Progress Report Part Two

Well, now I'm sitting here waiting for my brain to stop exploding inside my skull.  I am pretty sure I was doing some awesome teeth grinding action last night, resulting in this morning's malady.  So, as I wait once more for the coffee and aspirin to kick in, I'll update you again.  Here it is:  the van is loaded top to bottom in a sea of cardboard, furniture and mover's blankets.  There isn't room for a mouse to move around in there.  There are still at least two dozen boxes of things I've determined I can't live without long term that didn't make it onto the semi.  At one point, as my husband and I surveyed the remains, I muttered, "Too many books."  Greg simply agreed.  We are not taking any type of major appliance, no couches and most of my book shelves collapse, and we still couldn't get it all in.  Greg managed to squeeze an amazing amount in even after declaring that we weren't going to make it, but among the left overs are the nerdy Lord of the Rings and Star Wars memorabilia that I thought I was being so clever to pack first.  That means it was at the bottom of the pile and will make it to me last.  How we manage that remains to be seen - it's likely the remnants will remain here until Greg's ready to come east.  That means if someone invites me to a formal event, I'll be without an evening bag and shoes (although I will have a long skirt, because I used it for padding).  And it means if I have to host a formal dinner, I'll be doing it without my china - or most of it anyway.  But, since I don't think either of those things are likely to happen in the next few months, I am remarkably sanguine about it all.

I need to take this opportunity to apologize to my husband for my frustration over his earlier lack of effort with the packing.  He kicked in a few days ago, and once he did, he was all business. While I pondered over every box - what to take, what to toss, how to pack it - he just tore in and got it done.  He fetched, he carried, he made so many trips to the U-Haul store, he probably wore ruts in the road.  And, he loaded the van - at the end, all by himself.  His best friend and his younger brother came to help after the hired muscle (including a completely dreamy former football player who played college ball with Antonio Brown) had to leave.  But they both had to leave as well before it was done, so Greg single handedly finished it off, as I toiled in the bedroom, trying to slough off enough clothes to keep myself down to two wardrobe boxes.  I wondered to myself if he had just been resting all along to gear up for the final push he knew it would take to get it done.  Whatever the case, there's no way I would have made the time frame if he hadn't put in a Herculean effort.  I've wondered more than a few times if he's regretted allowing this to happen, but if that's the case, he's masking it well, up to and including very purposefully packing most of his clothes on the van, almost as a good faith gesture to assure me he's really coming.

And the day didn't make it easy for any of the men who helped load.  It began with some light rain, which ushered in a bitingly cold wind.  The thermometer (until I took it down to pack) read 38 degrees, but the wind chill had to be eight degrees colder.  I admit, with the doors open so they could load, I was uncomfortably cold, and took a long while last night to shove off the chill that got into my bones after a while.  It's 19 in Pittsburgh right now.  I'll have a worse day of this on the other side as the movers unload.  To those unknown men who are stuck doing that for me, I'll apologize in advance.

As the chaos of the day unfolded, I thought more than once how novice and awkward we are at this.  I'll realize the full weight of any mistakes when I open all the boxes and see how much damage there is, but just looking around at what got left out - my surround sound speakers, the flatware (!) - I mean, who forgets to make sure the flatware makes it on the truck? - all my pantyhose and stockings, I know that we were not very organized, and a successful cross country move is, I've concluded, all about organization and planning.  I tried to take the advice of others who had done this before - I was given some very sage counsel that I repeated in my head as I worked over and over, and I tried to do my own research online, but at the end of the day, the move controlled us, not the other way around.  But, for the most part, it's fine up to this point.  The flatware will come with Cheyenne and me in the car, along with the speakers somehow, my Steelers flag, my Steelers banner and some other sundry stuff that a friend told me I would have - in the tote he advised me to have ready - and I'll manage to live without my Legolas doll for now.  I think my Princess Leia doll actually made it on the van somewhere, so that's good.  You take what you can get and go with it.