Hate to move?

Doesn't everyone hate to move? Any time I've ever moved, no one has ever said to me "awww, how lucky! I love to move!" Any time someone else is moving, my response is "ew, I hate moving". So, we know this isn't going to be pleasant, but I can guarantee, this time it will be different. How?

We are moving across the country.
I'm a midwestern girl. Born and raised in Boonville, Indiana (yes, it IS a real place, look it up), I lived in the same house from age 3 till I went to college at WKU in Bowling Green, Kentucky. (By the way, Mom and Dad still live in that house on Chestnut Street.) From WKU, I returned to Boonville, then we moved to Indianapolis. Back to Boonville in 2000, back to Indy in 2005. I've lived within 200 miles of my hometown all my life. Springfield is 600 miles from where we are now and 700 miles from Boonville. We don't know a soul. No relatives are anywhere close. We're looking at it as an opportunity for our family to grow closer.

We are using professional movers.
We have too much junk trash many excess belongings to let someone else pack for us. We've got to do another purge. For our last move, we had a yard sale and made more than $800 plus took multiple carloads to the Goodwill. We also gave away carloads of stuff to friends and family. And, we moved the stuff that was too "valuable" to donate. You know, like the shoebox of Blue's Clues figurines. This time, everything must go. Given that it is December, a yard sale is out of the question. We don't have the time for ebay. So, AMVETS is coming Monday. I've already relinquished the maternity clothes I've been saving for 8 years. Everything else should be easy.

We are using professional movers, Part 2.
Even after purging, we've got a lot of stuff. Our estimate with the movers is 18,900 lbs. That is almost 9.5 TONS of stuff. Last time we had the largest U-Haul truck available, Beau's pickup, the Durango, the Neon, the RAV4, Mom's car and Pam's car. I later made several more trips in the Durango and Dad brought up the last heavy load in his pickup. I gotta think these guys are bringing a semi truck. Or two. There's no coming back for another load. If something isn't on the mover's list or doesn't fit in the van or RAV4, it ain't coming.

I'm taking time off from work to pack.
Mike has been the one to do the bulk of the packing for our previous moves. He's done a great job considering I am of no help at all. And, he's gotten better with each move. When we moved from Landmark Apartments, he forgot to empty the linen closet and used garbage bags instead of moving boxes. This last time, only clothes were in garbage bags, and we didn't forget a thing. For the next week, I'm off work and I'm going to help. Really. I've already done most of the living and family rooms. Next is the bathrooms, our bedroom, and the scrap supplies. We definitely need more boxes.

The family is not scheduled to help.
Maybe this is a given, considering we are using professional movers, but no one is helping us this time. No cousins driving the U-Haul or helping us load and unload. No church friends emptying the entire house in an hour. No Nana scrubbing the stove and the fridge. No sister painting the new place. No one to buy 30 McDonald's double cheeseburgers for the unpacking party. When Jamie just moved she said she was happy that we were all there (and her friends too, as she moved within two days of getting married and we had a bridesmaid slumber party). She said she had happy memories from day one. We'll have to make our happy memories with just the four of us.

I'm taking time off from work to unpack.
Lots of folks tell you they still have boxes that haven't been unpacked a year after moving. It's a little joke ... gee, wonder if I still need that stuff? After more than a year, I was still unpacking my cookie jar collection. We only just found the blender within the last two months. And, we still have our entire collection of office supplies in the garage. We're color coding and carefully labeling all the boxes, so unpacking should be a breeze. I'm taking at least three days off to get a good head start. The blender will be first.

I can blog all about it!
Since we'll be so far away, I'll be keeping everyone up to date here. I'm encouraging Aly to update her blog so you get her perspective too. I'll have to teach Zak to use the digi video cam (and upload to YouTube). I want to share all about the new house and the neighborhood, as well as the further adventures of our move. Stay tuned!