So I completely forgot it was Wednesday today.
I could tell you to amuse yourselves, but frankly that’s a little scary.
Let’s say I have found a way to make my self-set deadlines as important as publisher deadlines used to be, and so I’m under the gun on the deadline to get Bowl of Red to the editor. (Yes, the secret is to have another person in whose workflow I fit and whom I can’t screw over by being late. I know, it’s bizarre that this works when nothing else does.)
So– Stuff will get finished in the new year.
The problem — and it’s not a problem for anything but my trying to do two things at once and forgetting this blog which is the third — is that my husband is off today for probably the last time before April. Which means all the unpacking and setting up that NEEDS him will need to be done this week.
So I’m trying, and things like this blog or — I notice I’m getting a dirty look from Havelock — feeding the cats drop away.
Sanity will return after the first. Or at least what passes for sanity around here.
Mad Genius Club 
How many moves equals one house fire, again?
The number I’ve always heard was 5. YMMV
I think it was four.
My mother, wife of an AF officer, said three military moves equals a fire.
Oh, they had to use the official movers, eh?
/onlyhalfjoking
LOL
Yep.
Mom and DadRed used official movers once. Never again. (Not that corporate moving companies are always better. I watched two guys break a set of hand-made, red-oak bookshelves by lifting exactly where I had just told them not to lift.)
Ouch!
I know when I moved from Oh to Va, I used professionals for the heavy stuff and packed the rest myself. No way was I trusting my grandmother’s 1938 Noritake china to someone else.
Maybe the USAF is too cheap. I did 9 moves with official Navy movers (5 with my family, 4 on my own), and only had one important broken item.
Maybe you scared the movers– I only knew a half-dozen folks who used Navy movers twice, and the only time there were nice things said was moving from Japan to the US.
Stuff grew legs, entire boxes went missing, water damage appeared, boxes had clearly been gone through, trash cans were lovingly wrapped with wet trash inside of them, stuff that was supposed to be packed was left, stuff that was not supposed to be touched was packed, locks were broken open, rentals were damaged….
“Hover over them like a hawk and preferably do a DIY move” was the overwhelming favorite.
For a long distance move with any movers, I think it helps to minimize the number of times boxes are handled. In other words, it’s great if you beat the moving truck to the destination, which I did at my final move – the 18 wheeler arrived a day or two after I moved in. Don’t recall the company (United Van Lines?). The moving crew was local, and the driver was well known – an old guy with a dog who loved to drive. If everything has to go into storage first, and then get moved out of storage, well, that’s doubling the number of touches.
If I have to do another long distance move (like getting the hell out of California), I’ll seriously consider the rent-a-container solution like 1-800-PackRat, especially if we’re likely to keep some stuff in storage for a while. And then there’ll be the hassle of moving pianos (currently, a 6’3″ grand, and two uprights – at least the grand and the nice upright will be coming with us, ugghhh!) But CA is getting crazier by the month.
Our last move was done quickly. The house sold just after Labor Day, and the buyer wanted possession in two(!) weeks. We boxed up stuff, rented a truck (a couple of daily rentals, and one for the balance of the time), took the introductory deal on three storage units and hauled everything we could. (The destination house was almost empty, so it wasn’t too bad for the seller on that side. Mostly.)
We realized that trying to move all that stuff ourselves was going to kill us, so we called pro movers to take 2/3rds of it from the storage units to the house. I let myself get persuaded to not use the checklist; I think a box of Tupperware went adrift, though with the insanity of getting stuff out, it might have gone to the charity… My wife did have to convince them that sticking the sofa in the corner (vertically) Wasn’t Going To Happen, but beyond that, it was fairly smooth.
I moved the third unit myself; shop stuff and a few machine tools. Never had to pay the full rate for storage; I was out by Halloween.
It’s been 18 years. Almost everything is unpacked. 🙂
Probably depends on the exact nature of the move.
After 3, I occasionally consider setting the house on fire…
We’ve done… uh… well, if we stay here for another year, we’ll get the average down to one every two years.
The “burn everything after three” sounds about right.
c4c
Sanity is over rated
I’m just a little, bored, silly, restless, and not thinking well enough for real work. Not focusing on anything else either.
Bored, annoyed, frustrated, restless, and wondering if my issues are not ADHD but CPTSD (I had a happy family. The rest of my life on the other hand…).
Raise a glass for you, Great Aunt. I know that I’m not going to get as much done as I want, but I’ll keep chugging away somehow.
Deadlines are like creativity stimulants. Just like chasing someone with a sword is probably great for improving track times.
“I could tell you to amuse yourselves, but frankly that’s a little scary.”
You know us so well, Sarah.
Well, apparently not really. She should know that we’ll amuse ourselves whether she tells us to or not. Even if she tells us not to.
Yeah, but there’s a difference between us deciding to do it on our own and her actually giving us permission…
Happy anniversary!
‘S OK, I cam home to find a surprise in my academic in-box, and a very, very irked Athena T. Cat demanding to know just WHERE I had been. Work will resume tomorrow. Sort of.
Oh, an amusing thing I saw yesterday – Morgan Wallen, who was banned from all radio play for uttering the “N” word last year (even after apologizing) – had the #1 selling album for 2021. Not the #1 country album, the #1 album, period.
Another slap in the face of the skin-wearing wokesters in media.
I was bored, so I hit up his Wikipedia page, figuring I’d get the most uncharitable interpretation of his actions. Good night, talk about making mountains out of molehills, especially the COVID-19 stuff, and the antics that other artists have gotten up to.
Happy Anniversary!
And yes, the hardest thing to adhere to are deadlines, when there’s no real pressure to keep it.
Many happy returns of the day!
my husband is off today for probably the last time before April. Which means all the unpacking and setting up that NEEDS him will need to be done this week.
Unpacking is all well and good, but it seems to me that if your husband is off for the last time before April, there are more important things that you should be doing. Go enjoy each other.