All of a sudden, we don’t live where we used to. For the last month or two, Beth and I have been a little concerned about our housing situation. You see, I have been applying for jobs all over the country the last couple months, in hopes of having some idea of what was going on in our lives before July 31, when our current lease expires. Around the beginning of July, our landlords started asking us if we were staying or going, and when we explained the situation to them, they agreed to be patient. But then it got to be the last ten days or so of our lease, and we still had no idea if we planned to be in the area for the next two weeks or the next ten years.
There were a few different situations that were tied for worst-case scenario. We could tell them we weren’t staying, hoping that one of the jobs would pan out, and then be stuck with nowhere to live. Or we could tell them we were staying, then get a job a few weeks later, and get stuck paying rent in two places until they were able to rent it out. Or our heads could explode.
Then we went down to California to visit my family. (We were supposedly going there for a job interview, but that didn’t pan out.) While there, my parents offered to let us move into the condo they just bought from my brother, which is here in Orem. It made perfect sense, because it provides us the flexibility to have somewhere to live now, but be able to move on short notice if we need to. There was only one problem…
We had to move all our stuff.
I am a pack-rat, or a crap-haver, or something like that. When Beth and I got married and moved into our first place last year, I threw A LOT of stuff away, but I still had about three times as much stuff as I should have. Beth isn’t as much of a collector as I am, but she has her fair share of stuff. Combined, we managed to make our 1500-square-foot apartment look full. So since we got back in town on Monday, we have spent nearly every waking, non-working moment packing and hauling and hurting our backs. As you may recall, my lovely wife is about six months pregnant, which means that she can’t lift much or work too hard. After three days, my body is begging me, “Come on, just lay down for a few weeks.”
I have had a few friends come over to help with the move. Calling friends for moving help presents an interesting dilemma, especially when you are moving over the course of a few days: do you call the same friend or two every day, thereby guaranteeing that those few people will hate you forever, but preserving your other friendships? Or do you call different friends every day, thereby giving you a dozen friends who only kinda hate you instead of a couple who really hate you? I have chosen the latter, although I don’t know how much my friends liked me in the first place, so I might be outta luck anyway.
The worst part of all of this, though, is the possibility that I may get a job outside of this area soon, which would mean packing up and moving again. We can’t really live out of boxes until we find out, so we are unpacking as if we are staying, but we sure are dreading doing it all again. I may just go into debt to hire a moving company if it comes up again.