I prefer to use the word "cluttered" rather than "messy" or "dirty."  Because as any cluttery packrat knows, even though it may be cluttered, there is still an underlying orderliness.  It may look like piles of papers, books, magazines, and toys to the untrained eye, but believe it or not, we actually know where everything is (more or less).  Cardinal Rule of Cluttery People:  Never *EVAR* clean up their clutter for them - because then they truly will not be able to find *anything*.

You'd think with the number of times we've moved (as I mentioned in this previous Entry), that we'd be Moving Masters (TM) or Moving Experts (TM) at the very least.  And I guess we do have it down to a science, but it still doesn't make the process any more fun.  Here are some tidbits of Moving Wisdom we've accumulated through the years:

1.  Whether you're doing an in-town move or a transcontinental move, always make sure you've packed everything in boxes.  It won't make your friends love you any more, but it sure won't make them hate you either.

One thing Volunteer Movers can't stand is making an insane number of trips from the house to the car/truck/moving van because you didn't have the foresight to pack everything in boxes.  Thus the "movers" end up making trips back & forth with armloads full of stuff.  Trust me on this rule.  I was one of those Volunteers.
 

2.  If you are renting a truck and moving yourself, even though you made a reservation, be sure and call every day the week before the move to make sure a truck will be available the day you need it.  Just because you have a reservation doesn't mean they will have a truck.

The well-known sketch from Seinfeld comes to mind:

Jerry:  "I don't understand.  I made a reservation.  Do you have my reservation?"
Rental car agent:  "Yes we do.  Unfortunately, we ran out of cars."
Jerry:  "But the reservation keeps the car here, that's why you have the reservation!"
Rental car agent:  "I know *why* we have reservations."
Jerry:  "I don't think you do!  If you did, I would have a car.  You see, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation.  And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding.  Anybody can just take them."

From first hand experience, we were forced to delay our departure by 36 hours because a certain well-known truck rental place where U rent trucks didn't have a truck for us even though we had a reservation.  And FYI, their so-called "reservation guarantee" doesn't guarantee you'll get the truck the same time you requested it - they only guarantee that you'll get it the same day.  Caveat emptor.
 

3.  Going along with Moving Wisdom Bit #2, always allot extra time for you to complete your move, because we all know about Murphy's Rule.

"If anything can go wrong, it will."  
 

4.  Always go with your gut feeling and go with the "most" sure thing, because even though Friend A says he can get a bunch of guys w/trucks to help, what you'll end up with is Friend A and Friend A's teenage brother and their compact pickup truck.

It's nice to get "free" help for nothing, but sometimes you get what you pay for, in this case - nothing.
 

5.  If you're the one volunteering to help, make sure you know exactly what you'll be helping to move.

In my unfortunate circumstance, I was not only subjected to the Boxes-Are-Optional Mover (See #1 above), but I also had to help my friend move 24 (yep...count 'em) - *24* double-sized cinder blocks from a 2nd-floor apartment.  I'm surprised the floor never collapsed under all that weight.  My friend had gotten a wild hair up his butt where he wanted to raise his futon bed up off the floor.  But we're not talking a foot or two, we were talking a full six-feet off of the floor.  It was impressive feat of engineering, but it was as unstable as the Tacoma-Narrows Bridge.  You couldn't pay me to sleep nightly on that Engineering-Accident-Waiting-To-Happen.
 

6.  If you've hired "professional" movers to move you, be sure you've hired reputable well-known movers, have an agreed-upon price drawn out on a contract beforehand, and make sure everything from when the pick up is to occur to when delivery is to happen is laid out in a contract.

I've heard many a story and had good friends where the movers were late (if you call a month late) with their belongings, and then tried to get them to pay more than the pre-agreed-on price before they'd deliver their belongings to them.  Another reason I'd highly recommend moving yourself, even if it is somewhat of a headache to deal with rental trucks, but at least that way, you have all of your stuff with you at all times.
 

So here I am wondering what to do with my fencing manual of yesteryears, should I keep it in case I wanted to teach fencing sometime in the future?  Or should I toss it as I haven't looked at it in years?  But if I keep it, where should I pack it?  Does it go with books?  Or with college stuff?  Ugh.  I finally decide to keep it for sentimental reasons, and end up tossing it in the nearest box.

Yep, we're starting to reach the point in Packing & Moving that I like to call "I don't give a damn anymore and I just want this whole thing to be over".  Essentially at this stage, the sorting and organized packing all gets thrown out the window.  Everything of some value gets tossed into a box to be sorted through at a later date.  

Unfortunately for us, we have about five or six of those boxes by now from all of our previous moves.  And have we gone through them yet?  Of course....NOT.  One of these days....

Of course what ends up happening when we do finally get to one of those boxes, most of the stuff in the box elicits the same response, "what the heck did I keep this for?"  

Since we've started packing and de-cluttering for this move, I've lost track of how many bags of garbage we've already thrown away, and how many bags of stuff we've donated to Goodwill.  Someone out there is getting some nice things.  :)  But I figure at the rate we're going, in another two moves we should have all of our belongings down to the bare essentials.  

Just as long as I can keep my fencing manual.  And my lock of hair from my long-haired hippie days.  Just don't make me make another five gadzillion trips hauling cinderblocks from a failed engineering project.  Anything but that.