Moving, moving, moving Friday Five

No, I'm not...Mother Laura is. She writes:

We are right in the middle of a move--only twenty minutes away, but we're still a mix of busy, excited, nervous and surprisingly full of grief about what we're leaving, for me at least. So this week's Friday Five asks about your experience of the marvels and madness of moving...

1. How many times have you moved? When was the last time?

As a pastor, I'm in my 4th appointment. Prior to that I moved every two years or so until jr. high school. I did live in the same house for all the way through high school. I think that's the longest I've ever lived anywhere.

2. What do you love and hate about moving?

Packing and unpacking. There's something very liberating about throwing stuff out, but it's depressing to see how it accumulates between moves. I'm having to learn to be brutal about books. Hate it.

3. Do you do it yourself or hire movers?

Prefer to hire movers to do the actual moving, but I always pack up myself. I don't want to have to be angry at anyone else for accidents, and also it lets me purge and also pack in ways they wouldn't: I wrap the crystal in blankets and pad the lamp for my bedroom with pillows. I always have 3 boxes and a suitcase that go with me: 1 box each kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, and clothes for a few days. My second move as a pastor, the movers decided that they couldn't load and unload in the same day, and so we had to wait for the truck...I learned from that move!

4. Advice for surviving and thriving during a move?

Give the dog Valium. Consider taking some myself (j/k, I think). Have the invisible fence installed professionally before I get there so the WonderMutt can be outside while all the action is inside. Sequester the cat. Pack wisely, and load the necessities in my own car. Including the important 4th box I forgot about: pet bowls, food, beds, and cat box. Remember that we can only do as much as we can do, and there's a chance some emergency will radically change our plans.
Learned that one in the first move, when someone died about the time we got the truck unloaded. No unpacking. Working. Also when I learned to include dress clothes in the suitcase.

5. Are you in the middle of any inner moves, if not outer ones?

I am not having an outer move this year (so says the DS, and I believe him. No one wants me to move, especially me!) but I am having an inner move. Shifting back towards exercising creativity in tangible ways. So I write bad poetry now and then for the Poetry Party, and blog, and I'm think seriously about scrapbooking and collages and also maybe going back to sewing. I only sew straight lines, but I enjoyed making handbags and totes for a while, and I'd like to try my hand at banners again. Where I'll find the time, I don't know, but when class is out this summer, I want to do some 'me' things that aren't school related. Oh yeah, and write. Ben and I are planning to work on a Bible study based on To Kill a Mockingbird. Perhaps during the summer creativity fest I can squeeze that in.

Bonus: Share a piece of music/poetry/film/book that expresses something about what moving means to you.

In a pretty silly way, There's a Monster at the End of This Book. It's been a favorite forever, and speaks to me both of my own occasional monstrousness (I do have a temper) and also about fear of the unknown. No matter how much I anticipate a move, there's always a great deal of fear. In a lot of ways, I feel like all those times I went to a new school: will they like me? will I fit in? will my clothes/hair/accent/whatever be right? how long until I figure out how things are done here? This is usually when I have the good old anxiety dreams, too: time to take a final for a class I forgot to drop, being in school naked (hate that one), oversleeping and missing church on Sunday...