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

[Jennifer Corrado]

Moving Story

When we bought and moved into our present house my daughter was 8 months old...so, moving was a challenge but my sister was the lifesaver and helped take care of her. While I unpack...my daughter was very happy in her new house...but the second evening we were here. She found her feet and played with them all evening...I told my husband that we may not be able to find everything amongst these boxes...but Robyn found her feet...so, I guess all is good....and I will never forget that.

[Jamie John]

We had to stay in a hotel for a few days before we could move into our new house (the details why escape me now) and the first room we were in had ants, which we found out about when we went to bed. We switched rooms at 11:00 p.m. The next day, my husband had to bring stuffing for a Thanksgiving potluck at work. I drove to the house and could not find the box with my measuring cups in it. I ended up using the only thing I could find- an 8 oz sippy cup as my guide- to make the stuffing.

[tricia]

How or where is the link to post our funniest moving story? I'm not that great on the computer!!

[kelleysfamilyjewels]

Moving... ahh.. good times.
The really only "bad thing" that happend to me during a move was that I forgot to remove the candles from the candle holders in one box I packed. When I opened to unpack, wax had melted everywhere and then rehardened. So I had to crack and scrape all the gunk off. Just what you want to be doing ... like moving isnt enough.

[Manda]

I have SEVERAL moving nightmare stories, so it's hard to choose one! Needless to say THIS is the contest for me!!
SO ... imagine that you're a newlywed couple. Like you've been married TWO WEEKS. And you're young and dumb and also decide that moving 2,000 miles to start a new job and buying your first home is a GREAT IDEA. Also? You've never bought a house before. SO: Pack up two households (with the help of your family, who basically THROWS everything in the back of a U-Haul, including BAGS OF TRASH), then? Realize that the U-Haul has leaked ALL ITS OIL into the gutter (you only realize this once it's completely packed to the gills). Then? Have your 3-day drive delayed 2 days because U-Haul? THEY SUCK and don't get the truck fixed for 2 days (and? it only takes 20 minutes after 2 days of waiting to fix the stupid thing). Then? Finally get going only to get in a car wreck with the SAME U-Haul by hitting YOUR OWN CAR which your new father-in-law has graciously offered to drive cross-country for you. This is exactly ONE HOUR into the trip. Spend the next three days wondering if your car (which now has NO BUMPER) will make it the remaining 1950 miles. Somehow? You make it to your new town. Only to discover that since you missed the closing appointment on your new house you must now wait TWO WEEKS before you can move in. Which means? that you must now stay in a hotel room with your father-in-law, dog, and husband of 2 weeks for TWO WEEKS.
I could say more (and oh yes, there IS MORE) but I don't want to make you cry. It makes me SHUDDER to remember this move. OY.

[Gwynne]

I've moved several times in the last few years, but the most recent was when I moved from a rental home to the house that I'm buying in October. It was just a block away, but that move was the most interesting of them all.

In September of 2008, I was offered a house a block from where I was living for $18,000 on a land contract, with monthly payments the same as what I had been paying for rent. Who could turn that down? Not me, that's for sure!

So we got ready to move.

Small problem. No car. And a very, very tight budget, so no money for moving trucks or anything of that sort.

Okay, no biggie. It's just a block away. How hard could it be to move everything one block away?

LOL We got most everything boxed up, because luckily we still had boxes from moving in there in the basement.

And then we started hauling everything to the new house. Box by box. Around the block. At one point, we started loading larger boxes on my son's sled and moving stuff that way. Then a neighbor loaned us a wheelbarrow and we started moving stuff that way.

My [ex] Husband borrowed his dad's truck for one afternoon to move the big furniture and appliances, but for the most part we moved everything in the old house to the new house by hand, just my son and I.

And these aren't exactly small houses either. We moved the contents of a two story, three bedroom house, with full basement, to another two story, three bedroom house, with full basement.

By hand!

[Roberta]

I have moved twice in my life. Once when I was married and the last time into the house we are currently in. I've been pulled over while moving by the police after swaying when hitting the breaks: the glass top of the coffee table came at my head and I ducked and swerved. Had dogs go running off but the saddest account of how disorganized I am is this.

For our Wedding I had picked out this lovely Lenox china pattern, and received most of the pieces. I had them shrink wrapped so I could store them in the attic, we did not have a dining room or china cabinet in out first home.

Shortly after out 1st Anniversary we moved into our current home. I move the shrink wrapped Lenox from one attic to another, since we had some remodeling to do.
We've lived in a home with a formal dining room and china cabinet for 15 years now and guess what...they are still in the attic. I have never got around to bringing down the "good china" or the Christmas China for that matter.

One day I will figure what is up there.

[Jen L.]

When we moved from California back to Virginia my 2yo son, Eric, and I had to come by a certain date so I could start orientation for my job. So my sweet husband stayed an extra 2 weeks then took a week to drive across the country. That meant I flew from San Francisco to Washington DC with Eric by myself. He kicked and screamed almost the entire 5 hours. He wanted to sit on the floor at my feet which worked okay except for take off and landing. The poor lady in front of him was such a saint - never complained and was very forgiving. By the time I got to baggage claim I was in tears. Oh, and I forgot to mention we were going to be living with my parents until we bought a house - and they were on their way to Italy for 12 days. So I was going to be home alone with this "brat" for 12 days!! Well, that "brat" was an angel the whole time.

[Lynne Olien]

We built a house while I was pregnant with our 2nd child. Of course, it was all behind schedule. we moved in, and two days later our son was born. However, the house wasn't all completed when we moved in, so the contractor had to bring a big water tub out to the house for us to use. It had to be taken out of the garage and hauled somewhere to be refilled every day. We also didn't know how clean the water was, so it all had to be boiled to be used, and also for me to take any sort of a sitz bath to ease my just given birth stitches and pains. My mother came to help out, and unpacked everything for me (good), but then I had no idea where it all was (bad). We ended up living there less than a year, and the day we moved into our next house, I found out I was pregnant with our third child. not sure what it is about moving and babies with me!!

[Candace]

I was 6 months pregnant with my second child and my oldest was 18 months old. We had just sold our condo and purchased our first house. We bought the house from a divorced mother of two adult kids, and she was buying our condo from us so it was basically a swap. The plan was to move our of our respectives houses before closing and swap keys after signing.

At the closing, the seller received a call saying that her daughters were behind in the packing but they should be done by the time we arrived. We signed papers, exchanged keys and headed to our new home. Only to find upon arrival that the house was still being packed up! They hadn't moved anything out yet and were frantically trying to pack up. I walked into the kitchen and saw food still in the pantry and fridge, dishes still in the cupboard and even the coffee pot still full of that morning's coffee.

I burst into tears (yeah, hormonal) and called my realtor right away to no avail. We had left our condo completely empty and clean for this lady to move into. I managed to do so while pregnant with a toddler, and she couldn't even get out of her house in time.

While she and her family kept packing, I just calmly walked into the dining room and started stripping the wallpaper in there. I figured it was officially my house, and I wasn't waiting until they were out to start making changes. They didn't leave until close to midnight that night and had to return for more stuff the next day.

We haven't moved since then.

[April E.]

When we moved 1.5 years ago, we moved from the house we'd owned for 10 years. In that time, we'd gone from being a family of four, to a family of 8. When we moved, we discovered not only how great our friends and family were, but how much STUFF we had.

Steve started taking trips with car loads of stuff to the farmhouse we had bought 3.5 hours away. But still, on moving day, we had a caravan of one minivan, two suburbans, five pickup trucks, and one car. All were packed to the gills, and we were towing two UHaul trailers, two flatbed trailers, and one cut-off pickup trailer.

One of the pickups pulling a trailer and one car set out early ... when the rest of us left, we found them on the side of the road. The trailer carrying a non-working car had blown a bearing. Steve stayed with them and I had to take over driving the Suburban towing a trailer (which I'd never done before) as well as leading everyone to the farmhouse (which I wasn't sure how well I'd manage to find.)

I managed to get us there, but gave the entire caravan a near heart attack when I had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting a buck crossing the rural highway. Thankfully, we were just leaving a town where we'd paused and weren't all up to full-speed yet.

We arrived at the farmhouse after dark, and still had to unload. Our helpers didn't get back to their homes until 1 or 2 am. We were unpacking in such a hurry that nothing was put in its proper places. We had walking room only through every room, couldn't sit on the couch, and only one kids twin bed was set up. That and our king size bed. We had kids sleeping on the floors, Steve's brother in the only twin bed put together, and my Dad sleeping in a recliner.

It took us another two months to completely finish unpacking and start homeschooling again. I did have the house livable 2 weeks later for Thanksgiving, but we didn't resume homeschooling until after Christmas.

[Brandy]

I was on my own with 3 kids moving from the home that was once shared with their dad. I had friends moving all our stuff in one day. It was raining & snowing the day we moved. Everything was crazy that day. The only thing left was my daughters princess canopy that she adored. We couldn't take it in the trucks because of the weather. It was after midnight, the kids were at my sisters for the night & there we were still moving. The weather broke-so we took the canopy apart & loaded it in the truck. It was a short trip, so what could go wrong-right? I was so tired by this time. As I was driving down the road-I looked in the review mirror & there was the canopy literally blown up from the wind-it looked like a huge pink castle as a topper for the truck. About that time, it went blowing off. I had to pull over & retrieve it. After a good cleaning, it wasn't damaged. Moral of the story-make sure everything is tied down!

[Janice Wood]

The family was all helping my daughter and her husband to move house. We filled up the removal van full of boxes when that was done her partner asked her if she had the keys to their new house "yes" she said "they are safe". Where ? he said, "In my coat pocket" she said, "wheres your coat" he said. That's when I saw the look of horror come over her face as she said "in one of them boxes we put on the van" We all took a look in the back of the van and all we could see was a mountain of boxes. By now my poor demented Son-in-law was nearly crying. My daughter was ready to run for the hills and as Son-in-law disappeared in a sea of boxes all I could hear was "Why me O Lord what did I do to deserve this, five sisters, one wife and three daughters" coming from the inside of the van. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry for him.

[Robin G]

Okay a worst for me too! I was three months pregnant and living in Florida when the three hurricanes back to back decided my house would be a great target. After peeling off part of my roof and flooding my house, we needed to move all the undamaged items out. Because of the mold that had quickly developed and me being pregnant, we decided to leave it up to the insurance company to have movers come and pack it up and take it to storage. After ten long months out of our home, we had to go to the storage unit to take our boxes back home. Every box that I opened had broken items in them. All the sentimental items like our Lenox Anniversary plate were broken. All the crap stayed intact. Not only that but every box had items that went to several different rooms. I think what they did was put boxes in the center of the house and used it like a trash box and just threw everything in there, no bubble wrap or anything. And of course there were missing items that we had no proof that we ever owned. It was a nightmare. After days of washing everything due to mold and new baby, I tried to put a claim into the insurance company and they said they said "sorry mam, but we don't cover those sort of damages"!

[Christina]

I think my worst moving story, was our last move. After many months of having our home on the market it finally sold. (Yay!) Only, because it had taken so long to sell the house we had planned to purchase fell through. (Boo!) So after touring about 80 different houses, we finally found one we liked that would give us the occupancy timing we needed. (Yay!) Only, the date of the closing/move was 3 days before Christmas!(Boo!) Our twins were 18 months old at the time and there was no way that we weren't celebrating Christmas in our new home. So in addition to all of the logistics of moving, I also had to find time to get a live Christmas tree. The worst part? Both of the twins came down with severe cases of pink eye the morning of the move. (I mean eyes swollen-shut severe). So in between carting things to the new house, I had to squeeze in a doctor and pharmacy visit. Is it no wonder that any time my husband even thinks about moving I give him "the look"? :)

[Sarah]

In the fall of 2007 I fell in love with my dream home. The vendors insisted on closing in January. What's the big deal? At the time my kids were 1, 4, and 6 yrs, my husband works out of town 4 days a week (he wouldn't even be home for the move) and moving in mid January, means packing over christmas - not ideal. Anyway, through December I start packing as much as possible stacking boxes in corners with xmas decorations on the top! planning on blitzing things in the 1st 2 weeks of January. Not ideal, but survivable with a bit of organisation. Great plan --- until my eldest son had a near life threatening ski accident over the xmas break. Needless to say the first half of january was spent in hospitals and doctors offices, not packing our home. As my son's health stabilised, I realised we were less than a week from move day! HELP! When frinds and acquaintances learned of our difficult situation, I couldn't believe the rally of support. People that I hardly knew were offering to come and pack boxes for me! I was blown away by the kindness. The packing went down to the wire, but it was done (albeit still going on while the first load went on to the truck). Like so many others above, I have sworn this will be my last move! (At least for a VERY long time!) This challenging experience also reaffirmed my faith in the kindness of strangers!

[Erin Porch]

We moved once (well twice...house to apartment to new house) and will never do it again.

First we moved from our house to an apartment while we waited for the new home to be ready. We made settlement and still had packing to do. So technically...we were moving out of the house when the new owners already owned it. Of course going to pick up the U-haul we reserved at it not being there was part of the issue. We had to call around ON moving day to find a truck. So we get into the apartment...toilet filled with pee, ants and worms and an awful smell. This is not the apartment they showed us. We spent a week with no heat in the middle of a PA winter in this apartment. My one child was hospitalized with a respiratory infection...we felt caused by the apartment. We then can move into the new home and of course it snows. So we move into our new home but immediately my husband left because the deal was he would then help a friend move into their new home. So I'm in my new home, no money in my wallet, no food and no car...and nobody delivers that takes credit cards. It was great. Then a few weeks later one of the people who helped us moved was murdered by her boyfriend. I am never moving again...nothing went as planned.

[Tracee Wood]

My funniest moving story reads more like a comedy of errors. My husband, then boyfriend, whom I had been dating for 2 1/2 years was helping me move into my first apartment. He had been great. I had everything all boxed in the boxes that he had gotten for me. He would tape them and load them on the truck. I followed in my little car. As we are driving down the road and get up to regulation speed - I looked up from fidling with the radio and noticed all these pretty colored pieces flying all over the road. Upon closer examination it was my underwear. Not wanting to invade the personal boundaries he had forgotten to tape that box.

We arrive at my new place and I am unpacking (everything but my underwear that now decorated a local road). He went to pick up my starter sofa set that I had spent hours picking out and paying for. As he was on the way back to my apartment an unexplained wind from no where came and blew the love seat off the truck. It seemed to take him forever before he arrived. When he finally got there he confided that he had been driving around for some time trying to figure out how to tell me that my new love seat had a hole in it and when I went shopping for the one that he would buy to replace I would have no underwear to wear.

[Jil]

We moved into our new home about 5 years ago. It's located about 10 miles from our old house so we moved load at a time, all four of our kids in tow. After we had finally moved enough things to allow us to comfortably sleep, eat, and bathe, we spent our first night in our new house. It was very exciting, but we still had a lot of things to move. The next day we went back to our old house and to our utter and complete shock, someone had broken in and stolen a large amount of our packed and still unpacked belongings. After the sickened feeling subsided, my husband, exhausted from all the moving we'd done up to that point and finally accepting what we could not change threw his arm around my shoulder and said "well, at least it's that much less we have to move." We laughed (it was a laugh or cry situation) and are just thankful for the stuff we actually did get moved.

[Michelle Q]

Ah, I'm like you - I vowed with our last move that this was *IT!* So much so, that our then not-quite-2yo dd would tell anyone who would listen that "they're going to take Mommy out of this house in a pine box!" Oops! I guess she was listening while I griped, eh?!

[Syl]

When the movers packed my stuff out of my first apartment in Chicago, everything I owned fit into one elevator (couch and bed were vertical). I will never forget the image. Once I started to unpack in my new apartment, I realized that the packing company was very thorough. They even packed a single bar of soap with ton of wrapping paper so it would not break. They also carefully wrapped sponges in a lot of wrapping paper for the same purpose. It could have been worse, at least I did not have to pack everything up myself.

[Julia]

One of my moves involved moving into an apartment in Florida on Easter weekend. Because the apartment staff knew that I was moving to an area where I had no family, they decided to make my apartment "special" for me by decorating for the holiday. They put dozens of balloons on the floor and liberally scattered Easter grass, the thin plastic strips that you use to fill Easter baskets, in every single room on the brand new plush carpet. We had disposed of our vacuum cleaner before we moved down, and the rental office was closed, so my husband and I spent the first three hours in our new apartment picking up every piece of Easter grass by hand. Throughout our year lease there, we would keep finding pieces of Easter grass every single month.

[Hosanna Fisher]

I was about to enter my teens when my father's business failed. My family tried to get by for a while but my mother was almost 9 months pregnant and we were getting to know the local food pantry staff too well! At last we decided to move out of state, 2,000 miles away, even though none of us except my mother had ever lived anywhere but California. My mother tried to induce labour before the move, but the baby refused in no uncertain terms. She resolutely climbed into our little red van with the rest of the family, followed by the large moving van, enduring the trip in record time of nearly 3 days. We were on the freeway to Zanesville, Ohio (a town I will not soon forget) when our little red van coughed and its transmission gave up the ghost. All 7 of us looked at each other, looked at the moving van, and climbed in. It was a bit of a squeeze but my brother and I found the cab floor quite comfortable. We were not quite so comfortable when a police car pulled us over! We still had not managed to find a house so we stayed with people we barely knew, and my mother gave birth in front of practical strangers on their sofa bed. Through a small miracle we managed to find a house at last, only to have our piano fall on my father's foot while he and a friend were moving it in, putting him on crutches for months. For years afterwards, when people expressed their view about 'difficult moves' that time in my life comes back to me vividly!

[Julie]

Last November, the 7 girls in my office were told we were going to move into a new office in the headquarters building (across the parking lot). We begged and pleaded to stay, but then resigned ourselves to the move. We were told we had to be packed up before Christmas holiday. We were not given any boxes--except the torn up paper boxes the maintance guy brought over. After our Christmas party for the kids we work with, I remember there was about $15 left on the purchase order gift card. I ran out to the warehouse store and bought 20 sturdy banker boxes. I had everything packed and labeled by December 16th.

I was prepared to work out boxes for a few days--maybe even a week--while they moved our desks and stuff. They didn't even start dimantling our built in desks until the second week of January. Then we were not only in boxes, but we were homeless as well!

After they started moving our desks (which are mounted to the wall) they told us we could paint---after the desks were in place. We didn't want ugly walls, so we did it. But it took twice as long since we had to tape around the desks.

We finally moved into our new office at the end of January. After 5 weeks in a box.

[Vicky Parnell]

Moving Story - My husband and I thought we were handling the stresses of moving into a new house pretty well, until our artistic 5 year old son drew a picture of his perfectly patient daddy with angry eyebrows and fangs!