Indiana wants me...

Moving is tough.  I'm not talking about regular moving, when you pack up your house, disassemble your furniture, and clean like a maniac once it's all done.  I'm talking about doing that, AND packing up a massive amount of business inventory.  We had three movers with combined 20 years experience yesterday, and they were all stunned.  They had never, ever seen so much stuff at a house.  They estimated that over 1,000 boxes were moved over the course of 12 hours.  And that doesn't take into account today's portion of the move, where they move out the furniture and empty out two completely filled storage units...filled with even more boxes.  Three ABF trucks have been ordered and they will likely be filled.

For someone who feels almost desperate to downsize...downsize the house, downsize clutter, downsize possessions...the sheer volume of stuff dragged out of closets and from shelves is overwhelming.  I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of cardboard.  I can't believe how exhausting it is.

It's not the work of packing it - it's the work of living with it!  Don't get me wrong...the packing was tough.  The sweatband came out after only a few minutes!

At our last two houses, Todd lined every available wall - closet, basement, garage - with shelving and added rows and rows of wheeled shelves for merchandise and personal stuff.  Here, he excavated huge portions of the crawl space, poured cement, and put up more shelving.  I would say that we have surely used over 2,000 square feet of this house for storage...and we still have additional storage units!  For someone who was able to fit all of her possessions in the back of a pick-up truck for a cross country move about 15 years ago, it feels a little overwhelming.  But we have big plans for our next move.  No longer will we co-exist with flaking cardboard, rows of shelves, and towers of plastic tubs.  We are going to build a massive pole barn (or expand an existing garage structure) for the merchandise.  Then our living space can be for, well, living.  I can't wait! 

But for now, we just have to get through the next few days...contractors, electricians, buyer walk-throughs, movers, packing, cleaning, running endless truckloads of broken-down cardboard to recycling and donation boxes to Haven of Rest.  Friday, we'll be Indiana-bound!