Moving!

For those of you who may not know how I feel about moving, I rank it somewhere beside getting rid of warts or cleaning toilets; No matter how badly you want to just ignore it, at some point you have to step up and deal with it, even though you know it won't be pretty. Basically, I HATE moving. 

It doesn't help that the last time we moved (over 4 years ago), we only had to take a few loads in the back of a van. This time it took a few loads in a 16 foot trailer. 

So after procrastinating - due to my excuse of not having a definite closing date - only to find out that we would be closing in a week, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work.  

 If it wasn't for my wonderful helpers we would have never made it. We basically had from Monday until Wednesday to be completely packed and moved out. It was at that point that I was really grateful that I had packed everything that I had a month earlier. 

 We moved most of our stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday and cleaned on Thursday. 

 We knew it was going to be a huge change moving from our wonderful home that we loved into the unknown of a temporary rental, but it turned out to be quite a shocker those first few days. Between major leaks with the hot water heater, having industrial fans going all day and night to dry everything out, not having time to clean the house before we moved everything in, and the mice that we discovered, it was quite an adventure for us.

 And lots of hard work. I was so proud of my kids though. They were troopers through the whole ordeal and helped with EVERYTHING! They were so eager to do anything we asked, even hauling in heavy boxes and helping with the cleaning, they were awesome workers.

 Even though I labeled every box and had a well laid plan for how everything would work, it went nothing like I had planned. Everything ended up in a big pile in the front room that we had to sort through for the next few days trying to find the most basic things like food or blankets for our beds. If it hadn't been for the friends and family that helped and brought us meals, I might have gone crazy. 

 This was even before the last trailer was unloaded and the piano was brought in. (BTW to those who helped Thayne load the piano (and everything else that was left) late Wednesday night; THANK YOU!)

 When we finally got to the boxes that had our food it was a whole new adventure trying to figure out where to put everything. It is a different experience going from a kitchen filled with cabinets to having exactly 3 cupboards that can be emptied at any time by this little munchkin. Maybe it is good for me though, I've become very creative and now store my dishes in a large trophy cabinet. :)

 Phoenix even helped with the unpacking. She helped me with almost every box of food that I unpacked. 

The good news is, I survived another big move, and I am happy to say we are actually feeling quite at home now. Yes it was a change, and I don't look forward to moving again in the near future, but I also know that sometimes we have to go through difficult times to move on to better things in the future. I feel so grateful for all that we have. We have been so blessed by good people around us who have looked out for us and helped us any time we need something, and the gospel which has helped me keep focused on what is really important in spite of the chaos that may be going on in our lives.