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A very significant and hectic change

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Creamy_Goodness polycounter lvl 18
> Nearly two weeks ago, my parents and I went through the process of moving to a new house in south Jersey, about a 90 minute drive south from our old place. Over the month prior to the move, we would pack things into boxes and wrap things in plastic, and the house would gradually empty as more cardboard boxes would be filled. In order to save money for the move, we gave away the larger TVs to friends and family, and getting those damn things out of the house was something I'd rather not do again. My big wooden Sony TV was one of them, forcing me to fall back on a really old portable TV for the next few months. I packed up everything in my room in boxes and eventually shoved those boxes in my closet, but I would leave out the a few critical items until just days before the move (My computer, Playstation, floor lamp, etc.) I finished about a month and a half before the move, and this really made things easier during the big day.

> The day before the move was a particularly busy day for the three of us. We spent the day primarily getting the last of our things into two small moving trucks. (We were originally going to have a larger truck that my parents had reserved months in advance, but it was suddenly and unexpectantly rented out to someone else at the last minute. This turned out to be a good thing, because there was more carrying capacity between the two smaller trucks than in the bigger one.) Our next door neighbor Mrs. Veroli was kind enough to help us move things into the trucks, and the extra pair of hands made a big difference. After the trucks were full, we still had plenty of stuff in the house to move, meaning we would need at least one more truck to get the job done. My dad planned to wake up early the next morning to rent a third truck, and if there was more stuff to pack after that filled, the three trucks would come back to the house to make a second trip. At the end of the day, the upstairs guest bathoom, my bedroom, and the guest bedroom next to it were as empty as they were going to get, leaving the other guest bedroom and the master bedroom to clear the next day. (Or technically later on that day since it was already after midnight.)

> The last night I spent in my old house was rather odd. My room was now completely bare except for the ceiling fan, the floor lamp, my laptop, and a big foam mattress I dragged into the room to sleep on. Since all the sheets had already been packed, I had to sleep on the mattress in my clothes, but I was too tired from a full day's work to let a little discomfort stop me from getting the Zs I needed for the long day of work ahead. It was 2AM, which is actually early by my standards, but the of work had really worn me out. One thing I noticed about my empty room was that when I spoke loudly or clapped my hands together, there was an echo that I never heard in the room before. In fact, all of the rooms had this echo after they'd been emptied.

> I got up sometime late in the morning, and took one final shower in my parent's old stall. Shortly after getting out, at around 11AM, my dad left for the new house driving one of the trucks, while my brother-in-law JD, and my cousin Tony drove the other two trucks. This left me, my mom, and Mrs. Veroli to get everything else out of the house and into the garage. The plan was now for the three truck to make the 90 minute drive to the new house, unload the trucks, and come back for another load of stuff. But as the three of us who stayed behind worked frantically to get everything into the garage, a big moving truck pulled into our driveway. It turned out to be the new people who were moving in, and they began unloading their truck and moving furnature into the house. Luckily, it began with only a couple of sofas and a few other things, but the three of us still rushed to vacuum the now empty family room and the living room to make room for the new stuff. It was about this time when another big truck arrived to pack the biggest things we had, such as our piano and our big ass fridge.

> By this time, another neighbor, Mrs. Bhatia arrived to help. Even as we continued to move things into the garage, the new family was hanging out in the back yard, eagerly waiting to enter their new home for the first time. The garage was running out of room, and there was still a lot to move out. It was time for a new plan; my mother suggested that rather than waiting for all three trucks to be unloaded, my dad should focus on unloading one of them and then send it back to us. About an hour later, we called him on his cell phone to find out where he was on the highway, but he STILL HADN'T LEFT YET! Apparantly, he didn't think that leaving the new house was a good idea, but after I worked up the balls to call him back, we convinced him to send JD back with an empty truck. Mrs. Veroli offered to take our recyclables, mostly paper, to her house to make some more room in the garage, but wasn't going to be enough to handle the flow. Fortunately, I was able to find an empty space on the left side of the garage, and after I cleared a path to it, the four of us were able to move the rest of the stuff out of the house, even without the aid of the returning truck.

> After the house was cleared and vacuumed, we couldn't really do anything more until JD arrived with the truck. Mrs. Varoli was nice enough to invite my mother and me to her place, where we enjoyed a pizza lunch. I then brought my laptop into the Varolis' family room and played a little Stepmania and cought an episode of Jimmy Neutron. Around 8PM, JD finally pulled into the driveway with the empty truck and one of our movers, and we filled it as much as we could. The new owner of our old house, who's name coincidentally was Raymond like my father, was kind enough to help us load this truck. So now, we had JD, the mover, myself, my mother, Raymond, and two neighbors loading the truck, while another party of movers were moving stuff into the house, with a bunch of strange kids and teenagers running around. But this STILL wasn't going to cover everything in the garage, so my dad came back with another empty truck, and when that one was filled, everything was finally accounted for.

> After we said our final goodbyes to some of our neighbors around 9:30PM, my dad gave the movers $400 for their day's work, and Mr. Varoli gave them a ride back to their homes. My parents, JD, and myself then took the 90 minute trip back to the new house, with JD driving one truck, and my dad driving the other. I had forgotten my backpack and laptop, leaving them in our SUV, and by the time I remembered it was loo late. When we arrived at the house Tony and my brother Peter were already there. We were going to unload the trucks that very night, but because it was already 11PM, we decided to rest first and unpack the rest of the stuff the next day. Tony and JD and to be back at work the next day, so they drove back home in one vehicle. After entering the house, I could see some unpacked boxes in the kitchen, and paper all over the floors. The first thing I ever ate in the house was some Bugles and some Pepsi, but I was too spent to worry about nutrition. When I got to my room, the mattress was there and set up, and well as my cabinet and computer desk. Tony and Peter had accidentally put my parents mattress in my room and vice versa, but we were too tired to switch them, so we ended up sleeping on each other's beds that night. The next morning, my parents, Peter and his wife Tamayo, and myself all unloaded the two trucks, occasionally bringing in heavy objects into the house. My dad went back to the old house to pick up the SUV, and after that I got back my backpack, and my laptop. I spent the day moving around my furniture, and setting up my laptop and my 14" monitor as a stand-in until my regular machine and 19" monitor arrived from JD's place.

> As of now, nearly two weeks later, I still haven't fully adjusted to the move. Although my room is mostly set up, I still feel like just a visitor here, and that any day now, I'm going to move back into my old house and sleep in my old room again. Internet access still hasn't been extended to my new bedroom, so I'm forced to do all my web surfing in the office. My room is slightly smaller than my old one, but I do have a bathroom in my room now, so I can take my morning shower without my parents seeing me in my underwear. I do have to keep the noise down at night, because my room is now just across the hall, and about four or five feet from my parent's bedroom. However, I'm hoping to buy a sound proof door as soon as I can afford to buy one. Another drawback now is that my dad doesn't want me eating in my room, but I once thought of ripping out the carpet and replacing it with tiles to make my floor easier to clean, but that doesn't look like that's going to happen. I still haven't found where I packed most of my socks and underwear, but hopefully they'll turn up someday. In closing, the move was quite a hectic experience, and my adjusting is taking the form of emotionally letting go of the place where I lived since I was 1, fully redecorating my room, and familiarizing myself with the new neighborhood. I've taken some pictures and some low-res movies of the move, but I can't upload them until I get Web access to my room.

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