PCS?! What the What?! Part 5 | My Hot Mess

PART 5 -- if you're behind Check out PART 1, PART 2,  PART 3 & PART 4 using the links.

 

The movers have arrived.

UnPacking ....

Blah. 

Okay, okay, so the packers offered to unpack for me ... but honestly, who really knows where you want to put shit when you have tons of shit wrapped in paper and boxes?! I mean, unless you did what I suggested you to do in Part 4 -- STALKING THE PACKERS TO ENSURE EACH ROOM HAS A BOX. You don't know WHAT you're going to find in each box.

Even if labeled "Kitchen" you may just find a pair of dirty underwear in it as well.

Or a ladle in the box labeled "Bathroom."

Or the crockpot bottom in the "Kitchen" box and the lid in the "Garage" box and the ceramic piece in the box labeled, "master bedroom."

So, again, I suggest you be on those packers super close ... like so close you can smell what they had for breakfast. 

Seriously.

Ya'll the unpackers were quick. They had the truck unloaded by lunch time. 

I labeled each room in the house with the first letter of the person's name who would be sleeping there. This made it super simple to say which boxes went to which room

Again, not all the boxes were labeled properly, or had multiple rooms worth of stuff in it ... I either made the executive decision in which room it would go in, or it would stay in the garage until I was ready to unpack it.

It was easy to say, "Oh baby room, that goes in the 'G' room." or "Master box? Goes in 'M' room." Ect. And I mean, the unpackers were pretty smart, boxes labeled kitchen or glassware would go in the kitchen and knew the TVs go in the living rooms ... I mean, gotta give them SOME credit.

Once all the boxes and furniture was unloaded, the unpackers headed to lunch. Where in which I just stared at the boxes until they returned because I was starting to stress about unpacking. LOL

Luckily, the boys were still with grandparents and not running amok around the boxes and breakables. Again, I HIGHLY recommend the children (and/or pets) stay with someone while you pack, move, and unpack!

Once the unpackers returned, they offered to unpack boxes but when I realized the packers packed oddly, I just wanted these guys to put together the furniture and move them around to where I wanted it in the rooms. That was it, and they seemed pleased with that decision. LOL

The next 6 days, I would go box to box unpacking things; floating around in a sea of package paper and with my trusty knife on my side. 

I would fend off paper cuts, oddly wrapped utensils, cuss out the packers for putting dirty underwear in with the kitchen goods and search the endless piles of paper to ensure I had everything out of the boxes before tearing them down. 

This was the hard part. Once the box was empty, I had tons of paper and no where to put it. So I stuffed some boxes with the paper and broke down other boxes and put into other boxes. It was hard making room for everything when you still have empty boxes laying around. 

By the end of the first day of unpacking, I had nothing accomplished except for the refrigerator magnets. Even though there were boxes EVERYWHERE, at least it became home with the pictures of loved ones and the magnets of the places we've been and things we've accomplished.

Guys, seriously. 

Take your time unpacking.

Not everything has to be done in one day. 

It was just me unpacking for 6 days because my husband had to return to work. I literally took it room by room. And even though boxes had multiple rooms in them, I just opened the box, unwrapped the piece of paper, put the item somewhere in the room, and repeated until the box was empty.

The first room completely unpacked was the baby's room. I think sole because he doesn't have much. LOL.

Plus, I made the boys' rooms priority since I knew they'd be coming home within 7 days. 

Next, once the boxes were unpacked, and things placed SOMEWHERE in the room; I would begin to set up the room. I made beds, I placed items on shelves, bookshelves, drawers, and began to hang pictures on walls. 

Though I will admit, the pictures were last to be hung. Since after all, that's what completes a room! 

6 days ya'll. SIX.

Some say that's fast some would say why so long. But I was on a deadline. I needed the house put together before the grandparents brought the boys home.  And I did it. 

It wasn't perfect, but it was done.

My husband and I would also take the weekends to figure out places to take the boys. I can tell ya, my husband ONLY unpacked his clothes because I figured since I was home anyway, I should take that time to unpack and not waste the weekends. 

We took a walking tour around El Paso to see the murals ... sorta drove around ... ;)

Took advantage of the free concerts in the canyon to see Billy Townes and Marachi bands. And have a few margaritas. It was nice to have "Us" time. Especially after unpacking all day.

We also drove around the Concordia Cemetery (full of history) since we knew the kids would think it was "creepy." We also checked out the farmers' market and a little town that had a gunslingers show. Y'all, take time to SEE and ENJOY your new location. After all, you're going to be there for however long and that's where you're going to say where you're coming from when you leave. You better KNOW the place.

And y'all ... I still have unpacked boxes in the garage. 

I can't tell ya whats in them. Other than what it says on the labels but the house is as put together as it needs to be at the moment.

We are also working with less space in this house than the other and that was the frustrating part. Trying to figure out where everything would go. 

A lot of trips to Goodwill happened. 

I thought I had purged a lot before moving but when I got here and saw that there wasn't much storage, I really started to rethink things I saved and why would someone need two irons and that sweat stained sweater anyway. 

The trash men must've loved pulling up to our house and seeing the overflowing garbage can ... and the multiple boxes and trash bags. I know Goodwill loved me showing up every day with another 3 boxes of stuff to donate. 

Tips I wish I had done or did that you SHOULD do:

1) Follow the packers around when they filled boxes to ensure that each box was just ONE room. If it wasn't a full box, just had them fill it with paper. Multiple rooms in one box is unnecessary stress.

2) (because you would have done tip #1) Have the unpackers unpack your boxes. You may not know exactly how you want a room set up but at least you knew what was in the boxes and saved time unpacking since everything would have been unwrapped. Side note: also labeling the rooms with a letter to tell the unpackers where to put the boxes was super helpful, because saying, "the second room to the left." 5 billions times sucks.

3) Never underestimate the power of help from anyone who is willing to watch your kids or animals while moving or unpacking.

4) Definitely purge before packers pack your house. My mantra was that I'd figure it out in Texas. Bad idea, it was more of a pain while unpacking trying to figure out if the item was needed or could be donated/trashed. You WILL need to purge without a heart. Things have less value to them when you're not attached to them. If you haven't used it within the last 6 months, trash/donate.  

5) Have the unpackers return to pickup empty boxes. Our trash men/recycle men were not too helpful if the stuff was outside the cans. They would just take the stuff from the cans. So I would have to wait a whole other week to throw the rest of the stuff away. Having the unpackers pick up my boxes a month later was FANTASTIC. Though it did take up a lot of space in the garage and I still can't put my car in the garage.

6) If you are lucky enough to have someone who stays home during the week, let them unpack everything because it sucks having to waste your weekends unpacking. If you HAVE to unpack on the weekends, only unpack one day of that and then enjoy the rest of your weekend. Guys, the house will eventually get unpacked. Why stress yourselves out trying to do it in a hurry?

7) We are still contemplating this, but get a small storage unit for the military gear. My husband and I have so much shit for the military and we have a smaller garage than last house. So everything is taking up the garage and we can't use the garage for what it's intended for. To house the cars. We need a garage, especially with this heat here.  My only thing is, if we have the unit, I may put more stuff in it and why pay for storage for stuff you don't use anyway?

Hope this helps you out a tad ... I know a few of you are going through this right now and hopefully this provides some sort of insight for y'all. Because I was going in blindly and had no clue what to expect! Stay tuned, I have one more part this series (figuring out your location)!

So hang in there and Good Luck!