Unpacking is no fun. Everyone knows that. In the past I was a very organized packer. I wrote the room on the box in two places and listed the crucial contents under the room on the top flaps. Easy enough. Only on the last few days were things just thrown in. Every move we have a handful of boxes that just linger. Non essentials that I just couldn't part wit or things I couldn't find a logical spit for. Military paperwork, office supplies, picture frames I'm not ready to hang yet, or baby items for the next kid. You get the idea. Then we went to Maryland in 2012 and stayed 6 months. We had less than a month to pack and move. Top that off with Tim would be gone so it was me and our almost 2 year old. Right. Not happening. So we hired movers and paid them to pack is. It was amazing. I was nervous I wouldn't have a clue where anything was but hoped it would help me unack faster.
Fast forward. I learned that throwing things willy billy in boxes wasn't as crazy as I imagined. It got unpacked mostly because I needed to find things. So the next move I took the same approach. Get everything in a box. Label if you can.
Fast forward to this move. Not only did I pack this stuff over a year ago it's labeled so poorly I can't find even some essential crucial items. I have come across things I desperately missed and things I needed. But then there are things still missing. That's the hardest part. I'd say 85% is u packed. It's still chaos in here but it's progress. So how do you unpack? There is a process at least for me.
1. Essentials to live - sheets, towels, clothes for a week, soaps, dishes, silverwear, and stock the pantry. Once that's finished there is a slight slow down to adjust.
2. Kids room. It's the easiest place to u pack and organize.
3. Furniture to designated spots
4. Move boxes to the room they supposedly belong and keep in mind we've moved multiple times with the same boxes.
5. The real essentials. This means anything that needs the perfect place. For me it's the master and the kitchen. It's the items you need unpacked before you get to the items but these items get first dibs on space. Dishes, cups, silverwear, cookie sheets, that sort of thing. The other things get the leftover space. Things like those chocolate molds, the pitcher we use twice a year, and the collection of thermal lunch boxes.
6. The missing items. This is the tricky one. It's usually something that when you're settling in you find it necessary to find but nowhere in sight. It's something g that you expect is labelled on the box but you can't locate it. We once had a box mysteriously vanish. It had my silverwear. At times I'd remember other items in the box but the most Important was the silverwear in the silverwear tray bit was at the top of the box too. It never showed up. I had to buy new silverwear (got the same stuff so it would match when this box was finally found but that never happened) and a new tray that has never been as perfect as that one that was lost.
This move I struggled to find the silverwear and now I can't find my george Forman. The kitchen item I used 3-4 times a week. So once it's not found labelled on the right box you start opening all boxes from that room. You quickly look through all hoping to spit it. Then when it still doesn't show you start emptying them sure you missd it. Before long you've opened and emptied (into piles of course) all the boxes to find you still can't find this crucial item. Ugh. What next? You begin looking in all the boxes you didn't plan to open just yet. Like the picture frames. Those are all unpacked now and still no george Forman. How about in the office box? Nope.
6. Slowly you condense boxes, throw away thing you can't comprehend why you even packed it, and start the dreaded process of donate piles. Yay.
And yet I am 85-90% unpacked I still have missing items. It's so frustrating because I can look at every box, and even inside most and say nope no way it's in there but then I run out of boxes. This is how I unpack. This is why I hate unpacking and feel it's the worst part of moving. It's a disaster as I look for space for all my crap and try to find important things. My george foreman is still MIA as as some bowls and kitchen utensils for my kitchen. No clue where my bible ended up, and the remote and power cord for the living room tv weren't in the box. Yay. Oh yeah and the wall mounting kit for the living room is missing too. Although maybe that's a good hing because I still can't decide which walk I want to mount it and I don't want to have to do it twice. You j ow since we already pained.
