I’m pleased to report that I am writing this blog post from our new home in Gig Harbor, WA! I honestly cannot believe it. It still feels like some sort of extended vacation. I think it's going to take months for reality to set in. So, for my first official post from Washington State I want to share with you some of the good, bad, and even ugly things I learned from this big life transition:
Donating, recycling, and selling things is well worth the investment of time. I really wanted to make sure everything we were going to get rid of found a good home. We sold furniture on Facebook Marketplace and about half of our book collection to Half Price Books. We gave house plants and bottles of alcohol to friends. We donated our pantry items to the students who live at the seminary where I work. We brought clothes to ThredUp and sent a few items to REI to sell back. When we reached the chaotic just-get-rid-of-it stage, we discovered the best place to bring things is Goodwill because they strive to make use of every donation they receive. While this process did require some additional effort and research on our part, it felt like good stewardship.
Up until the day our moving truck left Minneapolis people were still asking me if this move was for my husband’s job. This seemed like an innocuous question until my husband and I compared notes during our cross-country drive and realized no one had ever asked him if this move was for my job! We also realized I was the only one who was asked things like: Don’t you know it costs more to live in Washington? Are you prepared for that cost? Have you ever even visited the state of Washington? I had to constantly explain that this was a move by choice and that we were indeed prepared for it. I’m still a little surprised at the implied sexism in these questions, even though it probably wasn’t intended.
Packing the car is way harder than packing the moving truck. We chose to go with a full-service mover who packed our furniture, hauled our boxes, drove our items cross-country, and unloaded everything on the other end. This made the process of moving out of our apartment and into our townhouse a cinch. Our biggest struggle came after the moving truck left. Since our previous moves were local, we could make multiple trips with our valuables. This time, we greatly overestimated how much we could pack into our Jeep. Unfortunately, that means multiple items had to be thrown away or left at our first stop: my husband’s family’s house in Duluth. Word to the wise: Do a test run of packing the car before you let the moving truck drive away.
Next time I’ll overestimate the amount we'll spend on takeout. I had grandiose plans of preparing our meals until the last two days before the moving truck arrived, cooking at airbnbs on our drive out, and setting up our kitchen as soon as our items arrived. But while cooking and baking are incredibly relaxing for me, moving is exhausting. I wish I would have given our budget a little more buffer to eat out. It would have made our last days in Minneapolis and first days in Gig Harbor much more enjoyable.
You may take PTO, but moving is not a vacation. I had visions of a little “mini-vacation” sandwiched between the packing and unpacking. While I sincerely enjoyed seeing new parts of the country (I had never been to Idaho!) and visiting good friends in Great Falls, MT, the trip was anything but restorative. Traveling cross-country with a car packed with our most valuable possessions made every stop feel precarious, so we were on high alert for five days straight. Plus, hours of delays due to road construction isn’t relaxing for anybody.
Our first three weeks in Washington were sunny and warm. If we had a dollar for every person who warned us about the rain in Washington, we would be very wealthy. Now, I realize that the rainy season is coming, and we are excited for some moody, foggy, rainy weather. However, the end of September and most of October was in the 60s and 70s with clear and sunny skies. It was an exceptional welcome to our new town.
We are happy we decided to live in a townhouse in our favorite part of the city first. Up until a few months ago, we still thought we might buy a house from a distance. We had a few areas in mind and were ready to make the leap. I’m so glad we decided to give ourselves a little breathing room to get to know the area and search for our perfect neighborhood and house when we were local. While moving again in just another year will be tough, it's been amazing to live five minutes by car from the harbor that made us first fall in love with this area. We can even walk down to that harbor from our townhouse, since it's only a couple of miles away. We’ve already found new areas of town that we love, and have figured out a few areas that aren’t quite for us. Having a year where our main priority is to explore will ensure our next move will be the right move – and for that I am grateful.