Cardboard is my life

Well, the Christmas decorations are coming down and that can only mean one thing: Time to start packing this house for the big move. I have tried to delay the process as much as possible, but I’m fighting a losing battle.

Yesterday, Cheryl came over to help us start packing the china cabinet. She claims she “wants” to help us pack everything, but I’m pretty sure she has been abducted by aliens and secretly replaced with some whack-job that loves bubble wrap! Seriously! She’s like a packing machine! A Cheryl-bot! Honestly though, I don’t know what we would do without her. I had no idea that damn china cabinet held so much stuff! Granted, there’s a lot of packaging in the boxes (quit worrying Mom!) but I think we pulled nine boxes or so out of there. Gee Whiz!

Today the process starts all over again. Merrin is working so Cheryl-bot is coming over to pack the ?kitchen?. I keep reminding Merrin that we do have to live in the house over the next three weeks, but (apparently) they make paper plates and plastic service wear. Did you all know anything about this?? I tried to explain that –once the kitchen is packed– I won’t have a pot to…well, you understand. Merrin & Cheryl-bot say there are always alternatives to cooking. Turns out that my wife wants a vacation from cooking so I guess it’s going to be carry-out dinners for a while.

Merrin keeps bringing home more boxes, bubble wrap and packing peanuts. I guess we’re in it for the long haul. We are set to close on this house January 15th. (Fingers crossed!) We close on the new house a couple of days later. Keith has worked it so that we should be able to stay in this house through the end of January, but –at this rate– that won’t be necessary. We’ll take possession of the new house right away.

The next few weeks are going to be pretty stressful around here. We’ve got to seal the deal with our mortgage broker, pack up all this stuff, hire a moving company (or do this), dig all the quarters out from the sofa cushions, get this house appraised, get the new house appraised, get the new house inspected, close on our house, deposit that check, close on the new house, write a big check, move everything out there (45 minute from here), do all that mail forwarding at the post office & pray I get all my tax forms and then settle in to unpack. Of course, by “unpack” I mean let Merrin handle the indoors while I get up on the ladder and wire in the satellite!

As things move along, I will try to get some pictures of the new house and post them. I have a little video of it, but (since I did the camera work) it’s not very good. Maybe I can grab a couple of images off of it. We’ll see.

This family has a lot of chiefs and we’re all prone to doing a “rain dance” if we don’t get our way. On the flip side, we’ve got plenty of “fire-water” to get us all through it! If you guys need me, I’ll be in the other room popping bubble wrap!