Moving: When one piece of stress is over, it brings new ones and other such lessons

Well after two weeks of apartment hunting, we are ecstatic to announce that we were approved for an apartment today! It was a bit of a nerve-wracking experience, as we are not the most predictable renters. A year and change of "not really renting" + Mr. Moon's former landlord being no longer of this world + my lack of rental history and crappy credit score + Mr. Moon just starting a new job = skittish landlord. But he approved us and that's all that's important right now. We pick up the keys tomorrow!

Now that we have a Place in mind, it's on to strategizing the long-distance move. This is where my organizational skills come in handy, but my lack of body capabilities makes things difficult. Thankfully we have a number of good friends who are caring, strong, and follow directions well so it's just a matter of getting them into the right places at the right times and knowing what I want them to do.

Of course, there are some things I want to do better for this move. I went back through my Moving tag to see if I could remember anything that hadn't gone so great and what I learned.

  • The separate to-do lists I remembered already and implemented this time, and it has been just as awesome as I remember it. Being able to have a place to table thoughts when there are so many running around in my head is valuable to keeping my anxiety levels low and our focus in the right spots!
  • THIS TIME I am going to make sure I have breakables better packaged. We had a lot of breakage last time including the commemorative stoneware goblet from my brother and sister in law's wedding, obviously irreplaceable. 
  • THIS TIME I am going to color-code the boxes with tape or stickers. Last time we had boxes going to three different spots and they got all mixed up so unloading the truck (in the dark even) was a pain. This time it is all going to one place, but getting everything into the proper rooms would be nice. But having labels (like H=house, S1=storage for immediate usage, S2=long-term storage) wasn't very helpful because people couldn't find them (and didn't really know what they meant, even after I told them a few times they just plain forgot in the chaos). If I can get stickers of some kind and label each box and each room accordingly, that will be super helpful. 
  • Having boxes labeled very well as to their contents was very helpful last time, but re-using boxes could make this complicated. Must make sure that previous labels are covered well and current contents are labeled properly. Last time we only had three boxes that didn't end up labeled at all, and I call that a win--but if we can do better, great! 
  • THIS TIME instead of paying for or just using substandard packaging, we are going to use a lot of our clothes to pack the breakables. BONUS: Fewer boxes! DOUBLE BONUS: Motivates us to get everything unpacked and put away so Mr. Moon can have access to all his rock and roll shirts again. I am nothing if not creative with motivation. 
  • THIS TIME we might pack the liquor bottles in other boxes for similar such motivating factors to get unpacked. 
  • THIS TIME we have more furniture to move so I'm just getting the biggest truck we can. It may be a little excessive but hey, we won't run out of space again. Actually I've just been informed I had a smaller truck than I remembered, and perhaps the biggest truck being more than twice as large IS excessive and will just let everything slide around. Noted. 
Having a strategy is a good thing. Soon it will all be over and we can get back to life in the big city. 

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