Whew! I always thought we were fairly frugal, anti-materialistic folk … that is, until we moved to our house.
Boxes and bags of stuff accompanied us, and we still haven’t finished unpacking them. Even minimalist living comes complete with advertisements of complete dining room sets, bed springs and boxes and mattresses, coupons to Lowe’s and other home improvement stores, and the constant offer to buy more stuff.
This hits especially hard after my recent trip to Chile. There I saw tiny houses with only one or two rooms. They looked like apartments rather than houses. And five, six people all crammed into them (without any coupons from Lowe’s).
I sincerely hope this will be the last move we make in a while. How do people manage multiple moves?!
As something just to calm my fraught nerves and give me something productive to do, here’s my top 5 lessons learned from this move:
- Cleaning tip from our buyer’s agent: This one really works, folks. If you have furniture dents left from the previous homeowner’s furniture, drop an ice cube into the dent. Let it melt, then brush over the area with a towel (or my shoe worked just as well) once it’s dried. The dent will magically disappear.
- Use pertinent labels: Too often we’d cut open a box only to find it didn’t contain what we thought it would, and that led to extra time being wasted. That becomes a big deal when you’re unpacking late in the evening and have an early-morning start the next day.
- Ask friends to help: My husband has an amazing network of friends with big trucks, and this came in so handy during the move. Thanks to all who helped us!
- Give yourself extra wriggle room: Things that you don’t expect to take up even 5 minutes somehow end up taking several hours. For example, buying another light bulb is no use if the actual socket is faulty (true story). If you set tight deadlines for moving in and getting stuff done, you might end up hurting when unexpected mishaps occur.
- Take time to meet the neighbors: The people we’ve met so far seem really nice, and I’m hoping we can invite a few of them over for dinner sometime. Part of the fun of moving is seeing all these new faces!
Multicultural Marriage 