How We Unpacked Our Whole House in a Week

Guess where we are. We are on the other side of the move, and we basically unpacked our whole house in a week.

Most of it was even finished in three or four days. I don’t remember how long it took me to do it on my own last time, but it was way longer than this.

Video One Is the Week Before the Move. This was my July 14th update, and it has a few moving tips.

If you do not need moving tips and only have time for one video, skip the first one and watch the second video. It has the tour of the new house.

If I weren’t so tired, I think I’d be pretty excited about this.

How did we unpack a four bedroom house so quickly?

Donna + the fact that we had eight workers. All six of us were here to work, plus Alan’s mother and her brother came and helped too. Many hands make light the work.

Donna and I unpacked boxes. The boys broke down and hauled boxes out. Nonna’s brother Keith fixed things and hung pictures. Alan helped out on his off time.

It is basically done. Amazing.

Lesson here: If you want to unpack super fast, bring in motivated reinforcements and put everyone to work.

Also you should know that unpacking super fast has its own challenges.

With that many people in the house you do have to be *on* all the time. You know what I mean? When you are out in public, you are in *on* mode. When you are alone at home, on your sofa, you get to relax. You don’t have to be *on* at home unless you have company.

Without helpers, you can skip a day of packing and not feel guilty about it. If you DO have helpers, you feel guilty if you take a break because they are working, so you feel like you must be working. Then you push aside things like signing up with new doctors because you don’t want to let people down with the unpacking.

(This is the first time in twenty years I received a notice from Tricare in the mail saying we are getting dropped if we don’t pick a new doctor within 90 days.)

My helpers got the struggling, less likable version of me.

When I am stressed-out, and in *on mode* for way too long, I become an impatient, unpleasant version of April. I’m sure everyone wanted to give me a Xanax and send me to my room. So let’s just hope they are all still talking to me at Christmas. Ha!

It’s a trade off.

You have to decide if you are up to using your people skills or not during the move. For some people, that’s not an issue. Social skills during stressful times are not as much a challenge for some as it is for others.

My medical chart actually annotates that I have an “adjustment disorder“, meaning I have trouble adjusting to big change. Using good people skills is extra hard for me during a move. I cannot describe to you just how mentally unstable I truly felt.

You can unpack super fast but step on people’s toes and be exhausted when it’s done. Or you can go slow on your own and feel like you are never going to finish. It’s like child birth. There is no easy way out of this.

We have problems. But who doesn’t?

Moving mode is a whole different level of exhausting though. At least we love where we have moved to! That makes a big difference.

We sure are enjoying the results of unpacking in a week!

I have found almost everything already. Still no scale or mop, but everything else has been located!

Here is a video tour of the new place:

And I just want to reiterate this. Moving is one of the most stressful things you can do in your lifetime, so please know it is normal to struggle. It is also okay to get lots of help.

I have one other friend who is moving this summer, and she said, “I know you are so used to this, but how are you doing?”

I told her the truth, “I am completely mentally unstable.”

She laughed and said, “Yes, “mentally unstable” is the perfect phrase to describe my current condition.”

Also, I wrote most of this a week ago.

After a week of taking it slower, I am feeling SO much better. I am no longer mentally unstable. Instead, I am feeling purely thankful to be in my new house. Of course, we are still overwhelmed by how many administrative tasks we have left to do. I am almost mentally functional again. Wahoo!!!

Many, many thanks to Nonna, Keith, Joshua, Caleb, Daniel and JD for helping Alan and me with this move.

We would still be half in boxes if it weren’t for you all.