Moving Stress and Nostalgia

Posted Thursday, June 19, 2008 8:56 AM
Brad and I have been working every evening this week getting our apartment packed up and taking loads over to the storage unit we rented (since we'll be staying with my MIL temporarily). Last night we got a ton packed so he decided to do a load without me since he could fit more in the car. The goal is to have all the boxes and little stuff in the storage unit by Friday so that by Saturday it's just the big furniture left to move (bed, couch, tables). Brad asked his brother a LONG time ago to help us move the big stuff this weekend. We have to be out Sunday morning. Well, last night, Brad saw his brother who promptly informed him that he had to go to a car auction on Saturday and won't be able to help us. Now we have NO ONE! We didn't plan on having any one else because we really only need that one extra body (we've got a ton done just the two of us in our mulitple loads). But, now no one is available. Don't get me wrong, I'm no weakling, but I SUCK at moving furniture. I take too long, I'm ackward and Brad just gets frustrated with me. I knew we shouldn't have relied on his brother. I should have seen it coming back to bite me in the ass.
The only thing keeping me sane at this point is knowing that we go on vacation next Friday! I HATE moving... especially when your not moving somewhere new and exciting but your moving "home". Even if it's temporary, it makes the moving feel that much more awful.
On a funny note, it's interesting what you can come up with for dinner when you are trying not to shop and don't want to move any food. Therefore, your trying to create meals out of what you already have so that you can get rid of stuff. We've done OK so far (last night we managed bbq'd chicken breasts, wild rice, steamed broccoli and greek pasta salad) but tonight we are having low-fat whole-wheat frozen pizza and fish steaks. :) My husband called dibs on the pizza so I'm having the fish, which is fine except we have nothing else to go with it. I'll have to stop by the grocery store and grab a salad or something. This will be our last time cooking in the apartment because we agreed that tomorrow we would just get take-out so that we can pack the kitchen after dinner tonight. That makes me sad.
I LOVE our apartment for a lot of reasons, but especially because it was the first place we lived after we got married. We moved in the day after we got home from our honeymoon which was 5 days after the wedding. We both desperately want a house, but this is still really hard. It's hard in a good way though (if that makes any sense) because we know the next step is really exciting. Before we started packing I took pictures of the whole apartment, ever little nook. I even took a video of me walking around the apartment, to remember exactly what it was like. I now regret not taking more pics of just every day life, but I can't change that now.
I'm especially going to miss my huge balcony. I read A LOT (and we don't smoke inside so we used the balcony) so I spent a TON of time out there. Last summer was the best. I had so many flowers and plants... it was my own little private garden. There have been times that I have spent an ENTIRE day and/or night out there on my lounger submersed in a great book. It was my favorite thing to do. It's sad to know that I will never do that again.
Okay... now I'm getting teary so I'm to stop and get back to work. ;)