Moving Is the Worst

The move is officially done. Meaning that all our stuff is in our new apartment. That does not mean, however, that the unpacking is done. Not by a long shot.

I've never really enjoyed moving, but I never fully appreciated how much it sucks to move when you actually own all your furniture. All the other moving I've done in my life has been as a single person in student housing where the most furniture I owned was a TV, a piano, and some bookshelves. I never had to move a washer and dryer or a bed or a dresser. With this move, we had a washer and a dryer, a bed, two dressers, two TVs (plus their stands), four bookshelves (with the books to fill them), and assorted shelving units. I know it could have been worse (we could be moving with kids and all that that entails, or we could be moving from one house to another), but this was still abysmal.

But we did it. We managed it with a ton of help from our family who helped us load, unload, and unpack. We have even cleaned and completely checked out of our old apartment. Though we didn't technically have to be out until the end of June, it's so nice to just have it be done.

The unfortunate thing is that the frustration doesn't begin and end with the move. We have a balcony/deck, and the previous tenants had some dogs that they didn't let off the deck. The turf had been destroyed and smelled awful, so it had to be torn up. Under that was rotting wood, so for the first two days, we had a tattered deck that looked terrible. We also only have one garage door opener, which means that one of us has to park our car and get out to get into the garage and open it up before we can park in the garage. It's more than a little annoying. Then there have been the issues with the cable and internet. Comcast has been a beast to work with, and poor Andrew has been so frustrated. A technician is coming out this afternoon and will hopefully fix everything up for us.

On top of those issues, we have to buy a few things we need for this apartment that we didn't need before, like floor lamps and kitchen cabinet organizers and maybe even patio furniture (our deck is huge and I would really like to actually use it). Then we have to agree on how to arrange rooms and decorate. And decorating is going to require us to buy some more frames and print some new pictures.

All in all, moving is a physical and emotional strain, and it's a weeks-long process. I've been exhausted every day for at least six days, and Andrew and I both come home from work a little ornery. Last night I was so tired I fell asleep before 10:00. It will be so nice to be done with everything and have things set up the way we want them, but the process of getting there is rough.

Despite all the whining in this post, I am incredibly glad that we moved. Our apartment is really nice, and I think we'll love it once we get past the initial issues. I love our new furniture. It's so cute and really comfortable. I love that during the day, we don't have to turn on a single light. There are enough windows to fill the entire apartment with natural light, and it's fantastic. I love having a garage. I love having such a big deck where we can grill and relax in the summer. And I absolutely love how close I am to work now. It takes me at most ten minutes to get to work, and it's wonderful.

So even though moving is horrible and I hate it, I'm glad we did it. And I'm glad that every day we get a little closer to being unpacked and to calling this place our home.