Moving boxes

The moving boxes have arrived today! I couldn't help singing the 'little boxes' song as I dragged them into the house.

I spent a little while looking on Craigslist for free boxes over the last 2 weekends, but did not hear back from any of the listings and I'm not ready to go driving around the city hoping to grab the few that I could fit into my mini.

For the move out, I ordered most of the boxes online from Box Bundles, Inc which is now listed under MoveOut.com. I spent several hours price shopping, comparing prices and reviews for Uhaul, ULINE and UBOXES, as well as one place that sold used boxes. I settled on MoveOut.com boxes again as the best value and ordered a kit with 40 medium and 20 large boxes on Saturday. They arrived on Tuesday at my front door. Now all we have to do is pack.

If we pack 2 boxes every evening, we will be done in time to move. I hope.

After opening and counting the boxes, I went back to the website where I bought the box kit, and that kit is gone, to be replaced by a kit that has small, medium and large boxes. This is really what I wanted, but I guess they ran short of small boxes and rather than saying the small boxes were back ordered, just removed them from the site. I used a lot of small boxes last time - especially for books.

Moving with Cats - part 1 of many

We are embarking on a Great Adventure, moving from the very trendy life of San Francisco to the slightly crunchy life of Boone - in the mountains of NC. I will not go into the virtues of either life style since there is a time and a place for everything. It is now my time to return to the roots I wish I had.

I intend to chronicle this move to share with friends and family, to help me remember how painful moving really is (since I tend to move every few years) and to share with those that are facing a move.

We moved to San Francisco in October of 2004, about 6 1/2 years ago. We down-sized significantly from a sprawling house in Chapel Hill to fit into about a much smaller space in San Fran. The kids were grown so it was just us and the pets; Pebbles, an elderly but ferocious Yorkshire Terrier and 2 cats. R and I took the cats out first by airplane in the cabin. We gave them tranquilizers from the vet and they were quiet in their little Sherpa bags under the seats. I thought things were OK, but they were REALLY traumatized. It took about 3 weeks before they would eat and drink and use the litter box. I thought they were going to die. I went back and finished packing and loading the truck, and brought Pebbles out in one of the Sherpa bags. Although the trip was stressful for her, she was much calmer. I don't think I tranquilized her.

Pebbles past away after a long and well-loved life and now we are faced with moving back with 2 somewhat mature cats. Janet is 17 and is a very dignified, but intolerant cat. Pinky is 15, has always been insane and is becoming more unstable as she gets older. Neither one really wants to move I think.

I've been trying to picture putting them on airplanes and moving them back, but just can't see it having a good ending, so we have decided to opt for the ...

Romantic Cross-Country Drive with Cats.

Janet

Pinky