I hate moving. Let me say it again, I hate moving. Especially short hauls where you think you don’t really need to pack, so you throw loose items into a car, truck, or van and transport it, then actually end up moving junk mail and full trash cans.
So we basically have had to move three times to get to where we want to be now, and it just sucks sideways. We sold our house in suburbia because we wanted to buy land and build our dream home – you know, the Sadist’s American Dream for people who wish to cause themselves harm and become a case study for anti-anxiety meds. Our house sold more quickly than we thought it would, and we had not identified the ‘perfect’ lot yet, so we chose to rent a house in the same “Wisteria Lane” development so that the kids didn’t need to move schools or make new friends until it was a permanent move. That move, literally across the street, was the most disorganized, drawn-out, painful move I have ever endured, and it all took place under the watchful (but not helpful) eyes of our neighbors. We had some help from friends, one of whom left my dresser drawers on the lawn before going back to the other house, and to my utter humiliation, I ended up chasing my underwear down the sidewalk, and fishing my pantyhose out of the neighbor’s gutter when the wind kicked up. In fact, I’m fairly certain that the cast of Desperate Housewives live in that neighborhood, and that they’re still talking about it.
When school got out, we still hadn’t found THE lot, but we had begun spending some time on one of the islands, and really determined that that’s what we wanted for our family: diversity, peace and quiet, spectacular views and wildlife….oh, and close enough to the city that my kids wouldn’t grow up making eyes at each other. So, as I mentioned in a previous blog entry, the first comment I got from a long time islander (other than my girlfriend Julie who was really excited), was “Could you just RENT for a year instead of building another ***damn monstrosity and leaving us with it? Oh, and don’t bitch when you get salt water on your SUV!” (For the record, I still had a minivan back then). So we cheerfully took that under advisement, and rented on the island to make sure the life and ferry hassles were going to work for us.
Yeah, try moving to an island sometime.
So now we’ve been renting a home on 3 ½ acres with a fenced garden, a fruit tree orchard, an 9 hole golf course, its own smokehouse, a 600sq. ft. shop, and dual ocean views for almost two years. It took one year to find the perfect spot for us to buy and build on. Hello, we are renting a house on the best spot on the whole island, it’s been really hard to get motivated to leave because we know we can never top this with something we can actually afford! It has taken almost exactly a year and a frillion dollars for all of the building permits, septic permits, curtain drains, drain fields, house pad, trees excavated…and I still haven’t even started packing.
I rented a huge dumpster with the stern plan of throwing away, or giving away, at least half of all of our stuff. Seriously. Because we’ve been renting for about two years now, and a vast majority of our crap has not even been unpacked and remains in boxes out in ‘the shop’ (which is actually a big pole building on the property that hosts a condominium resort for mice.) Do we really need to move this stuff if we haven’t even wondered where it was for the past two years?
So, now we are down to the last three weeks before we can start painting the interior of the new house, and start moving – I keep thinking of easy ways to do this, and there just isn’t one. However, I did completely (and literally) tear my closet apart looking for something to wear to the bachelorette party last Friday that didn’t make me look like one of those woman you see at a NASCAR convention. You know, the divas in the tight pants and side rolls coming out of a halter top that has gotten too tight. The mess I created forced me to at least deal with some of that, and on Sunday I managed to stuff two glad bags full of cast off clothing.
So now, just five bedrooms and six people’s crap to organize and go through and we’re in. Like Flynn. *Sigh*. I guess I’ll just start burning stuff – the ashes would be lighter to move.
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