Adventures in Packing

Moving is hard.

You start off with the best intentions. "Everything is going to be packed properly! The kitchen stuff will all be together, the bathroom stuff, the bedroom stuff, the clothes, and the books will all be packed separately from each other," you say. Then you try to pack. First, you have a tote (or box, but in my case it's a tote) with all "memory box" type stuff. Then you have another tote with only books. But there's a little bit of extra room in the top and you don't want your books sliding around all over the place.

So you put a random dish towel on top to shore things up a little.

It all goes downhill from there. You start putting dinosaur tater tot toys in water pitchers and filling pasta pots with cosmetics, putting art supplies in the tote with the hangers, a single hanger in the tote with all the towels and breakable kitchen stuff. The purses and shoes are together, but they have a blanket in with them. At first, it still makes sense. Most everything is still organized. Then you start finding things around the house that you meant to pack but forgot about in your frenzy, and by the time you get to the last tote, this is what you have left to pack:

• A wedding planning binder (from 2 years ago that your best friend gave you after her wedding so you could plan yours that never materialized)
• A giant CD book
• A snake pen
• A wall night light
• A Christmas garland
• A plastic brandy glass the size of your head
• A pretty basket you keep bathroom stuff in
• Two hot pink file trays
• An accordian file
• Two photo albums
• A yearbook
• A catalog
• A half-done painting
• Various other artwork on paper
• A metal recipe box
• An enormous bathrobe
• A throw pillow inside piece for a pillow you never made

And of course, it doesn't all fit. You stuff things inside of each other, rearrange, take stuff out and put it back. You seriously consider attempting to concuss yourself with the brandy glass. Your back hurts and you just want this to be over with already. Finally, you give up, ditch the CD book, the pen, the metal box, the bathrobe, a photo album, and the wedding planning book, shove the garland in the brandy glass, and suddenly the tote closes. Then you dump all the extra into a laundry basket and put it on top of the giant stack of totes so you don't have to look at it anymore and run away.

This is why moving is hard.