My apartment looks like a bomb hit it. there is still tons of shit not in boxes. I’ve been working on this for over a week. I swear this shit is multiplying. And now all I can think about is having to unpack all this crap in less than a week. ugh. ok I’m done bitching, going back to packing.
woooohooo I sure don’t envy you any. I still remember two years ago when I moved. I’m still finding boxes packed up. You don’t know how much you have until you have to move it.
But just think of the rewards. Good luck!
psy,
I learned the hard way…I missed a moving deadline in 1995 (partly because I had the job of moving my stuff with enough for a 3 bedroom 1700 square foot house and my home office in a week) but the other part was I spent too much time on line when I shoulda been packing.
My last move…I purposely took down the computer a week before hand – I still ended up staying up all night the night before the movers came but I got it all done. Procrastination is a large part of my life LOL.
Damn I hate moving, I feel for you!
< for Pit material >
Fucking packing, why are we so damn attached to things? I hate it, I hate it and if anyone tries to make me move again I will go postal. < giggle >
The only good thing about packing is I actually throw out all my junk…except all those boxes of junk I didn’t unpack yet that I stored in my storage room! 
Think on the bright side, you may find things that you thought you had lost while you are packing!
Heartfelt sympathy to you. Of all things, I loathe packing.
The only thing keeping me from moving on to greener (and more peaceful) pastures is I can’t face sorting, boxing and hauling all this stuff.
Best of luck to you. This too shall pass. (Even kidney stones do, with enough time and pain.)
Veb
While I love setting up in a new place, I absolutely cannot stand the packing process. I hate it so much, I’ve decided that some of my furniture will not be coming with me when I move again. If it can’t be tossed into a box or stuffed into a garbage bag, it gets sold/given away/chopped into tiny pieces.
Not much to add except a sincere “good luck”.
It’s amazing how you can move into a place with two van-loads and a year or two later you need an eighteen wheeler to cart it out.
I’ve moved 8 times in the last 14 years, so I have quite a bit of experience.
Best advise:
[ul]
[li]Just shove it all in boxes! Sort it out later.[/li][li]Use minimal sorting: e.g., Kitchen stuff, books, computer. Exception: trash. You’ll kill yourself if after you move you then throw away 200 lbs of stuff.[/li][li]If possible, get uniform-sized boxes, like photocopy paper boxes from an office. They stack easier.[/li][li]Only ask friends that are in good health. If someone’s bad back acts up, you’ll never hear the end of it.[/li][li]Pizza and beer (wine and cheese, whatever) to be served only after all the stuff has been moved.[/li][/ul]
With one exception: use small boxes for your CDs. Otherwise you’ll never be able to lift the damn things.
ruadh, about to move for the 19th time in the past 14 years
The last time I moved was 17 years ago.
I still have boxes I haven’t unpacked.
I go to college and live in a dorm. I also need to stay for breaks because I work. I do not live at home at all anymore so EVERYTHING that I own, which is not much I will admit, I take with me. In the last 12 months I have moved atleast Half of everything I own 5 times and everything 3 additional times. I will have to move lteast another 3 times in the next 12 months. The problem is the computer. I need it yet It is such a pain in the ass to move.
Amen – and the same for videotapes or DVDs, which are easily the densest substances known when you have move boxloads of them. I helped my sister move to Kenmore, WA, in Sept 1999 and her VHS movie collection, all 23 boxes, has now become my moving horror story. She moved into a third-floor apartment and each box weighed 95 pounds (BIG boxes)… aaaiieeeee…
Or do what I do: chuck out the CD cases and keep them in those zip-up folders. 48 CDs in one folder, takes up a miniscule amount of room, easy to pack and carry. No small bonus when you leave in a one-room flat.
Last time I moved, I went from 1700 square feet to 800.
Most of what I lost was closet space.
I’ll let your imagination work on what a nightmare it was. I have a whole room full of boxes of stuff that came out of closets, because I had no closets to put it back into.
The only thing that saved my sanity was that I was buying the new place, and wouldn’t be throwing away my money on rent anymore.
Good luck with your move!
Scotti
Every time I move, I swear it’s going to be the last time because of the packing. It’s just astonishing how much crap I “need” to live my ordinary-husband-and-one-kid life. I think the worst part though, is getting the boxes. (Didn’t some comedian do a bit on this?) When you’re moving, good packing boxes are like gold. Last time, we got sturdy, clean ones from a local veggie stand–must have driven to the veggie store 10 times to scrounge through their throw-outs. Just when you think you’ve got the packing all done…whoops! you need 6 more boxes! And then, when you unpack, you’ve got to figure out what to do with the million empty boxes! Save 'em? (I did, after all, swear never to move again.) Keep some, just in case? Aarrgghhhh…psycat, I feel your pain!
Moved either 10 or 11 times in my 18 years of life. Hated it worse each time.
Last time I moved, I rented one of those small U-Haul trailers. Since the trailer was so small, I had to mark out the interior measurements with tape in my tiny living room, and I used that area to put the filled boxes that eventually went into the trailer. I managed to get everything moved because I:
[ul]
[li]threw 1/3 of my stuff out[/li][li]gave 1/3 away[/li][li]sent the 26 boxes of books by train.[/li][/ul]
Sending the books by train was a bit inconvenient since I had to have a friend drop them off at a station (Boise) and pick them up myself in Newark, about 45 minutes away from my new place. But, it was the cheapest way I could find to ship them - I’d do it again. They were waiting at the train station on a pallet on the loading dock.
Take a critical look at what you could throw out. I asked myself what would really hurt if I lost it in a fire. It turned out that many things that held fond memories for me were no longer needed - my memories of those events are still with me even though the objects are not.
And to pit-icize this post - where the fuckity-fuck did that flashlight go?
Psy–
Think of what you’re packing FOR.
You are the luckiest motherfucker on the face of the earth. (gratuitous profanity thrown in to make this more Pit-worthy)
I only WISH I could be packing all my shit to make the kind of move you’re making.
My wife and I have moved 12 times in 17 years and we have always enforced the “Three Year Rule”. We date the boxes when we pack them and if we haven’t opened them in three years, we don’t need the stuff. Goodwill loves us. We moved from a 2500 SF house to an 800 SF apt a few years back and disposed of lots of stuff. When we moved back into the same 2500 SF house we had a ball re-buying stuff. The last move (8 weeks ago today) was the worst. The buyers of our old house wouldn’t buy if we couldn’t get out in 21 days. We thought we had months. We used professionals. I am never doing it myself again. It cost $900 to move 70 miles but worth every penny. We packed it ourselves but never moved a single box (And there were over 200 of them!) Who knew there were people out there who would do it for us? All this time I thought I had to move my own stuff. (Note: cynicism directed at self). The only casualty of the move was a bowl I hated anyway and the insurance company reimbursed me for that!
BTW - I moved the computer myself. Nobody else touches that.
Lastly, not to hijack but FUCK ALL OF THE BASTARDPIECEOFSHITASSHOLEMOTHERFUCKING MORTGAGE PUKES WHO FUCKED ME IN THE ASS BY WAITING UNTIL THE DAY BEFORE SETTLEMENT TO TELL ME YOU NEEDED MORE TIME TO PROCESS MY LOAN! MAY YOU ALL CHOKE ON YOUR OWN EXCREMENT!
Sorry, that just slipped out.
Wow! My back yard has lots of shit in it! Even if I were moving I don’t think I would pack up my dog’s shit to move… why do you have so much shit you wish to cart to another place???
Oh, wait, you don’t mean real SHIT!
DUH!
Sometimes it really takes me a long breath to understand the metaphor!
No, really. I’ve moved so many times it’s just sad. I can only rope folks into it once; they realize that most of my “stuff” is books and I never see them again. Pizza and beer will not tempt them twice. Sad, really. They could get such a great work out…
But, as someone said: remember why you are moving. Must be better in the end.