Germerican Denglish

Moving sucks.  There is no way to sugar coat it.  Relocating all of your worldly belongings from one place to another is one giant pain in the ass.  The last time we moved we did it all ourselves, so while making plans for this move I proudly announced that this would be a walk in the park.  After all, professionals will be packing everything up for us and loading it in a big truck.  From there more professionals will make it go from truck to port, to ship, to port, to truck, and BAM we will have our stuff.  See how easy that will be?  Yeah, then reality sets in.  Other people maybe doing the heavy lifting, but I totally forgot about all of the prep.  Taking everything apart, off the walls, inventories, documenting serial numbers, photographing high value items, photographing easily stolen stuff, yippeeeee!  But probably the worst of all is “ausmisten” (ous-miss-ten), which is sorting out the junk you don’t need.

Ausmisten is easily the most daunting and underestimated task we have confronted.  If we estimated 1 hour it took 3, estimated 2 it took 6,  and so on and so on.  The problem is that people are really attached to their junk.  I could see it in my wife’s face, and it grew worse with every piece of her junk she threw away.  I don’t know if there is a word for it, but I am pretty sure the thought going through her head was something like “ahhh, I could have used this”, “ohhhh, but this is so cute”, and “but you can never have too many pens!”.  I, however, do not claim to be any better about it than she is.  The Sky TV receivers I was going to set up to watch British TV, gone (sniffle).  The flyers for random mountain bike trails somewhere in Germany, gone.  (sniffle, tear)  The motion sensor from our old porch light I broke, which I was convinced I could somehow use again someday. (sniffle, tear, baaaawwwwwl)  Yes yes, it is a sad day when you finally have to get rid of your junk.  But hey, I guess we won’t need an expert to “de-clutter” our life!

MOVING UPDATE

The movers are coming on Wednesday.  HOLY CRAP!  Well, not the main movers.  It is actually just a few hundred pounds of stuff to get us by until the bulk of our stuff arrives.  But still, HOLY CRAP!  For the longest time moving was this “thing” that was happening at some point down the road.  Well there isn’t any more “down the road”.  It’s not even “around the corner”.  Moving has officially arrived ladies and gentlemen, whether we like it or not.  And the biggest problem with that isn’t even the work, it’s the emotions that are starting to build.  The more we take down, clean, pack, prepare, plan, etc., the more reality sets in that we are leaving.  Leaving the house we have become attached to (even if I do complain about the horrible internet, text-only cell phone signal, and cow crap on the roads in our small town).  Leaving the town/area we have become very comfortable in.  Leaving our new friends that we meant to spend more time with.  Leaving old friends that there is never enough time for.  And most importantly and hardest of all, leaving family (and that includes Godis* 😉 ).

On a lighter note, our pile of “essentials” we are shipping ahead (hoping) to beat our arrival makes an interesting statement to the world today.  When you think of the things that would be absolutely necessary to your existence in a new town, what would be on that list?  Plates, glasses, silverware, towels, blankets, sheets, microwave, TV, clothes.  Yeah, we got all that.  Notice what’s missing?  Or are you not part of the Atari/Nintendo generation?  We are, and we gotta have our Playstation and Wii!

*Godi is an informal term for Godmother