Two Moves, Two Trucks, and 10,000 Boxes

So, we moved!

It was... a lot. Even though we lived in a furnished rental house, it turns out you still use QUITE a lot of your own things over 6 months in someone else's rental. Bedrooms, closets, bathrooms, the play area, office area, pantry items, fridge food, random stuff we added to the kitchen over time from our own boxes of kitchen stuff... it was a lot to pack up and move. But pack up and move we did, filling boxes and carting them over to the new house, and then doing it again over and over again. Luckily the rental house and forever house are only a few streets apart.

And the forever house... it is so beautiful. So perfect and welcoming and everything I would have ever wanted in a house I built myself but didn't have to. I cried when I walked through it the first time on Thursday morning. We're going to make such a wonderful life here.

Speaking of dreams for the future, these were literally the first two things I unpacked from my car and set up.

The kids were in school, so I fielded work calls on my laptop using my phone as a hotspot in between James making runs to load up more boxes. We slept at the rental house because we didn't have mattresses yet (or any other furniture), but everyone was so excited to officially move in the next day assuming our mattresses came on time!

On Friday the kids were off school, so we spent the day going between the two houses gathering the remaining items at the rental. The kids worked so hard- loading and unloading, filling closets and drawers and bringing me whatever random thing I yelled for in some other corner of the house. AT&T came and we got internet. Our contractor came by to talk over our few small projects (mostly painting + 1 built-in). Our pool contractor came by for the final permit sign-offs. We packed and unpacked and organized our little hearts out. The mattresses were delivered. I went to Target for more organizer bins and a few other small things and set my phone on the little ledge built into the shopping cart. I turned away to look at something important like sink mats and when I turned back my phone was gone. I used Claire's phone to try the Find My iPhone app but my phone was already offline. We drove straight to the AT&T store so they could blacklist my stolen phone and I could get a new one, but it took hours, I lost all my data from the last two days, it will make our phone bill monstrous again, and it was just kind of jarring. It's Target. It's full of rainbows and happiness and only good things should happen there.

James came to the AT&T store to grab Cora to take her to soccer and then Claire and I finally got to leave too, new unwanted lavender iPhone 14 in my hand. We got back to the new house to unload the things we got at Target and try to connect my new phone to the cloud to download all my saved items and everyone was getting tired of me telling them more things to do and we finally finished up unloading the last box and drove BACK to the rental to order some pizza and dinner because the one thing we didn't yet have in the new house was any sort of dishes or silverware or kitchen items of any kind. It was 7:30 p.m. and when we opened the door we noticed Milo didn't come to greet us. He ALWAYS greets us at the door. I have come home from business trips at 2 and 3 in the morning and he immediately comes to greet me. We called his name. We searched. We searched more. We found Moose who looked wide eyed and concerned and we came to the stomach-sinking realization that Milo was gone.

We thought back on the day of opening and closing the door a million times and realized the last time anyone had seen him was early in the morning. It had been at least 10 hours of him being outside and it was now full dark, at a rental house we were no longer going to be living in, with at least three feral cats prowling the area, next to a very busy street, on a steep hill down to a creek with one billion trees and bushes. It was awful. We all got flashlights and started walking around the yards, combing through the brush, calling his name, shaking his food, and knocking on neighbor's doors. Cora was crying, Claire was crying, I was crying, and I'm pretty sure our men were crying. I was getting so scared for him and trying to act like everything would be fine. We looked for over an hour when we realized we really should eat something. James ordered pizza while Claire and Cora sat on the couch with me and sobbed. We went out to look some more. James went to pick up the pizza. Landon went into the back yard one more time to climb under the deck and look again. He saw shiny eyes. ... and it was a possum. He looked under another deck and saw shiny eyes. ... and it was a Milo!!

There was a loud shout of joy. Landon walked in triumphantly holding a thoroughly freaked out Milo with big eyes and puffy fur wrapped around Landon's neck like WTF YOU GUYS IT'S SO SCARY OUT THERE.

We must have walked right over him on the deck and right next to him in the brush at least a dozen times and he never made a sound. When James got home with the pizza everyone was crying again, but now they were happy tears. Milo was totally fine with being sobbed over and then Moose licked him thoroughly to get the outside smell off. At no point did Maggie have any idea what was going on.

Relieved, exhausted, and suddenly starving, we ate our pizza and packed up all the pets to head to the forever house for our first night there. We fell asleep on our mattresses on the floor, secure in knowing we had each other and we had our furry friends, and looked forward to a brighter morning.

Except Moose who would like to formally say WTF with this moving of houses. He was just starting to relax in the rental house and now he has to be on high-alert again.

But oh how bright the morning was. I had my tea. I sat on the floor of my empty house sipping my tea and letting my mind wander. I simply can't wait to settle in and continue buliding our life here.

We continued unpacking- now more focused on organizing the bathrooms and closets. I went to The Container Store twice and won the grown-up tetris game of finding the perfect organizers for our weirdly large kitchen cabinets. James and Landon had swimming. I have no idea what we ate or where, but I know I cleaned out 8 bins of bathroom stuff and my drawers are beautiful.

Maggie would like to interrupt and say she likes the new house very much but would like it more if I would please stop going up and down the stairs so much.

(Seriously. Mom. It is a MOUNTAIN.)

Sunday was the same except this time it rained a bit and we ran more errands. The Container Store, again, Marshall's, Target, again, Homegoods, TJ Maxx, etc. We made baked potatoes for dinner because we still didn't have any cooking or baking tools and ate on the floor like a picnic. Milo was thrilled with the fluffy blankets as furniture situation.

And then Monday. We successfully got the kids off to school and at 8:30 the movers were at our storage unit, ready to load the trucks. I'd sort of convinced myself there wasn't much left to unpack- we'd sold so much furniture before we moved and used a lot of our daily stuff in the rental, but no. We had 1.5 truck loads.

At least 40 boxes were for the kitchen: plates, bowls, utensils, pans, pots, baking trays, specialty baking items, measuring cups, mixing bowls, waffle makers, a crock pot, SO MANY KITCHEN THINGS and I have missed every single one of them so much. I unpacked like a machine, directing movers to various rooms and unpacking unpacking unpacking. The garage is now full of random things. The upstairs is full of random things- the kind of bins I haven't missed in the 8 months since I packed them but we need to find a home for anyway: my wedding dress, James's UT swimming stuff, the kids' memory bins, holiday decor, etc.

Pretty sure a Landon is inside that box

A certain someone was banished to his cat carrier the minute the movers arrived since doors would be open all day. He howled for hours, but fresh and painful memories of sobbing children searching through bushes with flashlights kept me unmoved by his cries.

By the afternoon I'd finished the kitchen completely. By dinnertime the kids were home and I'd finished the living room, dining room, our master closet, and most of the game room. James made dinner (with our pots! our beautiful pots and dishes and utensils!) and I got the kids moving a whole lot faster on their closets. We don't have any bedroom furniture yet, but the kids have their old dressers and big closets so pretty much everything got put away. James and I have a line of 7 different little plastic drawer sets we accumulated throughout the years (I think I got two of them in high school) with all of our folded clothes. It works and we'll order new furniture soon. In the meantime we have this adorable little putting green for Maggie to patrol.

We ate, our first meal at a table in our new house, and it was so wonderful. I took my bath in my beautiful tub, with my bath tray that my sister-in-law got me for Christmas that I brought with us to the rental house and now here, and my swollen sore feet sighed in relief. I'm not sure I ever sat down yesterday.

Today I got ready in my beautiful closet with all my work clothes and shoes finally reunited together. Everything I wore today had been packed up since we staged the Fort Worth house in April. It's like getting a free shopping spree and I'm so excited for fall.

It's also James's birthday! It's a crazy week between the move and me traveling to Houston for work on both Wednesday and Friday (and spending Thursday back here in Dallas because Landon has a high school swim meet that night), but we managed a few gifts, a dinosaur birthday tablecloth, and a dinner of pancakes because that is exactly what he wanted.

41 years old and I've been with him for 22 of them. Here's to so many more!