My Life in a "Moving" Nut Shell...

For the first 19 years of my life, I lived in the same house. Then it was like my mom needed to make up for lost time and we started moving - a lot. The next five years we pretty much moved an average of once a year, with me finally getting my own apartment when I was 23. The summer of 2007, when I was 24, I decided to pack up and move to Chilliwack, BC. I rented a room from my now-husband, Jim for a year. Jim then moved to Montreal and we lived with our friend Wes for a month in the interim of him leaving and me finding an apartment to live in. I moved into my own adorable carriage home for 5 months before joining Jim in Montreal. We only lasted three months there before moving back to Chilliwack, where we once again lived with Wes for a month. We bought our own house which we lived in for two years before making the big move back to Edmonton, my home city, in September of 2011. Jim moved first as he had to start work and lived in a friend’s unfinished basement for a month. When I got to Edmonton, we lived with my uncle for another month. Then, in October, we moved into a townhouse in Sherwood Park for six months. 

Which brings us to present day: six weeks ago we bought a brand new house in Edmonton! Possession date was March 15, but we have our townhouse until April 15. Awesome, because now we don’t have to worry about doing the one day move out/move in shenanigans.  Which ultimately equals two weeks of moving. Ugh. It also doesn’t help that the old place and the new place are a good half hour drive apart. “Quick” truck loads over every night were never quick. And that’s pretty much how we ended up moving. We waited until too late to book a u-haul, so we loaded up Jim’s truck every night after work and moved a load of boxes and furniture over. By the time we got to our new place, it was always dark out so I’m sure our new neighbours must think we are big weirdo’s. Or drug dealers, as some of my kind twitter friends pointed out. 

So where am I going with all this? What I thought was going to be a stress-free, underwhelming move has turned into a HUGE time-suck. Instead of just putting my big girl pants on and getting the move over in one day, we’ve managed to drag it out over two weeks, making it seem as if an end was never in sight. Needless to say, my reading has been almost non-existent.  Between moving, working, cleaning the old place and consoling a very upset and very confused doggy, there are not enough hours in the day. I do a lot of my reading before bed, but I can’t remember the last time I went to bed before midnight. Oh don’t get me wrong – I’ve gotten a chapter in here and there, but that’s about it. Insert sad face here. 

"You can unpack all you want, I'm not taking my eyes off of you!"

"I really want to go to bed, but I'm worried you'll leave me."

The silver lining is we are in a gorgeous, new house with working internet (yay!), and have every intention of making this our home for many years to come. (Meaning, if we move again in a few years, everything goes with the house except my books.) And once we are unpacked and settled, I will have more hours to dedicate to reading and getting this blog going. And cooking! And maybe I’ll even get back to the gym. Gosh, how do people move when they have kids?! 

Oh! And I almost forgot the best part: I will FINALLY be able to unpack all my beloved books that have been locked away in boxes for the last six months. That, my friends, will be a very exciting day. 

I feel like they are suffocating.