So….I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, but we’ve been a little busier than our normal ain’t-got-no-time selves. You see, we randomly decided to move down the road. Up and bought a house. NBD. Yes, we had one that was perfectly fine. No, we had no intentions of going anywhere, weren’t looking, hadn’t considered it. But here we are, attempting to settle into a new (old) home after a few months of complete chaos.

See what had happened was….One night I was casually scrolling through a real estate website, no particular reason, just seeing what was out there, getting decorating ideas, being nosy, etc. when I see a house with this awesome back deck (I’m seriously blaming this whole thing on it). The more I flipped through pics, the more I saw that I really liked and the idea of it being our home started to solidify. So basically in a nutshell, the next morning at church we cornered asked our friend/agent his thoughts on selling ours, potential offers on that one, yadda yadda and made the decision to move forward. We took a few days to clean ours up, listed it, got a contract on it two days later, had our offer accepted on the new home, and BOOM. Done deal. I’m obviously leaving out a few pieces (like the fact that I turned into a LEGIT crazy chick including several middle of the night panic attacks regarding mulch and windex) but you get the basic idea.

I think our sell/purchase probably went relatively smoothly compared to some, but y’all….I never want to do it again. Like, ever.

Closing was set for 30 days post offer and we had to be completely out of the old house before we could move the first thing into the new one. So in roughly a 24 hour period (because we were too cheap to get the UHauls for multiple nights) we had to move every piece of furniture, every rug, every article of clothing, every single box and bag and random item from the garage out of the house and onto the trucks AND (because the buyer wanted to swing by for one last inspection an hour before the 10am closing the next day) had to clean the house and be ready to hand over keys by the time we walked out the next morning. I will never forget walking to the street barefoot in my pajamas at 1:30am to load the last few random pieces of junk and then realizing we still had to clean. That feeling will haunt me forever.

If you EVER get into this situation, I swear it’d be worth it to rent one of those POD storage thingies so you can take your time loading and unloading. We were in just as much of a rush to unload the trucks at the new house later that same day (again, I’m cheap and wanted to get them turned back in). And if I had it to do over I’d want ownership of the new home for at least a week or two before we had to move in to be able to clean, paint, change the old carpet, FIND THE SOURCE OF THAT SMELL, etc. because let me tell you It.Was.A.CLUSTER.

 

PACKING

Have any of y’all tried to pack with 3 young kids? It’s pretty much an extreme exercise in self-control and patience. At some point they’re gonna want to help which means one or more of the following:

1.  They want to help you tape the boxes. Examples include:
   • the girl-child needing both hands just to hold the packing tape dispenser and then melting down because she can’t manage to do the actual taping on her own and HEAVEN FORBID I try to help
   • the middle child going through half a roll of tape because he can’t figure out how to keep it from sticking to itself before I yank it away
   • the oldest kiddo partially taping a box, getting bored, and losing said box and tape somewhere in the house never to be seen again (I kid you not. WHERE DID IT GO?!)
2. They add random things to the boxes when you’re not looking.
   • I’ve got a system you guys…if it doesn’t belong in the specific group identified on the top right corner of the box as well as the room listed on the top left it DOES NOT GO IN THE BOX, and/or
3. They sneak things back out of boxes that were already packed.
   • “You can’t pack this yet!” (hugging a heavy wool coat in March…in the South)
   • I LOVE this game! (pulls game out of box, blows dust off, instantly scatters millions of pieces throughout already chaotic, partially packed house)

The Attic

So what does all this have to do with the attic? We’ve been in this house almost six years. That shouldn’t be long enough to have collected the “what the heck is this” stuff. But somehow we’ve tripled our junk in those six years (for real…I helped pack the trucks and trailers to prove it). Part of it is my fault. I wouldn’t exactly call myself a hoarder (hush Brian) but I do have a hard time getting rid of the things that I’ve spent hard earned money on or that I have sentimental attachment to (so basically…everything). But if there’s even the slightest chance that I might need it or want it again or maybe be able to refurbish it back to a decent condition it just seems so wasteful to toss it, no? (Fine, fine, the seatless patio chairs might have been a stretch but there they sit, seatless, on the new back deck.)

I decided that in my packing thoroughness, I’d take the opportunity to prove I could rise above this compulsion to keep errything. I would systematically dig through each box and evaluate every random item in the attic and get rid of anything that hadn’t been used since we made the last move six years ago or that was being stored for no justifiable reason. Seems pretty straightforward, no?

But you know what I discovered? Soooo much fun stuff to prove that I’m not the only hoarder in the house. And also? I learned that the attic is the place where random things go to die.

Crap in the Attic included but was not limited to:

• Big moving boxes that upon inspection contained singular, small items (ex’s include: a large packing box containing a single football; a Rubbermaid tote with two (*2*) pair of hub’s pants that he’d decided not to keep in his closet for some unknown reason; a uhaul box with a couple of Easter baskets, one of which appeared to have the husks of candy wrappers with tiny holes and no remaining candy inside (I will not attempt to determine what creature we fed)
• TRADING CARDS – boxes and boxes and boxes and bags slap full of baseball and football trading cards, some of which look like they were purchased in the last few years….interesting
• Baby Furniture – it’s for the GRANDkids, y’all. Nothing wrong with planning ahead. (This one’s on me. The crib has their teething marks on it. It stays.)
• Stuff from the previous homeowners – Seriously. There were boxes up there when we moved in and I’m still trying to remember how I convinced hubs not to get rid of them immediately. Maybe I thought I was magically going to turn crafty one day and do something with the mason jars they left or decorate with the random assortment of Christmas themed baskets?
• Empty storage totes – EMPTY.STORAGE.TOTES. Not towards the attic door where you’d stack them for easy access in case you needed one, but mixed in with the full and semi-full ones. Kind of like some sort of game show where you have to pick a box that COULD have an awesome prize in it or it could be slap empty….just random empty boxes and totes scattered throughout the attic.
• Old dishes – Unfortunately I’m not referring to some vintage green glassware line from your Grandmama. I’m talking the 24 pc box set of wisteria printed dishes that you picked up from Wally-world when you first moved out umpteen years ago.
• The box of potential yard sale items – That’s right. Several boxes were marked “for future yard sale”. How long had they been up there? Too long. Have I ever had a yard sale? No. But I was prepping for one at some point in the past decade it appears.
• Old blinds – They were perfectly fine! I wasn’t going to chunk them just because we didn’t want bamboo shades at the time.
• Holiday decorations – Ain’t nothing wrong with holiday decorations. But y’all, we got a pile of them. #griswold
• Easter and Halloween baskets – Not the normal, one basket per child, but dozens of them scattered irreverently throughout the attic. Credit for these goes to the Hubs for sure. APPARENTLY Easter baskets and Halloween buckets should be put away immediately following the holiday. I failed to follow that rule and therefore these baskets and buckets got randomly thrown into the attic by Daddy (I’m assuming thrown since they were scattered about up there). This also means that instead of hunting them down each year, new ones were purchased, left out too long, and followed the same fate.
• Lots and lots of clothing – I’ve got a closet full of clothes ranging in about 7 different sizes (I’ve been skinny, I’ve been thick, I’m always prepared). Hubs, on the other hand, had an ATTIC full of several different sizes it appears. I’ll take the blame for this one too. We shared a small closet which means he got the 2 or 3 feet that I didn’t need. Hopefully this problem is fixed now that we have our own closets, but probably not.

Anyways, I could keep the list going but I’ll spare you. Moral of this rambling, poorly structured story? 1) Moving is not the time to be cheap (pay for the movers people!!), 2) no matter how much you plan to be organized when you pack, you’re gonna end up raking the rest of the items off the counter into a box in a panic at the list minute, and 3) if you haven’t done a deep clean of your tuck away spots in a while, force yourself to dig through them to purge and sort and sell and organize. Because I guaranty you that you’ve got some crap in the attic too.

Oh, and if anyone’s interested in some free baseball cards (with an inventory of the first few thousand in date order because at one point I didn’t have kids (or a life apparently)), holla at a girl.

Until Next Time,

Jess