Moving Day
Moving day has come and gone and oh what a day! We started at 8:00 am and didn’t finish until 12 midnight! Andy and Bella were still packing up until that moment, while Tess and I had our things packed, crazy how different people approach the packing/moving process. Our movers arrived at 8:30 am and I have to say I wasn’t overly impressed with one of them which proved to be an accurate assessment. He looked either overly tired or hung over, I mentioned it and he said he was tired. Unfortunately, this proved to impact the quality of the work later.
Fortunately, we had moved most of the house ourselves, so all they had to move was the larger and heavier objects, ten in total with half going to storage and the other half going to the apartment. They were great in wrapping up the two antique pieces and the dressers and desks. Per my request they also had mattress covers for all our mattresses. The problem was the sofa sleeper and the slipcover, this piece of furniture they did not wrap (they were supposed to) and I didn’t catch it; had I known they weren’t going to I would have taken the slipcover off and put the couch pillows in bags myself. I discovered this oversight when I saw the mover who was ‘tired’ moving the couch to storage and the Buckskin slipcover being dragged through the dirt. He ran into a problem getting it into the elevator and proceeded to force it with the result being a nice little rip in the fabric (expensive fabric I should add) in the back. Surprisingly I’ve been relatively chill about it, although I did let the moving company know I was displeased. In a nutshell, it’s just an object… a thing, so getting overly bent out of shape over it just doesn’t make sense.
I’m discovering that this is becoming my philosophic approach to this whole journey and our transition from a 2,300 square foot house to a little over 900 square foot apartment. True this will be temporary while we sell the house and find a property in Palisade, but I see this as an opportunity to pare down and become less attached to things; basically, learning to live with less. I’m coming to the realization that my family, myself included, has become spoiled regarding things and what we deem as necessities of life and comfortable living, which isn’t particularly a good thing.
So, to help ease the transition and letting go of ‘stuff’ I speak of this transition as an adventure, a journey toward simplifying our lives and focusing on more important things like spending more quality family time together. What we thought we needed to be comfortable, we really don’t need it. Instead focus on things that will help us to live a more balanced and joyful life, walking the dogs more, having less stuff and creating a space that encourages a calmer more peaceful state of mind.
Two strategies to get us to this place include learning that everything has its place and the more organized the apartment is the less chaotic it will feel. The other one focuses on creating a space, in this case the balcony, that can act as a retreat, someplace any one of us can go and just disconnect for a while and commune with nature. As a housewarming gift, I purchased artificial turf squares from IKEA and Tess purchased a small wooden bistro table and two chairs. I will also get them a set of bistro lights that we can hang for some extra lightening if they opt to enjoy the space after the sun goes down. I say them because once Andy and I are on our way, they will still have the bones of this mini outdoor paradise. I also brought over my wind chimes and some of my pots and planters and will fill those with late summer flowers, herbs if I can find them and attempt to sow a small patch of lettuce (I had this at the house but never had time to harvest it!) This will create a peaceful space for the family and hopefully show the girls (Bella especially because she is interested in growing herbs) what is possible in a small space. The creation of the balcony garden will be a future blog post, but until then, I’m happy to say the move from the house is complete! Now we just need to unpack the apartment! Poco-a-Poco…. (little by little).
