Cross-Country Moving: A Complete Guide to Doing it Without an Ounce of Style.

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You might know that we recently sold our house and bought a new one in record time. Sure, we did some things right: purging our home of clutter, staging it and even getting creative by attempting to sell it on Twitter (which got us on local TV, a real hoot!). Many other things just fell into place, seemingly like magic: we found our (gorgeously restored, 100-year-old) dream house quickly, the sellers were motivated and ready to deal, and my husband’s company even let him transfer territories and generously supported the move.

Amazingly, we conquered the most-dreaded parts of moving quite easily. Maybe even with a little pinch of style.

Unfortunately, that’s when Style left the building, leaving us to muddle through the rest of the process as best we could.

Here’s a helpful little guide on how to anticipate the pain of moving, add some salt to the wound, and really rub it in.

1. First, ensure that there is a good length of time between real estate closings during which you’ll be completely homeless. A couple of weeks, minimum. That way, you can either live in a hotel and make daily trips to the laundromat (I’d suggest washing your delicates in the bathtub), or move in with family or friends. It’s a toss-up on which is more stressful, but at least with the former you might emerge with familial relationships still intact.
2. 

   The containers are delivered.

   Because you’ll have to store all your worldly possessions while homeless, you’ll conclude that using a container-based shipping and storage solution (such as U-Haul’s U-Box) is best. And it is. Just remember to forget to measure your furniture. This way, you’ll have the fun of discovering that the containers are too small for several important pieces of furniture, right there in your driveway. From there, you can become proficient at selling furniture to neighbors, friends and mildly weird strangers on craigslist and Facebook. I love learning new things on the fly!

3. When you are finally packed and the U-Boxes have been U-hauled away, you must now fit everything else into your car. (Including your prized, gigantic jade plant and Christmas cactus, which you’ll end up stuffing into a cardboard box and praying they survive the trip.) This will feel a little like Mission: Impossible, but trust me, you will channel your inner geometry whiz and triumph, tucking things into every nook and cranny. Just remember to strap the kids into their seats before they lose them to a box of essentials from your kitchen junk drawer.
4. You’re not quite ready to drive away. First, you’ll belatedly discover that because no one wanted to buy your 24-foot aluminum extension ladder, you must strap it on top of the minivan. Yes, that’s right. You’ll not only be traveling across the country in a dented, sticky minivan — but it will be topped with a huge ladder that makes a whistling sound while the car is in motion. You’ll realize you look just like a pack of nomadic, hillbilly house painters. And that is precisely when you know you won’t be traveling in style. Excellent!
   

   View from the driver's seat. Note ladder placement for optimal whistling.

5. Your first night in a nice hotel should include a quick trial run of the 911 emergency system. Have one of your kids volunteer for this task within ten minutes of your arrival — he or she is unlikely to be arrested or fined, and all she’ll get is a stern warning from the hotel manager. You’ll then enjoy an evening featuring Lost Pool Privileges, with plenty of whining and pouting.

6. The next morning at closing, things will go deceptively well. You will have resigned yourself to the whole ladder-on-the-car look (even perfecting your “Yeah, what about it?” sneer for passersby), and the buyers will be really nice people, fun to talk to while you merrily sign your lives away together. But don’t worry. Afterwards, your husband will discover he’s locked both sets of keys in the car, and he’ll delay your actual departure time by an hour and a half. At lunchtime with two hungry, bored, spazzy kids.

7. After a full day on the road, you’ll arrive quite late for your second night in a hotel, but this one will be unexpectedly crummy. You’ll have to unpack the whole van to access your suitcases, because you didn’t even think of packing a small overnight bag. Then you will drag your luggage and tired children at least a half mile to the hotel’s front entrance because of a lack of parking. Even though the place has obviously been redecorated recently, you know it’s only a surface update because your sink refuses to drain properly, opting instead to leak all over the bathroom floor. Because you are in Omaha during the College World Series, you’ll be forced to stay in the room and brush your teeth in the bathtub.
8. The next few weeks of homelessness will go by in a blur, mostly because you’re intensely paranoid about pissing off your very kind, very generous relations. (Of course, being in Minnesota, any friction is under the surface and expertly denied even when directly questioned, so… I don’t know, that might be even worse.) You’ll become annoyingly chipper in the mornings, unbelievably helpful around the house, and extremely irritable with your small children, who relish opportunities to evenly distribute their toys and belongings throughout every available living space.
9. Your 14th wedding anniversary will slip by, uncelebrated, except for when your husband reminds you that “he” is buying “you” a house, because “he” is a “shit” that way sometimes. Because the bank didn’t even give a hoot about having you co-sign anything at all, you’ll get depressed all over again about your undersized financial contributions to the household in recent years — never mind that you’ve raised two wonderfully smart and delightful little girls, without ever losing your temper, not even once. (Okay, that part was a lie. The girls are not always delightful.)

So there you have it. My smattering of tips for a properly painful, drawn-out move. I’m sure you have some to add to the list, don’t you? Do tell!

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