Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Well, Hello, Karma. So Nice to See You...

Remember last year when Husband came home and told me his company was being purchased and we had to move to Los Angeles?  Remember how I agreed we had to take the opportunity, but then turned into a complete brat and refused to pack up the house?  How I made Husband hire movers with part of the signing bonus he was given by the L.A. company, so I wouldn't have to pack anything in preparation for this move I didn't really want to make?  

Yeah.  Turns out that?  What a stupid freaking idea.  I don't know WHO I thought was going to do the unpacking on the other end of the move.  Although, since I'm bitching about this now, more than a year after we moved, I clearly didn't do the unpacking, or at least not all of it.  So I guess that's three incredibly stupid moves on my part--1.) not doing any of the packing myself 2.) not preparing for the packers' arrival beyond emptying the trash cans--the amount of stuff we paid to have shipped 3000 miles just to be thrown out once we got here?  Bad.  and 3.) duh, not unpacking everything when we first got here. 


I spent most of yesterday morning "rediscovering" the storage space of our garage.  You know, there are entire boxes in there that still have the packing tape completely intact?  No one has made so much as a peek inside of them.  Now before you go jumping in with "TRASH THEM! If you haven't used it in a year, you don't neeeeeeed it!" (which is sound advice, I realize), just don't.  Somewhere in there are things like my grandmother's high school diplomas and a framed invitation to my bat-mitzvah (what were you doing on October 20th, 1984? I was becoming a woman, my friends).   While it's not likely I'll ever neeeeeeed those things in the course of my daily life, I'm not throwing them out.  Call me a hoarder if you must, but sentiment is BIG with me and whatever is hiding in those heretofore unpacked boxes could be nostaglia gold.  I'm unfortunately more likely to unwittingly throw away something like mortgage papers than a relative's high school diploma.  Sad, but true.  Lucky, lucky Husband. 

Aside from unopened boxes, what did I find?  Well, a cobweb.  In my face.  That was good.  Also? In a box filled with empty CD cases and pots and pans (totally logical box mates, yes?), I found boxes of pasta and canned tomatoes.  Oh, and soup.  Like maybe we went to Costco right before we moved last year?  You know, so that we'd have food to start out with in California?  Thinking, I don't know, they didn't have food here?!!!  (I suppose that's plausible given the freakishly skinny women who tend to live here)  I have no idea.  For whatever reason, there's a box with empty CD cases, pots, pans and pasta.    Also in the garage I unearthed about five boxes that I just can't describe any further than..."Husband".  Wires, computer pieces, extension cords, battery packs, remotes, I have no idea.  It's all very scary in those boxes.  

So, lesson learned.  Me of August 10, 2009 has sufficiently chewed out me of June 23, 2008 and when we arrive in whatever house we decide on in the Bay Area, you can be sure that you'll be reading a post about how I unpacked every last freaking box, even if I have gone stark raving mad in the process.  Which? Let's be honest.  Is pretty likely. 


9 comments:

Becca said...

"what were you doing on October 20th, 1984? I was becoming a woman, my friends"

LOL!!

Packing sucks! Hopefully this next move will be for a while. Good luck!

lonek8 said...

perhaps you were planning on cooking a pasta meal mmediately on arrival and serving it on the cd cases as dishes? that could explain that box. Having just moved here is my advice: make your mother do it. My mom loves nothing more that to help me with this type of job, and she pretty much packed all my boxes and then unpacked them when we got here. If you want I will totally loan her to you. You just have to be prepared for several phone calls asking where she put stuff.

Sarah said...

Oh my god-- we have SEVERAL boxes of cords and wires, and they moved with us and cannot be thrown away because WHAT IF WE NEED TO PLUG SOMETHING IN?

Purge before you pack this time-- maybe have a ginormous yard sale before you go? And give all the proceeds to E to stock his new room with new toys (this attitude is why my kids are spoiled little brats).

I do not envy you (but actually I do b/c I want a new house, wahhhhh), but I am excited to read about your adventure.

AJU5's Mom said...

It took us over a year to unpack after moving into this house (because we were still remodeling some rooms). I found some of those packing nightmares too! You know, the boxes you think you will open quickly that have a variety of things in them that you don't unpack for a year and then wonder why you put those things together... Luckily my husband packed and unpacked his boxes - those are scary too!

Good luck on the next move!

Anonymous said...

don't be too hard on yourself about getting the packers. it ma¥ be bad on the unpacking end, but sitting in åñnapolis while other people packed all my stuff? worth every f-ing penny and then some. seriously, i'll take the random soup cans over what i went through last year!
xo
kita

Anonymous said...

I'm somewhat ashamed to say that I think we still have boxes that have not been unpacked somewhere in our basement... And we've lived in our house for over 5 years! Yep, I just choose to completely ignore them in hopes that they will disappear or magically unpack themselves. Not quite working...

Aunt Becky said...

I laugh because I understand.

Pam said...

or... you could fly me out to unpack you! yes! that's an excellent idea! and then you'd be all organized and shit right away!

TheHMC said...

When we bought our house 4 years ago, a lot of boxes ended up in the garage. Some of them remained unopened until we moved this past Feb. And..um..several of them STILL have remained unopened in the new garage.

I don't plan on going through them anytime soon. We do, eventually, but it's a box here and there and then it's like Christmas. We can 'ooh' and 'ahh' all over the goodies we've found that we completely forgot we had. My favorite was when hubby found our entire set of dishes that I purchased right before we got married. I thought they had diappeared ages ago and then one day-there they were.
Fabulous.