It is time again for our stones to roll… so to speak.  We selected this apartment from about 3,380 miles away.  It is cozy (small) and quaint (old) and the vaulted ceilings described in the pamphlet scratch my knuckles when I stretch.  But it also has a huge backyard (communal field), a little porch, and a San Diego weather which means that we’ve had all the windows and doors open since the movers left.  I mean wide open – not even screened – just open all day and all night.

We were bunkered-in and ready to sit out at least this lease until the bushenomics makes the housing a little more accessible to people who live within their means.   But then the realities of apartment life blew smoke right in our face.  Almost literally. People moved in downstairs and have been smoking up a storm. Our apartment smells like cancer even when we close all our windows and doors. With all the doors and windows shut the mental size of this apartment has shrunk at least in half.

Well this is no way for us to live at all.  Humans can live through any violation of their senses – I know this because smokers have no idea how horrible their life smells.  Even heroine seems like a better choice… but I digress.

I happened to have met another family out on a walk with the kids last Friday and they mentioned that there was a house for rent. I told Mariel and three short days later we were signing a new lease.   It’s been one week and we’ve broken lease here, scheduled the movers, and retrieved all our boxes and plastic tubs from the utility closet.

The only thing we have to do now is wait for the day – which is proving to be pretty hard.  We’ve had to hire a full-service moving company to save our family sanity and we have no idea how to prepare for a full-service move.  I started by disassembling Dexter bed into the 400 ikea-designed pieces it breaks down into. I realized that I didn’t want to be doing this at all.

But what DO you do to prepped for a move that doesn’t break your own back? Do you just take a box and shovel in loose stuff that would move in the truck during the 500 yard trip?  We are taking suggestions.