Three Weekends 'Til Closing:
Hunt for empty cardboard boxes, checking with friends, family, etc. Buy several boxes from Home Depot. Good prices - relatively speaking. Pack the boxes. See more stuff that needs to be packed. Buy more boxes from Home Depot. Buy more packing tape. Pack more boxes.
Two Weekends 'Til Closing:
Order three Smart Boxes after comparing their size and rates to other portable storage units. Smartboxes are delivered and fill most of the drive way. Load Smartboxes with packed cardboard boxes. Load smartboxes with furniture. Load smartboxes with more sundry items than I thought we had. Ask Dad to help load three really big items. Dad helps, eats a burger, has a beer with us.
Rest.
One Weekend 'Til Closing:
Buy more cardboard boxes from Home Depot. Buy more packing tape. Collect free newspapers from around town for packing dishes. Use all the newspaper. Go find more. Reserve a fourteen-foot Uhaul truck for the night before closing. Find a guy on Craigslist who agrees to help me move our remaining large furniture items into the Uhaul. Guy wants $50 to do it. I say fine.
Night Before Closing:
Leave work early to pick up the Uhaul. Decide to get the seventeen-footer instead of the fourteen-footer. (Glad I did) Craigslist guy is half an hour late. Takes less than an hour to help me with the items he agreed to load. Takes his pay and leaves. I spend the next six hours loading the truck while my better half cleans the house. Take a couple car loads of stuff to new house because the truck is too full. Finish cleaning the house. At two in the morning I Attempt to inflate the air mattress. Batteries are corroded. Can't inflate the mattress. We sleep on the floor.
Morning of Closing:
Load the last bit of stuff into the cars and truck. Stuff the cats into bags. Take the truck and everything else to the new house. Leave the cats in the garage. Leave the truck in the driveway. Caravan back to the house to sweep one more time. Kids scream in the car. Hungry.
Drive to the bank to pick up a certified check. No problems. Better half drives to Starbucks for our breakfast. Meet at the attorney's office five minutes late.
Our buyers are great. Smooth closing.
Our sellers haven't completed the repairs. Last-minute negotiations, set money aside for repairs. Sellers don't attend closing. They had to work. (I didn't?) Sign papers. Sign more papers. Laugh at attorney's jokes. Sign more papers.
Then, just like that, we own a new home.
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