If Gumby taught me one thing…

…it’s that it’s important to be flexible.  Here’s a rundown of all the things we need to do in the next few weeks:

1. Hire movers/moving company
2. Hire Property Management firm to manage our old house as a rental – *sniff
3. Sign lease, put down payment on new pad in San Jose, California
4. Clean out the house of hazardous chemicals and cosmetics and leave enough space in the cars for two people and a Maggie
5. Re-finance the house so we can afford both rent AND mortgage at the same time (you read that right – we’re seriously masochists)
6. While we’re at it – schedule an appraisal so we CAN re-fi…
7. Schedule clean-out crew for our house.
8. Patch holes, touch-up paint before we…
9. …hand over keys to the Property Manager
10. Drive to California (in two cars, mind you)
11. Be ready to “catch” all of our belongings and then move them into the new place….

Yea….we’re a little busy.  It’s all for a good cause, I promise!  Meanwhile, Dr. J is splitting time between California and Oregon.  He’ll be back this weekend for a week, gone the following, back in Oregon the next week, then we’re BOTH down to California permanently the week after that.  Does your head hurt?  Ours does too!  I’ve stopped explaining it to most people because it’s so unbelievably complicated that it’s just not worth going through all of it again.  Not only that, but there are new developments almost *every*single*day*, so if you’re not a flexible type, then this is an absolute nightmare.  Hence my latest mantra, “Gumby, Gumby, Gumby!”  It’s also one of those things that makes more sense to DO rather than to EXPLAIN.  So that’s what I do!

One nice thing about this whole mess’o-move’ia is that next week we will officially be able to move into our leased Condo in San Jose.  Phew!  Big relief!  Finally we will have a home base in California as opposed to staying in hotels and crusty apartments (more on that in another post).  Dr. J will be down there, cleaning it up and getting it ready for the Magsters and I to join him two weeks later.  When we left our old apartment down there, we put most of our things in storage and so Dr. J has enough to survive for a few weeks without the full complement of furniture.

So if you’re curious about move dates, here’s what you need to know (and this is mostly for my mother who keeps asking – and subsequently forgetting):

• Saturday, September 22nd – Dr. J flies down to San Jose to collect the keys to our new leased condo (pictures to come) and get it prepped for move-in.
• Monday, October 1 – Dr. J *drives* back up to Oregon to help with the move
• Monday, October 1 – the movers come to “pack” everything – L-blogger will be project manager on this one.
• Monday, October 1 – we spend our last night in the house together *sniff*
• Tuesday, October 2 – the movers come to load everything onto the truck and we stand by to load up any remaining items into our cars and then we’ll move in with friends in Portland for the rest of the week.
• Wednesday – Thursday, October 3/4 – mad dash to get the house cleaned, picked up, patched, and ready for showings and future rentals
• Friday – Saturday, October 5/6 – somewhere in there, we will be driving down to California.  Not sure when – just depends on when we get things finished at the house in Portland.  Dr. J may end up driving down a day sooner than me – we’re just trying to be like Gumby here – all flexible….
• Friday, October 5 – Monday, October 8 – the movers will be dropping off our items in California.  We have a three day window for drop-off (not including Sundays) with a 24-hour notice and we need to get that furniture as quickly as possible.  At best, we hope to get everything by Friday.  At worst by Monday as we both need to be back to work that day….that should be interesting…Gumby, Gumby, Gumby…

So, yea…needless to say, there’s a lot of pressure on us to get things finished.  Fortunately, we’re taking full advantage of our movers’ ability to get us all packed and moved.  the only things we are really responsible for in this move are:

• Transporting our own household chemicals, cleaners, cosmetics, etc (they won’t take them)
• Transporting our own house plants as they can’t guarantee that they’ll survive.  Hah!  I can’t guarantee they will survive under my charge
• Digging up the garden out back – we may leave the Rosemary, Thyme and Sage for good measure.
• Dumping the compost bin – maybe the renters aren’t as green – either way, Composting is a little like owning fish – requires a small bit of maintenance and if that’s not your thing then you’re going to have some problems
• Removing all of the pictures and hanging items from the walls.  Fortunately, they will pack these up nice and safe, but we need to get them prepared.
• Emptying all drawers of “hard” items in big furniture pieces.  We have a few china cabinets, so we’ll empty those and stuff with blankets, pillows and towels (a very smart tactic I learned from my Mother in Law).

Can you tell I’m needing to write all of these things down more for my own benefit than for yours?  Haha!  Moving is such a pain in the @$$.  I’d rather have a hot poker up the rear than to deal with a move.  Fortunately, when you hire good movers, a lot of the stress is really gone – as well as the time.  We’ll detail for you another time all of the things we learned from our previous move and why this move is going to be slightly easier than the last one…

It’s all for a good cause.  Gumby, Gumby, Gumby….