Here we go again!

I am anxious, excited, wary, optimistic, and a complete bundle of nerves. Here we go again. We are moving!

Who would have thought that nearly 5 years ago, when I first landed in NC, that I would end up having a bucket list of items that I desperately wanted to complete?

Day Zero: There Very, Truly is a Box for Everything.

We haven't left yet. We were supposed to leave about a month ago, but due to various factors, we've managed to stay in the Northwest until very nearly the end of June. This was beyond awesome--I got to celebrate friends' birthdays that I was unsure I would ever get to spend their special days with, we got to see a hint of a Northwest summer, and I got to experience purchasing liquor at the grocery store! But alas, the time as now come for us to leave.

This morning the movers (or more technically, the packers) came to box up all of our stuff. Literally. They boxed IT ALL UP.

And this is just our living room.

 Things that were packed into bins were wrapped in special brown paper: I don't know what it was, but it was two sheets of special brown paper sandwiching a sheet of plastic-like paper. It was special brown paper. Then, the bins, which were wrapped in special brown paper, were wrapped generously in packing tape.

And there were the many various sizes of boxes! So many boxes. And they all had numbers and codes for them. It was pretty amazing to watch all my things get boxed up. Especially since all my previous moving experiences have been going to American Eagle and asking Tracie if she had any spare shipment boxes. But, now there is a box for everything. I do mean everything.

This is a very large box. This is not a very good picture.

BEHOLD! I am standing next to a box that they put our mattress and box spring in. I didn't even know they made boxes that large, but they do. Somewhere in the world there is a corrugated cardboard manufacturing magnate churning out bed-sized boxes for all the moving companies of the world, living large on the riches built from supplying cardboard boxes.

Tomorrow, the movers are supposed to come and take away our things, which will hopefully make their way over to North Carolina. Tomorrow, I hope to be less fascinated by how many different types of boxes exist out there. But until then, I'm just going to stare at the boxes (and wondering how best to build my cardboard castle), wishing them (and us) a speedy trip to the East Coast.

My life in boxes

 

In the last week, I've managed to pack up and move all my worldly possessions up to Anacortes. And boy, do I have a lot of "worldly possessions." Jack mentioned that I would learn very quickly, and certainly by our next move, exactly what I want to keep and what to throw away or donate. Le sigh.

My last week in Seattle was marked by grand circle tour of Fremont and Wallingford; packing and cleaning; lunch with co-workers at Paseo's; happy hour at the Walrus and Carpenters with more co-workers; finally purchasing the Seattle Neighborhoods poster I've been coveting for so long; more packing and cleaning, only more frantic; wrapping 70 pot stickers in an hour for dinner with friends; spending Thursday night in Anacortes to wait for the Comcast guy on Friday; and one last hurrah at Kate's with my awesome friends.

So far, Anacortes has been fun although I haven't explored much since I've spent my days unpacking and taking over the hallway bathroom. All I know is that I better find a job soon because I've become restless and staying at home all the time is getting boring fast.

Things you learn while moving. Part I

Today I started to clean the apartment in preparation for my move out of the apartment. Christy, ever the efficient one, has been tinkering at it for the last week or so. Already the apartment looks so empty even though we still have the bulk of our furniture. I think it's all the little things that make it seem lived in--the Christmas lights that are up all year (and yet never really turned on), the stuffed animals on the shelves, the DVDs that we never watch.

So, here are the things I've learned so far, in my first three hours of cleaning (and very thorough cleaning, mind you):
- I am a dirty hoarder. I had most--if not all--of my undergraduate green book final exams, old musty textbooks that I hadn't even used during that quarter, and various academic paraphernalia dumped into a bin that I hadn't bothered to clean out until today.
-I was (still am) a terrible writer. I was looking through my old essays for my classes and they were TERRIBLE. Unfinished arguments, inconclusive conclusions, vagaries disguised as an actual explanation...they were all there. Sadly, I don't think I would do much better now given how out of practice I am at the art of bullshitting my way through a midterm.
-Spiders--they are everywhere. Even in spaces you didn't think they could get to--they will get there. I was cleaning out some old glasses that I was planning on donating when I saw a spider at the bottom at one of the glasses. I thought it was dead so I went to wash it out--but it wasn't! It started wriggling around in the hot water I had poured into the glasses. I just hope it had a quick and painless death in boiling hot water.

As I continue to pack and move, I'm sure I'll learn more things.