After we tuck our two kids into their beds,we retired to our room and that's when hubby said" I'll be back I forgot to lock the Rental. He came back 5 minutes later and asks me, "Please tell me I gave you the keys to the rental? I don't have it hon! Not only that Hubby locked the Rental. So we prayed,and I remembered what my husband said, Lord I'm soo exchausted, I can't think straight but you know where the keys are to the rental car, I'm trusting you will help us find it tomorrow morning.Hubby woke me up at 6 am the next morning"Guess what I found the keys"and then he pulls it from under his pillow" lol he put it there himself so he wouldn't lose it.Thank you Lord! we both said.

[Joanna]

After years of thinking about moving, we decided it was finally time. Our family of 5 had outgrown our house. We found a house that we loved, but it was a foreclosure...we thought we had a deal. We packed everything we owned into POD storage units expecting to close on both houses on the same day and move across town. We we set to close on a Monday...we found out on Friday that the new house deal was not going through. After 10 years of home ownership, we were officially homeless with 3 kids (6, 4, 2). We moved out of our old house and into a local hotel. The "apartment" had no kitchen (shared kitchen on the first floor, we were on the third floor). There was 1 bedroom (we are a family of 5) and I had to wash baby bottles in the BATHROOM sink - again because the kitchen was 2 floors down). We stayed there for 3 nights, I could not take it. So we moved to another hotel while we continued to work on the foreclosure house deal...we stayed at this hotel for 2 weeks...the realtor on the sellers side kept yanking our chain. We had now been in hotels for 3 weeks with a week's worth of clothes and a small Rubbermaid container with toys in it. We then HAD to find a house to rent while we tried to do this deal. Meanwhile EVERYTHING else we owned was in storage units an hour away. My husband and I made several trips to the storage units to retrieve clothes, toys, bikes, paperwork. We rented a house for 5 months and continued to try to bring this deal together...now approaching a new school year we finally gave up and bought the house across the street from the one we had tried to buy for so long. We are now settled and so happy to be here but our journey was LONG.

[Dorothy ONeil]

We have moved 7 times in the last 20 years. We have also ADDED 9 children to the mix! Each move seems to happen a month or so after the last baby is born...so could *I* tell you some stories! The worst would be our move to TN. I had a new baby, 2yr old and 4 yr old. We purchased a home in a nice quiet community. The home had been vacant for a year and we thought little of that, just come early and clean! The first night we all snuggled down into our sleeping bags in the master bedroom. I woke to nurse the baby and saw something on the window sill. It was dark but it looked like a black mark about 3 inches long. I assumed I was imagining it. The next night we were in our bed but nothing was unpacked. Again I woke to nurse the baby. Again the black spot. The next morning I looked and saw no spot. But as I looked around the sill, I saw antenna wiggling from a very small crack! HMMM. That night When it again appeared I turned on the light, I know...duhhhh. It was the largest roach in the world!!(not really but you know how it is) The next day we called an exterminator. After his inspection the first words out of his mouth were, "At least there are no Brown Recluse Spiders, those bites can take a chunk of flesh..." I burst out crying, as I never heard of those things before. We had not unpacked the kitchen, Thank God, and so the children and I moved to a hotel for 24 hours assured when we returned the bugs would be gone and the poison would be too. 2 days later there was a little red roach in the laundry room. I caught him under a jar and called. The exterminator came out with another advisor and said, "Yeah, just what I thought, German Roach, they are hard to kill. Mam you have 5 types of roaches in your house." Again i started crying and we moved to the hotel for a week. Thankfully we had not unpacked things so we had to worry less about cleaning the dishes after each spraying/bombing. In all we spent most of our first month in a hotel. We ate at McDonalds and the chldren enjoyed the playspace there. While all that was very gross, there were funny moments too. One was when my 2 sons grabbed me by the legs and said," No, please, no more McDonalds! We want some healthy home cooked food!" My husband point out that, "This has been a great way to teach them to eat better."

[Dorothy ONeil]

I just thought of some more "mini" stories, The second move of our marriage, we had 1 18 month old and we were moving ourselves. We had a Uhaul and I had not wanted to throw out the lb of butter from the frig. So I brought it and placed it up front in a little cubby. Unfortunately that cubby was over some part of the motor that heats up. When we arrived, all our important moving papers and papers for my husbands new job were swimming in butter....hey, I didn't know he put those in there first and I didnt know it would heat up like that. :) Then there was the time I left the keys in the moving van but locked the doors...no one wants to unlock your doors at midnight at a rest stop....unless you have lots of cash! Worst packing story, I had worked very hard to organize my craft items, toys, homeschool supplies,(ie junk) into plastic containers with lids. The packers, it turned out, DUMPED all the items out of the containers into their boxes and them boxed all the containers seperately. So I had their boxes with all sorts of loose items and boxes with boxes in them. Some of those boxes were crammed together and cracked....soooooooooo frustrating!!!!!

[Dorothy ONeil]

Tip, don't unpack yourself. Monday we helped a friend unpack and it went so fast. It took them a week to get the boxes moved into their new garage. In two hours Monday we had the garage cleared and the items into the house. Also in that time we moms had the cupboards cleaned and filled. All Marie had to do was direct us! The men were happy to come as there was lunch served. She wrote on Monday the house is complete except for a few drawers of clothes in the children's room. Don't be afraid to ask friends to come over and help and don't be afraid to direct them in what you want done....friends are there to help! Good Luck getting it all together

[Jennifer Skiles]

Moving story: Our most interesting move started with a moving company who came and measured everything in our house to make sure they had the right-sized truck.. then brought one that was 2 sizes too small. They couldn't get our fridge into it so, since we were only moving 2 blocks, they hand-trucked it down the street. We were the talk of the block (and grateful it still worked). Then, after 2 trips with the van, the movers were out of time so we had to move our own clothes (they forgot the wardrobe boxes we paid for) and a few more items ourselves. We ended up leaving dirty dishes in the dishwasher - which the new owners graciously returned. On the plus side, we're good friends with them now!

[Leslie McCarthy]

We bought our current house from people who bought the house next door when the owners got divorced! They had friends/family (and us!) who helped them move stuff over without a moving company! It was literally a fire company bucket brigade!!

[Shawna]

When my husband and I decided to move to the house that we are in now,we had no idea what we were getting into. I was 7 months pregnant, we had one small car and next to no budget.
We are both working full time, so time to pack is limited. We have a 2 week time frame to get out of our leased town house. (Our opportunity to move came unexpectedly and with very short notice.) So, before and after work each day were are trying to pack and get all arrangements made.
My wonderful husband called and scheduled all of the utilities to be shut off for the day after our move. Or so he though... apparently he gave them the wrong date, as they were all cut off the day before our move. So, it is high 80s/low 90s, and we are sweating like no body's business trying to load the moving truck. Plus, we can't get a shower when we are doing packing, because no water.
Then we start the hour and a half long drive to the new house. My husband was driving the moving van and I was driving the car. I had gotten a little bit separated from him due to traffic. What do I see, but the door fly up on the moving truck and a couple of boxes come tumbling out. Luckily they were just clothes and not my dished or and thing that could be damaged. But one of the boxes did come open and we were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to pick up everything before it blew away (did I mention the storm that came up right after we got everything loaded), got soaked or ruined by getting ran over by a passing car. Apparently the latch on the door was damaged and was not closing correctly. So it popped open just as we were getting on the interstate.
So, we finally get everything loaded with the help of some of his friends and head out with another couple to go to the new house.
We get there and find that the people that have been renting the house, that were suppose to be out on the same day that we were moving in, had 'gotten confused' about the date that they were suppose to be out by and thought that they still had 2 weeks. So, they didn't have the majority of their stuff packed. Luckily it has a pretty good sized, finished basement. So, we moved our stuff in there... locked the doors. And went to my parents house in the next county to stay until they could get out.
We also found that after we got everything unpacked that we had lost our box with our pots and pans in it. Never did figure out what happened to that.
Needless to say, I will NEVER move again.

[LaRee Bybee]

I had the chance to move every six months through college and one particularly fun move was jsut before Thanksgiving break. My roommates and I were in a house that the plumbing didn't work, the power would flicker off and the landlord wouldn't fix anyof it. We moved out of a flooded basement practically needing galoshes, dropped our stuff in the living room of the new place and returned a week later to divide out rooms.

[Kristen]

Ah moving day...got to like it and hate it at the same time! My wonderful husband and I had been married about 1 1/2 months when he was finishing up work at the hospital while I stayed behind at the apartment to "supervise" the workers move our things to Boston from St. Louis. The guys came moved all our things and needed me to "sign" that it was all packed correctly etc..so the moving guy does not have a pen. I say "oh I do" and go grab this pen that my husband used every now and then. I sign and without thinking, as I forget it's hubby's pen, GIVE IT BACK, to the moving guy who says "Have a good day" and takes off.

Later on that night....husband says" hey have you seen my pen?" at which point it dawns on me I never got it back....so I explain the situation only to hear my husband say" That was the pen my dad gave me as I graduated from college to go to medical school with..." I wanted to fade into the ugly carpet...I felt terrible....how can you replace something like that? You can't....but I am happy to report, 14 years later...I haven't given any more pens away!!

[Elana]

When we moved from our apartment to a house, my 17 month old was just starting to walk. He spent the day of the move, and every day for two weeks, going from one room to another, opening the door and saying "hello!". The move was perfect timing to give him the space he needed to roam

[Whitney]

My worst moving story was this last time. I was 8 and half months pregnant with our son and it was June. We knew the weather was going to be hot, but we woke that morning to find that it was going to be 101 degrees, with very high humidity. We had friends helping us, so we were sure to thank them profusely and apologize for picking this day to move.

All day, we sweated. We sweated moving the stuff out of our old place and into our new place. It was so humid, the linoleum floors were literally wet. We sweated as every box was brought in. I couldn't do any lifting, but I was just as drenched as everyone else. The only thing that kept me going was the thought of a shower when everyone was done. Finally, they finished and limped back to their cars.

I took a shower, cranked up the AC, and collapsed in bed. An hour later, the power went out. The whole town lost electricity. I couldn't stand the heat anymore and begged my husband to find a place (anywhere!) with AC. We drove around town, going through dead stoplights. The only place that had lights was Applebees. So, we ended the moving day from hell eating appetizers and basking in the AC.

The power has been never been off since. We're moving again this month and I'm praying everything goes a little smoother!

[Marie]

I had a quite unhappy moving experience when my husband and I decided to move back to his hometown that was about 300 miles from where we were living. Unfortunately, our new home would not be ready for 2 months after we moved out, so we had to stay at my in-laws for the whole summer. The entire content of our house was in my in-laws garage, and having in-laws that are also control freaks, the stay at their house was far, far from a vacation. No need to say that it felt like heaven to sleep in our new home the first night, even if it was in the middle of many boxes.

[Dawn Anderstrom]

We moved across the street and two houses down and still hired movers! Everyone laughed but our son (our second) was 11.5 weeks old and I had to head back to work right after moving. Hiring movers allowed us to be way less stressed, and fully moved in by the Tuesday following, when I started back at work!

[Chrysta]

Well, we decided to return to our home town in Missouri from New Hampshire,when our first child was born. Hit the interstate and boxes started coming off the truck, fixed that. Baby and dog got car sick, cop pulls us over and directs us to the nearest hospital(no speeding ticket!) Do you see a pattern here? Some where in Indiana about 5pm the truck breaks down. Ever spent the night in a pick up cab with a carseat(sick kiddo), dog(feeling better now), grumpy husband all waiting for the parts store to open at 9am? Well one day late and a whole lot less in our pockets we arrive to find our rental home is not ready for us, we spent a week living with my husbands parents. Good news is we never had to repeat that kind of thing and have moved several times since.

[Julie M]

My funniest moving story involved a move to a new city and the new friends who lovingly helped us unpack. As I, at 5'8", was putting the glasses onto the top shelf of our cupboards, my friend, at 5'1", screamed "Stop, don't do that, you'll never reach them to get them down later." A little confused and definitely amused I said "Uh, I'm reaching them to put them there." And then demonstrated my ability to reach the shelf. My friend realized the silliness of her comment and we both had a good laugh break. Later in the evening, this same friend chided her husband for putting all the pictures on the wall too high (since it wasn't at her eye level, but of course was at ours!) We again all just laughed!!

[Michelle @ [ real neat ]]

THE NIGHTMARE : Three years ago, when we moved from Michigan to Kentucky, church friends helped us load up the U-Haul. Apparently, someone moved my "need-this-stuff-right-away-when-we-get-there" basket from the center of the kitchen table to the floor, and my daughter helped herself to the 'candy' that she found.

Long story, short... we ended up spending the night in the ER. The doctors induced vomiting, fed her charcoal, and we waited and waited and waited while they 'observed' her. Needless to say, nobody got any sleep that night, the early-morning drive to our new place seemed to last forever-and-a-day, and my daughter was 'buzzing' for a good 48 hours.

BTW : Natural toddler energy + mommy's medications = not a good combination... Scariest moment of my life!

Read the full story online at :
http://www.realneat.com/downloads/not_the_only_one.pdf

[Naomi Abbott]

My WORST moving experience...EVER!!!
My aged parents sold their house of 15 years in Montana to move to Oregon. They had to be out of their house a month before my oldest sister and I could leave Montana to take them to Oregon. In that month they lived with my husband and I and our two boys. While they were with us we found them a house in Oregon via the internet and had arranged with the gentleman to "hold" it for us until we could get there a month later. One week before the big move, he sold the house to someone else. NIGHTMARE!!!
My sister and I had already arranged to take time off of work to move them and so we packed everything up and took off for Oregon with no house to move them into. All 6 of us (Mom, Dad, Sis, my 2 boys and I) stayed in a hotel for 2 days while trying to find a new house for them. When we found the place they liked - of course our luck didn't change. The older couple selling the house were still living in it and had nothing packed to move to their new house. My sister and I explained the situation and that we had to get back to work in Montana in 3 days. We ended up moving this couple into their new house in a day and a half. We then had to move our parents into the house in the next day and a half and then take to 12 hour drive back to Montana.
Needless to say we were exhausted and our parents were advised not to think about moving again anytime soon. =)