Moving Across the Country Part II: Contd.

Part I
Part II

So I guess technically this is Part III, but just go with it. I wanted this to be it's own post because this is where things got really bad. What's that? You thought ABF losing our cube was bad enough, well buckle up, my peeps!

Movers: 

We did not have a very good experience with the company, "Moving Staffers." This is a company that both ABF and PODS use. It's a 3rd party company based out of Texas. All they do is charge you a lot of money to look up local movers and schedule them for you. The trouble is, because you do it through them, the movers end up being way more expensive than if you just called and set up the appointment yourself. Save yourself the money and trouble and just Google movers in the area you're moving to and schedule them yourself. I guarantee, you aren't getting any better service by going through Moving Staffers. Let me explain:

In Seattle, the movers that came were two hours late. I get that's sort of how movers are, but two hours is a bit excessive. As a result of them coming two hours late, we needed them to move quickly because I had the carpet cleaners coming. The guy (from EZ Movers) moves all of our stuff out into our apartment complex parking lot, THEN decides to wrap all that we needed wrapped out there (keep in mind, it is now pitch black since they came so late). He proceeds to then take is sweet ole' time packing us up. A job that should have taken 2-2.5 hours tops, he drags out to almost 4 hours!!!! Of course, he's getting paid by the hour, so he's fine with it. At 2.5 hours when I'm starting to get really concerned about the serious money we are shelling out for this horrible service he says, "Well we can stop right now if you want." Of course you can, now that all of our stuff is spread about our parking lot!

When it comes time to sign the service agreement, I've already left  because it was now 9 pm (remember J, I had sort of forgotten about her in all of this mess and she had been with my sister since noon...bad mom moment), so K is signing it. I love my husband, but he is not as cynical as I am :). This guy tells him to put the number of hours worked (3) in the spot where the number of men worked (2) goes.

It was dark and K just did what the guys said, never imagining him to be lying. So we got charged for 3 men when we should have been charged for 2. That's an extra $215!! When I called Moving Staffers, they thought I was a crazy person trying to steal money from them and didn't want to refund my money! I'm pretty sure they had some comments on my file for being some kind of lunatic because each time I called they treated me more and more like a criminal. I was really proud of myself, I never once was rude or raised my voice (not that I usually do, but stress can bring out the worst in people), but they were treating me like I was screaming at them. I was beginning to think I was on some sort of "Punk'd" or "Boiling Point" reality TV show. It took 4 days and about 6 phone calls to finally get our money back.

As a result of all of this, I canceled our movers with them for Chicago. I did one Google search, found some movers (Pro Movers) that were close. They came out and did a phenomenal job. Took a 2 hour job and did it in 1. Since I had to pay for at least 2 hours they started unpacking my boxes until I finally had nothing left for them to do! They said it went so fast because I was organized. I knew exactly where I wanted all my furniture to go and, though I had to read the labels for them and tell them where stuff went, everything had a place to go right away. It pays to be organized!

I'll be shocked if anyone is still reading this! But I just had to get this out of my system and, for the next time we move, to remember all that I need to do! 

Moving Across the Country Part II: Seattle to Chicago

See Part I, here.

Chicago Move

K's company gave us a significantly greater amount to move to Chicago. I was SOOOO grateful for this! As apposed to in Utah and Seattle, we weren't going to know anyone once we got to Chicago, so we were going to need to hire help. This is where this post gets a little tricky. I want to be honest, but I also don't want to be rude. It's a fine line I'm going to walk because this is the part of the move where things got cray-cray (that means crazy, Dad).

U-pack: 
We had heard great things about both ABF and PODS and weren't sure who to go with. Once we factored in the cost of the relo cubes, travel time, and size of cube versus all our stuff, we decided to go with ABF. How this works is, they drop off a cube (for us it was 2) to where ever you live and you have three days to pack the cubes up. If you remember from here, our move date was moved up by about a week or two, so we hired movers to come load the cubes the very day they were dropped off so that they could be picked up the next day.

ABF's drivers were on-time and very friendly and professional. As someone with a CDL, I'm here to tell you that they can manuver their trucks and fork-lifts like there is no tomorrow! It was quite a sight to see! ABF's customer service from their call center to their terminals was phenominal! 

My major beef with ABF is that they LOST one of our cubes! Every cube has a tracking number on it and it gets checked in at each terminal it goes to (ours went from the Seattle area, to Salt Lake City, to South Chicago). Apparently, in Salt Lake City, one of the drivers wrote down a "6" when there should have been a "0" (or something like that), so our one cube was left in SLC! Why they don't use some sort of digital scanning system is beyond me!

Imagine my surprise when I got a call from their South Chicago Terminal a few hours after I had called to schedule the drop off.

ABF: Mrs. Nelson???

Me: Yeeeess...?

ABF: How many cubes did you say you had again?

Me: Two.... why..??

ABF: I'm only showing that we have one in our terminal here in Chicago.

Me: Well where's my other cube?

ABF: *long pause*...I don't know.

Me: ....

ABF: They'll unload the truck tonight and I'll be able to see if it's on there and if there was some confusion, but I remembered you said you had movers coming, so I just wanted you to have a heads up. We might not have one of your cubes. I'll call you as soon as I get in at 6:30 am tomorrow and tell you what I find out.

To make a long story at least somewhat short, the Branch Manager of the Chicago area and I became great friends and he eventually found our cube. The crazy part? The only reason they found my cube was because of this:

This picture was the only confirmation of our actual tracking numbers and saved our lives! I did finally talk them into giving me $50/day that we didn't have our second cube. $50/day is what they charge you if you keep the cube too long. The good news is that they don't even have a procedure for if this happens--so I'm assuming it doesn't happen too often. Despite all of this, because of their outstanding customer service, I would still recommend ABF to other people!

Stay tuned for the last installment, Part III.

Moving Across the Country Part I: Utah to Seattle

I've been wanting to write this post for awhile because there were soooo many things I wish I had know before packing up our lives and moving across country..twice...in 6 months! Each moving situation is different and, based on your budget, there are several different ways you can go about it. I've broken up the two ways we did it by our "Seattle Move" and our "Chicago Move."

Seattle Move
K's company gave us a stipend of money for our move--how we used the money was entirely up to us. It was enough money to get us to Seattle, but not enough to higher much help. Luckily, since the move was under 1,000 miles, we were able to rent a moving van from almost any company without any additional milage fees. This was the first time we'd moved since having J, so I felt out of my element with how to do this. Word to the wise, babies = A LOT OF STUFF! Here is what I learned:

Moving van: use the companies against each other! We were able to negotiate between U-haul and Penske after we had gotten a quote from each. We ended up going with Penske because they could give us a better price. Fun fact: prices go up around holiday weekends! We had to estimate when we would be leaving because we were waiting on my school to find a replacement for me. We scheduled the truck and trailer for after Labor Day because the prices were reduced by a lot. My school found a replacement for me and that meant we could move right before Labor Day (of course!). I was worried that the price would go up because we would need to move our reservation to the very expensive Labor Day week. Turns out, Penske keeps your price the same no matter when you move your reservation to. Make your reservation for the cheapest time possible then, about a week to a week and a half before your move, change the date. This is totally legit and can save you hundreds of dollars!

Boxes: You can go about getting boxes a number of different ways. One place we found to get great boxes was Walmart. If you go and ask for boxes they will only give you one or two. However, if you go to Walmart when they are restocking (about 7 am), you can just go and take allllll the boxes you want straight from the stockers (is that what you call them? Stockmen? Stockwomen? Stockpeople?) themselves. The Malt-O-Meal cereal boxes were the best! We used boxes that our friends had used in their move, but only ones in good shape. Don't let the cheap side of you get in the way of protecting your belongings! Going through the effort of collecting good boxes is worth the money you'll save by not having to replace broken items. Also, it's called packing-tape for a reason. As much as it pains this Alaskan to say, packing tape > duck tape (in taping boxes alone...nothing else!)

Labeling: don't be afraid to get a little crazy! When I was looking up other people's tips on moving, one lady said to put labels on every upper left hand corner. I thought to myself, "A bit excessive don't you think?!" Ummm no, not at all. I only put them on the top side and one of the sides and I totally regretted it! Depending on how they were put into the truck, you couldn't always see the labels and (when we later got to Chicago) I ended up telling the movers where to put the boxes--sort of defeated the purpose of labeling them! I just used these things, one in red marker stating where it went, and black for what was in the box.

Don't get too wordy, but be specific. I was putting "K" on boxes that would go in the kitchen. The movers move a ton of different people, all with their own system. So yet again, I was having to explain what "K" meant and where to take the boxes. Save yourself the trouble and just write "Kitchen", "Master bathroom", etc. I read on a few other sites where people would color code their labels. That sounds like a good idea, but I'd only do it if you are moving yourself in. Ideas that were obvious to me weren't always obvious to the movers. (No offense to any movers reading, yikes!)

See Part II with all the juicy stuff, here.

Stress Relief (Part 2)

See Stress Relief (Part 1) to get a little bit more of a background on why I'm doing this. Today's topic is organization. Now, this is such a huge topic! Last month I gave a presentation to my church group about organization. After 45 minutes we had barely even scratched the surface of all we wanted to share and discuss with each other. I'm sure organization will come up again in these next few weeks, but today I will touch on just one concept that made a huge difference in the organization of our home.

Source

We have been living in the Seattle area for the past 5 months while K does training for work. Before that we lived in Utah, and at the end of February we'll move permanently to Chicago. Since we are only living in Seattle for 6 months, we had to sign a short term lease (hello crazy high rent), so we went from an 1100 square foot apartment to about an 800 square foot apartment. K and I are already minimalist, but that is just a really small space for 3 people! So I had to get organized so we didn't go crazy while living here.

The motto I tried to use, and still use everyday when picking up the house is, "Every thing has a place, and ever place has a purpose." When you live in a larger space, it's easy to take your car keys and mail and just throw them on the kitchen table, but in such a confined space, a simple act like that makes the entire living area seem so cluttered. I can't stand clutter! Clutter = Stress (Am I alone in this?). While the kitchen table could potential be a place for the mail and car keys, it doesn't serve the purpose of those items. Instead, we have a box for the car keys and I try to go through the mail and decide what to do with it right away so that we don't start having piles. We've learned from apartments past, once the piles start, they only get bigger and the number of piles continues to multiply!

Another example. As a result of the way our 'L-shaped' couch is positioned, we started getting in the habit of taking off our coats and just leaving them on the back of the couch.  It's pretty ridiculous because the coat closet is seriously 5 more feet away, but for some reason the task of putting our coats back on the hanger was just too much! I started to get into this funk where I couldn't stand our apartment, when I realized, "Hang up your coats!" That one simple act made everything look so much cleaner and neat. Again, clutter = stress.

 As I've applied this principle to my life, I've enjoyed being home a lot more--which is a good thing considering how much time J and I spend at home. Also, I've had a lot less stressful  moments of not being able to find items because, since every thing has a specific place, it is always where I want it. Another benefit I've seen of being organized is that it saves you money! "Crisis purchases" related to disorganization could cost as much as 15 to 20% of your annual budget. "Crisis purchases" are when you buy duplicates of misplaced or broken items or last minute shopping at premium prices (Julie Morgenstern, professional organizer).

Try it out as you go through your house today, "Every thing has a place, and every place has a purpose." You'll be amazed by how many little items there are in random corners or shelves.


What areas of life are you the most organized?
-in my house, especially community living spaces

What areas are you the least organized?
-my car, ugh, don't even look in my back seat!

What are some organizational tips you like to use or that you've learned before?

Stress Relief (Part 1)

Several studies have been done that connect negative stress with heart disease and stroke. A few years ago I started having little mini-panic attacks. I had never dealt with anxiety or panic attacks before, so it was really scary for me when they would happened. Since I had just started going through the Health Science Education program at BYU, I knew a little bit about anxiety. I decided I would start to take notes on what was going on with me or around me when the panic attacks started.

I began to notice that I would always have the panic attacks right before bed after I had said my prayers. Now, prayers aren't a very stressful activity for me, so that timing seemed odd. However, as I started to pay more attention to my mood and thought process that was happening when the panic attacks would set in, I realized that they happened at that time because before, during, and after my prayers is the time I always had to think about my day/life and what was going on. At that time, I had a lot of changes happening in my life (deciding what major to pursue, friends leaving and moving away). At that point in my life, I was not very good with change--I resisted it as much as possible. I realized that I was having panic attacks over all the situations in my life that I had no control over (can you say, 'control freak!').

I decided that I could either keep having these panic attacks, or I could realize that I only have so much control of what happens in my life. I had to find a way to deal with my stress or that anxiety was going to turn into a very real and debilitating problem. (Note: anxiety is such a serious problem for others, mine does not even come close to comparing with what others deal with). I figured, as an adult, that most people would frown upon me kicking and screaming when I don't get my way, so I needed to find another outlet. In the next few weeks I want to highlight some of the different actions I take to reduce the stress in my life. The one I want to start with is exercise.

Picture from the first, and last, time I ever played racquetball.

Exercise is a tricky subject for me. I played competitive soccer from the time I was nine. For a very long time I had hopes and dreams of going on and playing in college. I wasn't good enough to play for BYU (where I wanted to go to school) and I cared too much about my education to go to any of the smaller schools that were interested in me.  So I quit. I went from training 20+ hours a week to having all the time in the world and no set schedule on when I was supposed to be at the gym. It was a little eerie, but also invigorating! I would go to the gym here or there, but I mostly just felt burned out from all my years of training. Once I started teaching and became a mom, I went from an occasional trip to the gym to just about never working out. As I started to turn into a basket case get stressed from life, I knew I needed to start exercising again. So, don't think I'm perfect, I've gone up and down with my exercise habits...I just happen to be in an upswing at the moment!

I've found what really helps me to keep motivated and go to the gym is to constantly mix it up. Since I've joined the gym I have done the Zumba, aquafit, and yoga classes. It sort of depends on the week, but I rotate those classes into using the treadmill one day, the bike another, lifting weights, and working on my core (sit ups and stuff like that). It's nice because I think J and I need breaks from each other! She gets to go play with the kids for an hour while I exercise. I don't like the idea of daycares, so it's great because I can just pop my head in or look through the window to make sure everything is legit. I definitely don't push myself like I used to be pushed when I was training for soccer. Someday I hope I will get back to that point, but for now my motto is, "It's all about the endorphins!" (I got that from my awesome marathon friend, this was her motto when she was pregnant). The endorphins that are released during exercise help me to be happy and more emotionally level throughout the day. It gives me a time and a place to work through the stressful situations that may be happening in life (insert nasty thoughts about packing up all of our belongings and moving across the country...again!!)

HOLY NOVEL! Gold star if you are still reading!

Do you exercise? 

If no, what gets in your way? 

If yes, what helps you stay motivated to keep going? What are your favorite forms of exercise?

What are some of your favorite stress relievers?