So, the packers came today.

We were under the impression that they were here to ‘inventory’.

We were dead wrong.

They were here to well, pack…as their titles clearly state.

I feel like we were pretty prepared, but not really fully prepared. It’s one of those things that takes forever to get here, then happens all at once and you’re sitting there the day after like ‘Wait. It’s over?’. That’s how this will be. I can tell.

We gave them a tour, told them what was going and what was not. What was ready and what was not. But that didn’t prevent a few funnies:

1. Kenny had a bag of winter clothes from storage sitting in the living room. He was hoping to pull out a few pairs of pants and some sweatshirts. He went upstairs to take a phone call and came back down five minutes later. Gone! Off to Oregon. Looks like we’ll be doing a lot of Kenny laundry in corporate housing.
2. I had packed the house phone away for the Open House we had this past weekend. I forgot to put it back out. And now, looks like I won’t have any phone calls until we hook it up in Oregon. Gone!
3. Me planning dinner for tonight only to discover at 4 p.m. that all my plates and utensils and pots and pans and colanders and spices and napkins and …you get the picture. Gone! Plan B – out to dinner. Kenny ordered dessert to go – and had to ask for a plastic fork to bring home so he could eat it.  As a side note, we came home to discover that our wonderful friends had dropped off a meal for us to enjoy during the craziness of the next few days. (Sniff, we will miss them!)
4. Couch – gone. Chair – gone. Dining room table and chairs – gone.
5. Beds – Save!
6. Me sending Kenny a panicked text (yes, we were in the same house) to grab the checkbook and blank checks and put them in the ‘safe zone’ so we could bring them with us. (Yes, I said ‘safe zone’. That’s the “do not touch” zone for the movers.) Save!

On the upside:

• The kids were delighted. Their toys are back from storage…if only for a day. It was literally like Christmas morning here when they came home from school. I could hear their squeals of delight all the way up in my office on the third floor. “Look, Gav! CeeCee is back!”; “DAD! Can I play my Trio blocks? I can? YAY!”; “Yes, Grace! Daddy brought our PLAY DOH back from storage!” (That immediately got hidden. It’s certainly not an activity that screams hey, play with me while you are packing up your life for a cross-country journey. We’ll stick with crayons. For now.)
• The movers were *quite* impressed by Kenny’s sneaker collection. They took pictures of the ‘wall of sneakers’ and texted it to their friends. I am not sure whether to laugh or cry. On a related note, I now know the one mover also collects sneakers, has 47 pairs and that Kenny “put him to shame”. His words, not mine.

Tomorrow, I am traveling for work. Kenny is, as I type, writing notes down on what can stay, what can go and when he should text me to weigh in. He’s so good. (ha!)