Assisted Procrastination

Things I’ve learned about moving and some enlightening observations (AKA, a glimpse into my life the last couple of weeks).

1. Smoke alarm batteries die immediately after packing extra batteries away in storage. I robbed the alarm clock just to stop the beeping every 90 seconds, but this almost guarantees the alarm clock will now die.
2. Kitchen light bulbs we have NEVER had to replace suddenly die under the prospect of our moving out. Out of the 5 bulbs in the kitchen, 2 have died in the last week. That’s equal to the number of bulbs we’ve replaced in the almost 8 years we’ve lived in the house.
3. We started hearing another beep in the basement, but have no clue what was alarming. Leaving the back door open for a few minutes and chanting “not my house – not my problem” seemed to resolve the issue.
4. The cats are freaked out and are protesting by way of hairballs in both in walkways as well as in the most unsuspecting locations. Like under the nightstand. Really?? Blech!
5. Always be sure to leave another door to the house unlocked to avoid the need to wake the sick, sleeping 8 year old at 10pm when you somehow manage to lock yourself outside. No one knows how the door came to be locked. I suspect the cat.
6. No matter how much stuff I can fit into a huge box, it’s no good if it can’t be lifted. For that reason, there is no such thing as too many small boxes. Buy double what you were thinking. Then come over to my house and pack some crap. I’m tired of packing.
7. There is no appropriate size box for the LeCruset Dutch oven. It’s already far too heavy even when empty. The same is true for the food processor. And any box coming from my husband’s office.
8. Leave out *3* bowls for use in the final days in the house. It helps reduce the fighting that results when only 2 bowls are available for breakfast.
9. No matter how much progress we make, it always looks like “just a little bit more to pack” though the packing is never-ending. It’s like unloading clowns from a VW bug.
10. Buying a new-construction home from a custom builder (read: not an assembly line chain builder) means many phone calls to setup services involve customer service reps questioning my ability to recall the new address. The cable company even went so far as to ask my husband if he was “sure that’s the right address?  Have you BEEN there?”

More on the entertaining aspects of a custom build later. Right now, I have to pick out door hinges. Because these things are apparently not obvious, require much deliberation, and involve more “samples” to add to the pile, which already includes varying colors and shapes of really heavy and sharp granite, cabinet doors, wood planks (which are not cut to sample size because they were all out – instead we have varying lengths of wood flooring), and a stack of brochures, pamphlets, and swatches that could make your head spin. And I haven’t even started looking at baseboard molding options!

At this point, I would like to reiterate how grateful I am that it’s stopped snowing. I was starting to wonder if an igloo was in our future. Instead, it’s a 2+ week delay on the delivery of the house. But it will be well worth all the aggravation. If only I could get this point across to the cats, I might not have to fear putting on my shoes in the morning.

This entry was posted on February 23, 2010 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Ponderings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.