I generally have a strict 3-5 day policy. When moving into a new home, I give myself 3-5 days of really hard work and long hours so that at the end of that time, my house is a home. We can go about the business of life. No stepping around boxes or digging to find what you need. You may have to relearn which cabinet holds the forks, but rest assured, the fork is in one of the drawers. Today, I am outside the 3-5 day sweet spot. Around Day 7 I almost broke out in hives. You can imagine how I'm fairing at Day 11. I did not account for a few differences in this move as compared to others.
1. I underestimated the lack of progress that can be made when one is attempting to organize a bathroom with the "help" of a 2 year old. I take the item out of the box, set it on the counter and reach for the next item. I turn around to find the first item (a container of baby wipes) opened and approximately 715 wipes being used to clean the step stool and toilet because apparently they were "yucky". I halt all progress to clean up previously described mess and distract adorable but mischievous toddler. I walk back by the bathroom 2 hours later, trip over the books stacked along the wall and wonder aloud, "Whose house is this?"
2. I didn't add time for organizing and reorganizing just to get the closet door to close. I have downsized before but I had a storage unit that time. When we sold our first house to move to a high-rise apartment, we cut our living space in half. We also rented a storage unit so things that wouldn't fit found a nice, new climate-controlled home. There's no storage unit. In fact, there's barely a storage closet. And it's not climate-controlled. There's a garage, but we are not the fill-up-the-garage-so-a-car-won't-fit people. That leaves me with the large task of fitting furniture, fixtures, appliances and accessories from a 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom 3,400 sq. ft. house into a 2,000 sq. ft. townhouse. My sofa was so big they had to take the hinges off the door to get it in the basement! I need a new name for what I'm doing here. This is not downsizing. When I get a kitchen organized so that it fits the contents that once spread into 3 rooms, I'm working magic, people!
3. I may have slightly denied reality We aren't new to moving - in our 8 years in Dallas, we lived in 4 different places. Each time we had two aces in our corner - we have amazing friends who, for the payment of pizza and a returned favor would carry just about anything we asked, and our families lived within driving distance. When we moved into the high-rise, my dad loaded all David's lawn mowing equipment in the back of his truck and stored it until we were ready for it again. When we moved into a house sporting the worst shades of hunter green and burnt orange you can imagine, we barely had to ask and dozens of people came to help. This is different. There are no painting parties. No one is helping to line shelves or wipe down cabinets before towels are stacked there. Mom and Dad left with only their luggage. David helps when he's not at work, but for most of the week, I'm a one-woman wrecking crew (with a very short, very blonde sidekick, of course).
All that said, you'd think I would have adjusted my expectations, right? You would think that instead of allowing 3-5 days, I'd give myself a month or at minimum a few weeks. Those would be the decisions of someone far less obsessive than I. No, there was no modified time table. There's just a girl who at Day 11 is annoyed because those books are still in the hall. But she has a killer plan for where to put them...tomorrow.
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