As my wife and I come to an end of the whole moving process which we said we would never do again when we moved to the house we are now leaving, I’ve come to realize there are four distinct stages in the process.

Stage One: Decluttering to beautify your home

Of course I already did an extensive blog on this including revealing some unflattering information about our propensity to hoard items. This stage includes: moving truckloads of shit to Goodwill, moving truckloads of shit to the dump, deciding to keep truckloads of shit that you just can’t part with as you argue over what will stay and what will go.

Stage Two: The Initial Pack

Packing up boxes that will go to your new place on storage shed. This stage is known best as the careful packing stage. OCD is alive and well in this stage as we carefully use packing material, make sure that only items from that particular room go in that box. It looks something like this:

I’m packing the master bathroom and my wife comes in with an item from the guest bathroom.

My wife asks, “Hey, hon, do you have room in that box for this ceramic soap dish?”

I look at her aghast at the suggestion. “Um, no we can’t integrate the master bath with the second bath. That would completely mess up the moving mojo.”

We continue to carefully label the boxes, explicitly citing the items in the box and where they should go to (storage or condo).

This stage takes place over several weekends well before the actual move or even the sale of the house.

Stage Three: Serious Packing

The telltale signs for this stage are the fast and furious activity where we know that we have limited time to pack up the house and need to get a move on. It looks something like this:

“Hey, hon, do you have room in that bathroom box for something from the downstairs bathroom?” my wife asks.

I nod. “Sure, toss it in. Wait. Do we really want to keep the lime green ceramic toothbrush holder that has been under the bathroom sink since we moved in?”

“Good point. Goodwill pile?”

“Yep,” I respond.

As a side note, I was cleaning out the nightstand in the guest bedroom and I came across a picture of me wearing the famed Disney shirt with Dopey playing the sax. It was at least 20 years old, but here’s the proof, because I know y’all thought I was kidding about it!

 

Stage Four: The Mad Dash

This is the final stage where we are packing everything that is hiding in the nooks and crannies of our house, hoping no-one would find the items because they fear the Goodwill pile. This is what this stage looks like.

“Stop ruminating over whether we should keep that or not, just toss it in the box, please?” I say.

“But what about the no intermingling rule?” My wife asks.

“At this point we’ll just have to sort out these miscellaneous boxes later. We have exactly four hours to get all our shit out and clean this place before we head back to Moses Lake and enjoy some much needed rest and relaxation by the pool before DC.”

“Okay, but don’t blame me when your OCD kicks in at the condo and I’m out enjoying the sun while you try to decipher where all this miscellaneous shit goes.”

I giggle because she is so right about that!

The telltale signs of Stage Four is the numerous boxes filled to the brim and marked miscellaneous. We are no longer careful at all and have no problem scratching out the previously emptied boxes and marking these with a big MISC (or no markings at all and then we have to open the damn box to figure out what the hell is inside).

If you want an eclectic collection of stories pick up any one of my books, no two are the same storyline or even subgenre.  The twins….

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