Things I DISLIKE about moving!

This is the first time I have ever sat down to try to recall how many times I have moved in my entire life. The grand total comes to at least 15 that I CAN remember!!

Am sure all who has had the experience of moving house, whether just down the road or across the seas, share the same gripes I am about to share:

The plain thought itself is enough to raise your blood pressure, create unpleasant sleep and make you loose appetite with your food.

THE PLANNING
There's just so much to do and so little time. On top of that, the biggest task is trying to maintain a near 'normal' home for the kids before the actual move day, run the household as if it's not going to happen and juggle life as per normal.

THE BOXES
In an already cluttered home, the boxes per compliments of the removals will often than not take up a corner of the room. They are flatten yet a constant reminder that your job's not done, your cupboard's not cleared and there's stuff to be sorted.

THE LISTS
There's the "TO DO" list before we move, then the "MUST DO" list when we arrive at the other end. Then, Alex has His list (which I have to draw up), I have my list, and we have change of address lists, rental hand over lists, last minute lists, and the many lists we make up along the way.

THE PACKING
Okay, this is also the bit where I sort out all our rubbish and become quite ruthless in throwing things out. My kids will loose quite a lot of their toys, books and bibs bobs! Our books gets a reshuffle and mostly, we clutter up the disposal shute with bags of our 'arts & crafts' collected throughout the year. Does anyone have a reduced storage idea for such items. My girls want me to collect and keep rocks....from art lessons, from beaches, trips and holidays!! Yikes!

THE UNPACKING
My greatest nightmare is that we don't have enough place to put them all. Yes, we are downsizing in apartment size but up-sizing in budget. This only happens in Singapore where the rental prices are skyrocketing and landlords are getting greedy! Yeesh!

GETTING BACK TO LIFE
There's the one month before you move where life is in limbo. My girls get educated only 50% of the time as mom is running around like a headless chook and the house is stacked up with boxes. Then, there's the other one month after the move where we slowly get into the swing of things.... and discover what's in the boxes!!!

SAYING GOODBYE
After 2 years at this estate, we've gotten so use to our neighbours and now friends. We can honestly say 'Everyone knows us!!'. Anyone can come to our block and ask about us, most of our neighbours can and will lead them to our doorstep. We'll have to start ALL OVER AGAIN at the new area. I will have to smile more, teach the girls patience, teach them stranger danger(again!) as well as help them resettle. Sigh!

CHANGING ADDRESS
The list is long and I can bet even after 6 mos, we'll have loose mail coming in. Have to make a mental not to give a forwarding address to the new tenants via the owners!

Okay, I do know that all the about can easily be erased off as long as I am willing to pay $3k more in my removal costs etc. They will do the packing, unpacking, organising etc at the last minute day of removal. Anyone have anymore gripes to add about moving? Join in..