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For the past few months, we’ve been selling the house. We met real estate agents back in March, with the hopes of putting the house on the market in April. Since then, selling the house has consumed our lives. Home repairs, painting (Remember the Texas Freeze? We weren’t prepared because we were painting our bedroom the weekend before), replacing the carpet, more painting…we put so much work into the house. I’m sure our move looked like anyone else’s ever except that our was covered in Lysol and masks due to the pandemic. One day there’ll be photos of us directing movers, all masked up like we’re in the middle of a ninja movie. “The Ninja Years,� that’s what they’ll call us. “Remember back in 2020, when the world was populated by ninjas?� Ransom Riggs� great-grandson will write a whole series about us. “Mrs. Peregrine’s House of Ninjas.�

Strangely, at the same time that we ninjas were preparing our house, the house seemed to be having issues of its own. The day we put the house on the market, the air conditioner conked out. The toilet had to be replaced a couple weeks before. At one point, I felt like Spider-Man in Homecoming, holding two the sides of the ferry boat together with all his webs.

The market was C-R-A-Z-Y. We recieved offers, we accepted, and today we are moving more items into storage. (Yesterday we trucked small furniture and boxes into the apartment.) We actually have two storage units � one climate controlled closet and one climate-uncontrolled garage. We need the extra space due to downsizing from a 4-2.5 house to a 2-2 apartment while we figure out our next move. I’ve moved before, but always to an equal-or-larger unit or a house. I’ve never downsized before. It has its own challenges, mostly deciding what ninja tools to keep. If it still has functionality or use, we keep it. If it’s something that’s kinda broken but can probably be fixed, we don’t.

We have four gates that every items passes through, one for each member of the family. If an item can go through all four gates without being selected, then it goes into the donate/trash piles. And it’s interesting because when you start, there’s a lot of sentiment. Items might make it past one or two gates, but rarely all four. But in the last 48 hours? Those gates are wide open and anything can get through!

This week is (fingers-crossed) our last week in the house. I’m dubbing it “Goodman’s Week of Tetris and Advil� because every day will be something, and that something will have to fit into the schedule perfectly or the whole thing’s blown. I’d say all those years of playing Tetris are paying off, but I was never very good at Tetris. (Maybe I should have played more.)

To give you an example, this is what the Good Move schedule looks like so far: Friday we dropped off our son for summer camps. Saturday and Sunday we are moving what we can physically handle. Tuesday the movers haul the rest. Wednesday, the buyers close on their previous house. Wednesday and Thursday we will be cleaning our house and settling everything into the apartment. Friday, we close.

For our weekend move, Mrs. Bad Ass rented a Ford Transit cargo van. The big upgrade from the previous one she rented is that the Transit has rear windows so I can see out of the back. I’ve driven vehicles without a rearview window before, but having one feels more comfortable. Not necessary, but comfortable. On the downside, all the internal hooks rest along the floors. When stacking furniture against the wall, this isn’t very helpful. We made it work by Tetrising yet more furniture against the other furniture. If we’d been loading bed frames, we would’ve required more creative solutions. Fortunately, the ninjas had already moved the bed frames.

The key to yesterday was two-fold. First, remember that I’m not 25, and our new apartment was on the second floor. There were several items we originally wanted to haul that I decided against. They were just too heavy! Because we own a piano and a giant wall unit, we had to hire a moving company anyways. They’ll get all the heavy/big items and probably some of the boxes as well. That’ll include the cubby I vetoed.

The other key was pacing and breaks. The saying is that you never know how much crap you own till you try to move. So when you have tons of crap, make sure you have a big shovel and a clothing pin for your nose, right? Thankfully we didn’t need a clothing pin, but in this case the shovel was our ever-faithful dolly cart. We bought this dolly on the other side of the millenium, but it’s the best $60 I ever spent. It helps out moving items around the house, and it’s been crucial to every move we’ve made since leaving Illinois in �99. My tip is that everyone should buy one. They always come in handy, and chances are you’re going to move eventually, right? Or somebody else is going to need your help moving, perhaps a friend or your kids.

I’m not going to lie. Yesterday wasn’t easy. We’re moving in Houston, and the H in Houston is for Humidity. Humidity + stairs is a bad combination, even when the load is light. We finished around 6, we drank a hundred gallons of water, and we passed out. Today, because we’re apparently the kind of ninjas who want more pain, we’re going to repeat it all again, except today’s runs will be directed at storage instead of new residences.

I’m tired just thinking about it all. But life is an adventure, and this is just another adventure (albeit one that will probably never get its own movie trilogy). Hopefully later this week I can report back with wonderful stories and no misadventures. (I’d like to think we’ve already met our quota for moving misadventures…more on them later.)

Hey, thank you for reading and I hope you’re enjoying my posts. I write the Zombie Dog books, which you can find both digitally and paperback. I also have a Patreon account . Supporters get perks like reading my short stories for free.

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