It turns out that not ever unpacking all the boxes of books from our move 18 months ago paid off – it saved us having to pack them all up again in preparation for our move last week.

I think we’re done moving for a while – and just when we were getting good at it. We’ve pared down our belongings by at least 50 percent since our first move. Who needs five frying pans when I always use the same one anyway? If we take many more trips to Goodwill to eliminate redundancy in our stuff, Steve and I will be taking turns using the same fork.

As chaotic and stressful as moving is, this move was about as easy as it gets because we were just moving across a narrow street within the same condo complex.  We could practically throw the throw pillows from our old front door to the new one.

However, there was a point about midway through the move on Wednesday when we were neck-high in boxes that I wondered if moving to a place that is virtually identical in layout and square footage was really worth the disruption. Because the master bathrooms look exactly the same, I kept getting confused about which condo I was in. “How come these drawers are empty? I don’t recall packing them up.” And then I would realize that I was standing in the bathroom in our new place. Moving is hell…remind me why we’re doing this?

But now that we are in and mostly unpacked, I can say without a doubt, it was worth it and I’m so grateful that our gracious neighbor made it possible for us to rent her home. In the short time we’ve been here, I keeping wondering why this place feels so different and so much more like a home than the other condo. We never had any motivation to personalize the other place yet Steve has already hung more art on the walls in his office in the four days that we’ve been here than the entire year-and-a-half that we were in the other condo.

Everywhere I look, there are touches that make me happy. I now have a window over the kitchen sink so when I’m loading the dishwasher I can enjoy the contrast of the burgundy leaves on the Japanese maple with the shiny green jasmine behind it. My computer sits on the desk that is part of a lovely built in office with cute little cubbies for envelopes and folders. There’s berber carpeting throughout that makes it feel clean and spacious. And a lovely little patio outside the sliding glass door with a small urn fountain.  

Now for us, we just need to unpack the rest of the boxes, perhaps replace our lumpy brown couches with something more fitting our brighter outlook and enjoy the gift our new home.

(Visited 7 times, 1 visits today)