We had decided to move closer to my family in SW Florida a while ago but had not really decided when to make the move. Well, about 2 weeks before the K12 schools started in Fl we decided to make the move. My wife was awesome in finding some temporary housing and in under 2 weeks I had them down in an apartment while I still job hunted.
Last month, I interviewed with a large company and decided that it was a good move. A number of other good opportunities were available but this one just seems like the best fit from a "whole family" perspective. Not an easy choice by any means and even harder when you are in the middle of trying to further your in-progress relocation.
I will say that there were many things that came together in just the right way but many other things were pretty painful. The job and housing came together with amazing timing. There are huge praises regarding those. Now the fact that my wife and kids were in Fl which left me with all the decisions regarding getting out of our Virginia house was pretty painful. For my 2 week notice with my previous employer, I worked on packing/organizing in the evening for 2-3 hours each night. I had my in-laws help with some items as well which was great. Probably the biggest problem/praise was dealing with the bulk of 16 years of accumulation in the house/garage. It was an enormous undertaking getting it all of of the house. We decided to get the house listed for sale by a prior church friend and set a set of Sept 15th to be listed. This gave me around 9 days of full time attention to get the house packed and into a POD, our travel trailer, my mother in-laws house/garage or into our truck/utility trailer for a final run before I start the new job. I timed it so I would still have around 1 week of time to "relax" before the new job but that really means dealing with drivers licenses, and car/truck/motorcycle/trailer/travel trailer titles, licenses and insurance.
Anyways, back to the boxing and storing.. I have to give much praise for our friends - the Martinez family. There were such a wonderful blessing that words are not enough. I would not be remotely ready without them and would likely have ended up in the hospital trying to do it alone. I am still in a ton of pain from some of the stuff but I am SO grateful for the help I received which was far from easy on them as well.
We ended up packing a 8ft x 8ft x 16ft amazingly tight (thank you..). That took the bulk of what we didn't move via Uhaul and pickup truck in 2 prior Fl round trips. I did end up with a pretty large truckful for my last "one way trip" prior to the job starting. I put a good amount of stuff in our travel trailer and a little at my mother in-laws.
I made about 2 1/2 heaping trailer fulls of junk to the dump. A lot of it was little odds/ends of wood working projects from long ago which "could still be useful for another project". Lesson learned is to throw away the odds/ends and just get a bit of new wood/stuff as needed. It is probably cheaper in the long run that way and way easier on the back.
I'm hoping that the dreams of boxes and strapping tape running out soon end.
The 10-14 hour days packing over the last week+ were not fun. Pretty much every muscle hurts. I did lose about 5-7 lbs which was the only major plus I can think of. My phone indicated that on a few days I carried it with me that I walked over 8 miles in a day.
Getting a POD (Packrat actually) is a great way to move stuff. It will get shipped to a storage location and held there until we get a house. This was way easier than carting the remaining stuff via Uhaul and having to do multiple load/unloads in the process. About the only 2 negatives are cost (still pretty pricey) and size. I wish we had been able to go a bit more than 16ft in length - 20-24 ft probably would have keep me from needing to store in the travel trailer and mother in-laws. Some of the moving trucks are larger but even more expensive so it was a trade-off. Getting a nice convertible hand truck from Sams Club was good along with some Harbor Freight dollies and a few other moving items. ** Boy am I glad I didn't buy a milling machine yet (1800-2400 lbs) !!! **
Having time to do things at an non-rushed pace would have been great but our choices didn't allow it. Having great friends made that bearable.
I would recommend not waiting to do some of the "hard stuff" like drywall patches, painting and removing things like the surface mounted welding wiring and RV wiring you are going to take with you. I ended up getting up at 5:15am the day I was leaving to sand a drywall patch and paint it since the patch wasn't dry by midnight when I was trying to finish up. Stuff like that makes for a difficult long drive. In my defense, we did have a couple days of rain which did put of a few of the tasks.
Anyways, a brief trip in October ought to allow us to get the bulk of the remaining stuff and travel trailer. Only major thing which needs to wait on a house will likely be my wifes favorite roll top desk.
A new house is still in the research phase. Tough decisions and more trade-offs. We are having some issues with some aspects of the local schools. I think the police are now going to be at the bus stop for the middle schoolers - a few of them are just out of control. The schools are overcrowded and the buses are a big issue in general - the behavior of some children just puts things over the top. I feel very sad for my kids and many other on the buses. We didn't see these types of problems in VA to this large of an extent.
So much more to do but getting there.
Thanks for reading,
Scott
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