What the subject line says: 0/10, do not recommend.
We are 36 hours away from moving time, and we are still nowhere near ready, although we have made a lot of progress, thanks in great part to our friends who helped us to pack yesterday and today. Two of the three came back today, and between the four of us we got the main floor almost completely packed.
I have realized a few things during this process
1- Very few people know how to pack properly for a move.
2- KK is fucking terrible at packing.
3- KK has a very different definition of "finished" than I do.
KK had the bright idea to pack up some of the packing supplies over the weekend, specifically the box cutters and markers, so that there was only one box cutter and one marker for the entire house. I may have lost my shit at her just a little bit when I found this out yesterday. I have no idea what she was thinking, and honestly neither does she. I also had to give her instructions on how to label boxes when I found that she had labelled all of the boxes she'd packed "desk stuff." Now, I don't care what she labels her own stuff, but I wasn't about to put up with poorly labelled boxes that we all know I am going to have to unpack.
I am grateful that she stayed to help pack up the downstairs, but she is very far behind on packing up her bedroom, as am I. At one point today she looked around the living room and declared us finished, and my jaw just about hit the floor, because there was loose stuff everywhere--at least three boxes' worth. I have no idea why she thought we were finished when we very clearly weren't.
Also, bless her socks, she is CONSTANTLY interrupting me when I'm packing, or when I'm doing anything at all. I can't get through a single box without her asking me to fetch her something or do something or answer a question, and it's driving me CRAZY. I have a hard enough time keeping my thoughts together without constant interruptions, and my patience has worn so thin that it is basically nonexistent so it's taking every ounce of my willpower not to constantly snap at her. She has a real knack for interrupting me right as I'm getting into a state of flow, too. I know that a huge part of this is just that I am very tired and very stressed, and under normal circumstances I wouldn't mind this nearly as much. Right now, though, it feels like trying to pack up the entire house with a very demanding pre-teen: old enough to be helpful, not old enough to do anything truly independently. She's also going through ALL of the boxes we bought to pack up both our bedrooms. I thought she was going to do a bit of a triage of her clothes and not keep everything, but apparently I was wrong. She is keeping it all, and God only knows where she thinks it's all going to fit. So tomorrow I will have to buy more boxes for my bedroom, because there will be none left.
In the meantime, I still have a lot of stuff to pack up in the basement, the entire cat room (books, office supplies, etc.), and my bedroom and bathroom. Tomorrow morning we're grabbing a small truck from U-Haul to bring as much stuff over there as possible that would be too fiddly or time-consuming for the movers to move on their own.
The plan is then for KK to stay at the house and wait for the internet service provider to come, and I just had a horrifying realization that we may not have electricity at the new house if the previous owners shut off their account the minute they moved. I completely forgot to contact the local electrical company to set up an account for us, so I just did that online, but it's very unlikely they will hook us up tomorrow. Fuck. At least we have a gas generator so we can at least power the fridge and freezers while we're there, but it's going to suck if we don't have electricity for however long it takes for us to get connected.
I am exhausted. I've been responsible for 90% of this move by default: switching all the service providers, dealing with all the mortgage paperwork, buying most of the packing supplies, making arrangements for the packing, and my brain isn't good for juggling that much information even on a good day, let alone after the past six weeks of hospitalized parents, Covid, night shifts at work, and everything else.
*pauses journal entry to go make a service request online*
Okay. I will ask KK to call them tomorrow while she's waiting at the house for the internet provider and see if they can rush the connection request. They already service the address, so hopefully it just means flipping a switch long-distance and doesn't require a technician come out.
I want to go to bed because I can barely see straight, but if I do that instead of packing up the basement I don't know if I'll be able to get everything done. Fuckity fucking fuck.
In other news, Octavia and Juno had their dental surgery today, and it went very well and was very expensive. They are both tired but doing well and have already had food and the first dose of their antibiotics for the next four days.
Okay. Time to go feed and water the quail, and then, I don't know, I may go to bed and force myself to get up way earlier than I want to in order to get some packing done before I go to U-Haul. I didn't manage to get up early enough today, but tomorrow the panic may set in and help with getting up early, I don't know. Mostly I can't see straight, and I don't know that I have it in me to pack another box tonight.
Catch you on the flip side, friends!