Packing and Moving and LIKING It!

What a whirlwind of activity the last few weeks have brought! 

To recap the last couple of weeks and project the upcoming weeks: Charles started a new job, we signed a contract on our house (WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO), we signed a contract on a new house, and are closing on both houses on June 30th.  And to add to the mix: our babysitter and my mom are out of town for the next couple of weeks, I am wrapping up things at my job of over 5 years, Charles is getting geared up at his new job, we are packing, annnnnnnd I am 34 weeks pregnant.

But the real reason I am writing this post is not to whine about all of the eight million things we have going on right now but instead to express my gratitude for the timing of it all and to say something that you probably will not hear most people say: I LOVE MOVING!  :)

No, really.  I do.  This has been a long time coming and even though a lot of the packing process is not exactly my idea of a fun family activity, there is a very bright and beautiful light at the end of this tunnel and I can finally see it.

The other day I was at our new house (yay!) - signing papers - and the lady asked me when I was due.  Technically I am due July 28th but in my head, this baby is coming early, like Jack did, and I want to be prepared...and that is what I told her.

"Not very good timing!" she said (as if, you know, we just randomly decided to sell our house last month and it sold right away and we were moving this close to our due date for the fun of it).

"Actually," I told her, "at this point, this is the best possible timing I could ask for."

Because you see, if it had just taken one (or two - or three!) more weeks to sign the contract on this house, we would be moving *that* much closer to my due date and worst case scenario - moving with a newborn and a postpartum new Mama.  Not fun.

I would much rather spend the end of my third trimester packing boxes and shuttling back and forth between our current location and the "big city" to sign paperwork than even think about doing the same with a newborn in tow.  So for me, the timing is nearly perfect (completely perfect would have been selling two months ago and being settled in to our new house already, but that's not the way the cookie crumbled).

So that brings us to the packing part. 

We have a lot to pack.  I have done the official math (see below):

2600 square foot home + garage + barn + 15 acres = a Lot of stuff to pack.

June 30th closing date - today's date of June 16th = not a lot of Time to pack.

So basically, every second when I am not working (or sleeping or eating or entertaining a two-year-old or, umm, blogging...) is spent packing.  Box after box after box of clothes, books, toys and kitchen utensils are packed, taped, labeled and stacked in the appropriate room.  Bins full of exciting things like diapers and postpartum girdles (that's right - a girdle - you watch this belly shrink down to it's original size in no time after this next kid!) are organized and stacked so I can see what is in them and access them easily should we still be unpacking when the baby is born.  Things I don't want to deal with when we move - like where Jack's clothes will go between moving and buying him a dresser - are being addressed and solved with genius solutions (me being the genius, of course...hehe) like putting them into a plastic bin with drawers that I can tuck into his closet in the new house.

The dumpster is being filled with junk.  The donation boxes are so heavy I cannot lift them.  The stack of stuff to be returned to my Mom's house is growing but neatly contained in a Thomas the Train duffel bag.

I am telling you - I AM ORGANIZED and I AM HAVING A GOOD TIME PACKING!!

Maybe it's the memory of my last big move - from California to Texas - that has inspired this fit of Extreme Organization.  I am pretty sure that process started off on a good foot.  But I do remember a cry for "All Hands on Deck!" at the eleventh hour when I realized that we only had about eight hours to get out of the house and there were odds and ends laying all over the house without a box to go in.  And I really remember unpacking those boxes a few months later in Texas.  Let's just say that if you pack a box of candles, cat food, socks and books and ship it in a moving van from California to Texas in July it is very likely that the candles will melt all over everything else in the box.  Lesson learned.

Maybe it's the fact that we're downsizing to a smaller home and a smaller lot (smaller by about 14.90 acres).  We don't have ROOM for all of this junk.  This is a great time to trash or donate 50% of the contents in this home.  I mean seriously, do I need to take the statue of the mating donkeys (yes you read that right) that I bought in Cancun six years ago??    Do I even want to take that with me?  If I have to ask myself twice the answer is probably no (but on a side note here - I can't bring myself to throw that giant marble monstrosity away - yet). 

Maybe it's my extreme gratitude and the realization that this really could not come at a better time and we are getting exactly what we wanted...a new house before the baby is born.  All of my backaches and out-of-breathness and frequent potty breaks pale in comparison to the end result here...new home, new baby - all in a matter of a few short weeks! 

Or maybe it's the nesting instincts kicked into high gear.  I'm 34 weeks pregnant!  I have a baby on the way!  I want to be settled in.  Badly.  So badly, it consumes me and even right now I am thinking, "what should I pack next?" 

The moment I am waiting for is the moment when I sit on the couch in the new house and put my feet up and...have nothing to do (OK, stop laughing already!).  Even though I know that moment will likely never come, it is my inspiration.

Yesterday I had an appointment at the Birthing Center and the midwife sternly told me, "No moving boxes around or heavy lifting!" and I assured her I am not doing any heavy lifting (ask Charles, who moved about eight large boxes of books from the bed last night).  I am not lifting boxes, I am not reaching up into the cabinets to pack dishes or crawling around in the cabinets on the ground to pull out all of the baking supplies I never use that need to be packed. 

I am leaving that for Charles. 

This leaves me a bit worried because he operates on an alternate plane of reality where he thinks everything is going to take half as long, or be twice as easy, as it really is.  I cannot tell you how many times I have told him, "We have so much junk, I think this is going to be a bigger project than we realize," and he responds with, "It's really not that bad."  This from the man who has not finished the one and only packing project he has started - several days ago - and who apparently has not ever peeked into the giant cabinets that are in our garage that came with the house when we bought it (hundreds of Christmas decorations from the 70's, anyone??).

So, maybe there will be some boxes packed with candles and cat food after all.  But not if I can help it.  I will keep on truckin' with a smile on my face and keep dreaming about that day in the very near future when I put my feet up and think, "OK, I'm all moved in...now what do I do?"

OK...I actually just envisioned that scene in my mind and, no joke, it was interrupted - even in my fantasy world!! - by Jack yelling "MAMA!" at me and demanding some sort of Todder-demand.  :::SIGH:::