What Was I Thinking?

Yesterday, our first dozen boxes arrived. Since Jesse was stuck in the airport for most of the evening, I decided to start packing up books. After boxing up an entire bookshelf, I stared at the empty space and felt good. What an accomplishment! Then I looked over at the 4 book boxes on the floor and did a quick calculation in my head. Oh God! We have at least 7 more boxes of books that need to fit in that tiny blue box in the corner. Ahh. I remember two months ago when I was all doe-eyed and optimistic (and totally deluded) about cramming all of our stuff into a crate and shipping it across the country. Reality is such an ugly beast.

Jesse didn't get in until 2:30am and was shocked to find me up and totally wired. Leaving me unattended in the apartment with empty boxes is such a bad idea. I relayed my fears to him that we weren't going to make it all fit. He said, "well, we'll just get two crates." Stunned, I thought "why would he say such a thing when he KNOWS I am determined to only have one crate." Shaking my fists, I climbed into bed (and I'm sure he breathed a sigh of relief because I had finally stopped talking).

If my calculations are correct (and I'm pretty sure they're not that far off), our moving crate inventory will look something like this:

• One Queen mattress, no box spring or bed frame.
• One mahogany chest of drawers that could hold approximately 2% of our clothes.
• One Ikea kitchen table, disassembled, no chairs.
• More Fiestaware than a household of two should own.
• A Kitchen Aid mixer and some fancy-pants pots and pans that we were lucky enough to receive as a wedding gift.
• 3,000 pounds of books.
• 1,500 pounds of CDs.
• One sewing machine, a bit of fabric, and some thread.
• A blanket - no room for pillows or sheets.
• One ginormous clothes drying rack courtesy of my Mom from Amish country.

If you come to visit us in Portland, you may be forced to sleep on a bare, twin-sized aero bed and sit on the "Music A through Eels" box at dinner - chairs are highly overrated and really won't fit in with our "hobo chic" decor. In exchange for the sparse accommodations, we'd be more than happy to air-dry your entire wardrobe in our living room.