In Jess' eyes

(here is Jess' promised blog entree! You're awesome baby!)

We moved. It was worse than puberty. And anyone who knows me remembers that my teen years were unpleasant for everyone involved.

Moving, for those of you who are lucky enough to not have endured it yet, goes like this: You put everything you own into boxes. These boxes are required to stink, but just a little bit. You tape the boxes shut. The required tape is available for purchase at several fine retail locations. It is the stickiest substance on earth, with the single exception being when combined with cardboard. It does not stick to cardboard. It will tear the skin right off your bones if (heaven forbid) you get in on you, but closing boxes with it is like trying to push a rope up a hill. Once all your belongings have been placed into stinky no-stick boxes you put it all in a truck. The interior temperature of this truck will be hovering right around 200 degrees. This is a convenient feature provided by the moving truck company to make sure all the liquid in your body exits via the armpits. Your belongings will not all fit into the truck. This is physics in action. Driving to the new place of residence is usually uneventful. The top speed of the furnace/truck is nine miles per hour, so plan ahead. You will arrive at the new house and unload your things. This has basically the same effect as dragging wet garbage into your new house (it will rain the day you move, guaranteed), provided the wet garbage has a hefty helping of tiny cardboard fragments, which you will find in your house until two weeks before you move again. Once the belongings are safely stowed in the new house there is a mandatory two-week waiting period before you can unpack the stinky no-stick boxes. I think this rule is tied to the 72-hour handgun laws. The stinky no-stick wet garbage cardboard boxes will have had time to infuse your clothes with the cardboard stink, so hang them up. The remainder of you stuff can sit for who knows how long in the attic/garage/backyard because you'll be a monkey's uncle if you're ever going to move again. It's a pretty straightforward cycle.

You know what? If I was in charge, we'd never leave here. I would get old in this house and demand to be buried in the back yard under a headstone that says, "Now you may move, but I'm still staying put."

However, I'm not in charge...I'm not even close to in charge. The latest Gallup polls show me in fifth place for "Boss of the Winn House." (I'm neck-and-neck for fourth position, just behind the lizard that lives somewhere near the front door!) We're going to have to move again someday. I'm preparing for that day, and I've compiled a little collection of notes to myself to help reduce the number of inevitable coronary episodes I'll experience next time we relocate.

Hopefully by sharing the small lessons I've learned I can alleviate some pain for any of you who get roped into moving someday. Here's the skinny:

- Get the insurance on the truck. I came so dangerously close to buying a severely damaged U-Haul that I was literally thinking about which organs I don't really use very often so I could sell something on the black market. (If you're curious, it was pancreas, followed closely by left kidney...head's up lefty...) I banged up the side of the truck pretty seriously, and destroyed a fence in the process. This is entirely Cari's fault. Maybe one day she'll tell you about how she caused the incident.

-Get to know the missionaries. They're easy to please, and they're usually in pretty good shape; they had my stuff out of the house in less than an hour. Plus, FREE!

-Have a back up plan. My back up plan was: panic. This was not a concise enough back up plan. Next time I'm going to involve a decision-making process and then panic. I'm betting I'll be much better prepared. We ended up having to stay two nights in hotels because the closing on the house didn't go as planned. Flip side: we destroyed a housekeeping cart that got left outside the door. No more buying tiny soaps and cheap shower caps for the Winn Family!

-Strap explosives to your body. This lets people know you're serious. No threats, cause that's a crime, but having explosives (I'm pretty sure...) isn't illegal.

-Remember you love your family. Someday the move will be over, and you'll be sitting in a beautiful, new house with a stunning wife and little boys who have been better than angelic through the whole experience. Whatever angry, frustrated, fed-up feeling you have about moving five years of junk from one place to another on the hottest day of the year, keep it to yourself. Nobody wants to hear your stupid, whiny voice complain about how bad it was. Just sit back with your baby, cuddle with your boys, and enjoy the feeling of being in a place where you can finally feel "home."