The Move!

I can sum up the move into one word. STRESSFUL! Justin had several weeks off work before the move and basically became subject to every request that I came up with. We had a to-do list three pages long and I'm pretty sure at one point we had a list of our different to-do lists. With me still working until the last minute I relied on Justin for many of our errands. Despite him working so hard and showing me how wonderful of a husband he is, the week before the move was still the most stressful week of my life. Monday, December 12th through the16th I frantically made preparations for my replacement at the school. I was doing lesson plans, making copies, completing forms, showing my replacement how to work various computer systems, packing up my classroom materials, going to meetings, submitting grades, saying goodbye to everyone, and of course teaching five courses. On top of all of that, I was still working my part-time position and taking care of a young lady with disabilities from 3pm to 9pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I would spend every minute of my free time at home cramming items into bags, cleaning, purging items we didn't need, running to Goodwill, cancelling bank accounts, trying to sell my car, changing my address, putting final touches on wedding packages, and maybe, if I got REALLY lucky, sleeping a wink. It was a mess. I honestly have no idea if there is any rhyme or reason to anything we packed. Literally, I think there is a box with tools, pillows, toilet paper, and a painting. If you know me at all, that is not how I like to do things. My "OCDness" was going a little haywire.

On Friday, December 16th, while I was at work, movers came to the apartment to pack up all of the things we wanted to pack up to ship to Zurich. The night before, I had run around with post-its labelling everything, "Yes" to take or "No" to not take. I quizzed Justin several times. Thank goodness he puts up with me. They were in and out pretty quick and the rest that remained we just had to take to storage. The word "just" really irritates me in that last sentence because we thought we would "just" take everything to storage, but we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

We spent that evening and the next morning packing and picking up the U-haul. Now, let me preface this story with the fact that we had rented a 10 x 10 storage unit in Maryland and had already filled up half of it with Justin's things. So, this 20-foot U-haul was only for my things. Why do two adults under 30 and without children need so much stuff?!!?!?! I still haven't figured that one out. Anyways, Christian came over and helped us load up the truck on Saturday morning. We loaded it up and I finished cleaning the apartment so it was inspection ready. We dropped the apartment keys off with the landlord and said goodbye to Northern Virginia. I followed Justin to Maryland in my car so we could make it a one way trip. We arrived at the storage shed at approximately 6pm. The security gate to let us in the storage unit would close at 9pm and lock us in if we didn't finish by then. We didn't think that would be a problem…, but apparently 3 hours wasn't enough time to load everything into the unit. Want to know why? Because Justin "the Master of Packing" Key and I loaded the storage unit, unloaded the unit, reorganized, stacked, crammed, shoved, and filled our unit to maximum capacity. Literally, there was a point when Justin was looking at a wall of bins from floor to ceiling and he spotted a small spot in the far right top corner. He told me to hand him a box and he preceded to basketball-style shoot the box into the corner from at least 8 feet away. It stuck. Miracle. In the end, when we couldn't fit his old futon, we ended up therapeutically mutilating it into bits and scattering the pieces in the unit. The door barely shut.

Our time to be out had come and gone and we found ourselves there past 9pm. As time progressed, more and more lights in the storage building were turning off and Justin and I were working from one light bulb in the hallway. It was delightful. Somehow he and I managed to have fun with it all and make it a challenge to ourselves to get everything in there. When we were done, around 10:30, our unit was filled from front to back and top to bottom. It was impressive. We have decided we will be hiring movers to get everything out of there. There is no way we will be doing it ourselves.

Now, you might be asking yourselves, how did they get out of the gate? We were SOOOOO worried, but God was on our side and miraculously the gate opened when I pulled up to it. Justin, in the Uhaul, honked like crazy with excitement behind me and I returned an equally exciting honk from my car. What a relief!! By the time we returned the Uhaul that evening we parked it in the middle of the parking lot threw the keys through the lock return slot and sped off to Roanoke. That was a long week.