Moving: I am officially homeless

(If you read this post a few weeks ago, with no descriptions once the photos began, it's cause I accidentally hit "publish" instead of "save".  It's now all filled in and ready to go...)

As many times as I've moved in my life (too many to count), this was my first time to move out of an apartment, as an adult, with hired professional movers and shut everything down.  Really, this apartment--from start to finish--was all new things for me.  Looking for a place (click HERE), finding the dream apartment and being approved for it, (click HERE to see the photos from when I first moved in AND the Vieux Port before the renovations!), doing the move-in walk through (click HERE), the entire month of moving and buying furniture and appliances and culture shock from all of that (click HERE), my couch not being delivered (click HERE) and then later on being delivered (click HERE), buying a table (click HERE), and then having to have it replaced (click HERE), building a temporary kitchen and starting to decorate (click HERE), then adding to my kitchen (part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4), all of these things were new experiences for me.  I learned a lot.  I cried a lot.  I grew a lot.  I settled into my own home and my way of doing things.  So add to that now, all the new of wrapping things up, packing up, moving out, and closing out.  Instead of thousands of posts about the move, I've just put it together here in one place.  

The short version is: it's done, I've moved out, and it wasn't too painful.  The long version: keep on reading...

I made myself a schedule as soon as I returned from Africa of what I would work on in the apartment each week to get ready for movers.  I knew they would pack for me, but I still needed to sort through everything, decide what to keep or throw out or take with me to the ME.  I needed to take things off the walls, pack the linens in vacuum bags, clean as I go, etc.  I worked on the easiest rooms first.  Then, one day, I tackled the closet with all my clothes in it, and it looked like the apartment had exploded.  There were {organized} piles everywhere.

After about a month of that, I was talking to my dad one day on Skype, and he could see the bookshelf still full of books behind me, and commented that it didn't look like I was moving at all.  I sent some photos to him to prove him wrong.  Here, you can see that all my books are on the bookshelves--and I'd put many of them into ziplock bags to protect them.  There was nothing on the bug bookshelf.  Nothing on the walls.  All the breakables gathered into one spot on the glass bookshelf.

In the sewing room/guest bedroom, I'd organized all my fabrics and sewing materials, and packed everything else.  

The hallway certainly showed evidence of moving!!!  For over a month, I kept anything that I wanted to give up in the hallway, and invited friends to come over and sort through it.  It was all up for grabs.  By the very end, I only ended up throwing out a small shelf, a tea tray, a vase (that wasn't even mine in the first place), and some cookie cutters.  Everything else turned out to be a treasure to someone!  It was fun watching people come over and be so excited to find something they needed or wanted that others had rejected.  I was glad to give.

In the kitchen, I put all my appliances together.  Some friends had deconnected the oven from the wall (it wasn't a normal plug), moved the fridge away far enough from the wall that we could unplug it, and unplugged my washing machine (in the bathroom) so that we could drain the water from it's pipes.

I'd taken the shelf down off the wall.  The one sad moment I had during the moving month was when I took the decorative stickers down off the wall in the kitchen.  I remembered how hard I (and my friends) had worked to build my kitchen two years earlier, and so to take it down/apart brought the reality that I was leaving.  I got over it quickly, though.  The big X on the one cabinet was to let the movers know to not pack that particular cabinet.  It belonged to the apartment, but wasn't attached to the wall.  (After the movers left, we moved it back to the spot where the oven had been, it's original spot, and resealed it to the wall.  You'd never know we'd moved it years before...)

How about that, Dad?  That certainly looks like I'm moving!  All the doors were gathered to one spot.  The table was taken apart, as was the couch. 

That clock on the fireplace mantle was the very last thing to be packed.  I'd grown so accustomed to looking up at it to see what time it was, I couldn't handle putting it away.  I took the battery out of it the morning the movers arrived, and let the packers put it back in its box.  I didn't realized how special it had become to me.  (Thanks, Mrs. X for that house-warming gift so many years ago!!!)

One week before the movers came, as I went to dust everything one last time, I picked up a wooden bell I'd bought in Ethiopia, and noticed two perfectly formed dust pyramids underneath.  My heart sunk.  Wood-eating beetles.  As if that was what I needed a week before the big day.  I'd contemplated before that doing a bug treatment on the bug bookshelf, just to make sure it was okay before packing up, and this discovery guaranteed that I would do one.  I threw out the bell, and did two coats of a bug treatment on the bookshelf and the headboard to my bed.  (The latter had had bugs before I bought it, but I've never had a problem with it myself.  Better safe than sorry.)

All the sheets and towels and blankets and pillows were all put into large vacuum bags.

The bedroom went back to bare.  (In case you're wondering, I stayed in Aix at the X's for a couple of nights, then at a rented studio the week of the move, and now am back at the X's until my fly date.)

The day of the packing arrived.  One guy showed up.  I'd expected 2-3.  I wondered, the next day, if the moving company regretted only sending the one guy for day one.  Oh well.  He packed the whole kitchen, all the breakables, and all my books.  He had a special box for all the non-kitchen breakables, that kept everything separate and thus even more safe after wrapped.  I thought that was cool.

Kitchen about half way done.  I didn't get a photo of it, but there were 22 boxes of books.  22 boxes.  Wow.

This roll of bubble wrap was almost as tall as me!!!  And they had two of them!!!

Day Two: Loading the moving truck.  There were three guys down on the street, and two upstairs.  First, they set up the elevator lift to move things out through the window.

Here's what it looks like from the street sort of far away.  You can see how high my windows were!

The truck and the lift.

They'd load things on to the lift, and it would lower them down.

This guy was a beast!  I tried to get a photo of it, but I wasn't quick enough, ever.  He'd pick up a whole bookshelf and throw it onto to his shoulder, and then hoist it out through the window onto the lift.  Crazy.

I watched out the other window several times.  I've always been fascinated by the moving elevator lifts.

Then, when they were doing my fridge, this mover got out ONTO the lift to help get it into place.  I'm afraid of heights and began completely freaking out.  Apparently, he's not supposed to do that, because all the other movers began yelling at him to get back inside.  ACK!

There goes my fridge into the truck!

Mr. X took this photo for me, and when I saw it later that day, I had an "oh well, what can you do moment,"... when I saw that the protective cover over my mattress had ripped.  Cue "Let It Go" music.

They ended up having to go get another wooden container because I filled up these two.  I kept thinking if they'd packed more efficiently, there would've been more space.  But again, nothing I can do about it, so just let it go.

As soon as they were gone, we filled all the holes in the walls and vacuumed up the floors (with the vacuum the X's had brought with them, since mine was now in storage).  We moved the kitchen cabinet and resealed it as well as the bathtub.  I went back the next day and did all the final cleaning.  Friday afternoon, I met with the man to do the walk-through.  I'd never done an exit one, so I was a little nervous.  The walls will have to be repainted, and so I didn't know how much he would comment about that.  

He had an iPad with an app that pulled up my original walk-through.  He ended up marking that I'd made improvements throughout the apartment, and that there were "signs of normal usage" (the dirty walls), and no damages.  I should get most of my deposit back.  He was so nice--even called me a "maniac"--which means crazy about cleaning.  He said it was so clean he couldn't believe I'd lived there 3.5 years.  That made me feel good.  I figured I'd done as my momma had taught me: leave a place better than when you'd arrived.  I handed my keys back.

I shut the windows and turned out the lights for the last time.  I got a bit chocked up.  Thanks, sweet little apartment, for being such a good home to me, and a place of getaway and rest for others.  You'll always hold a special place in my heart.

And with the closing of the door, I became officially homeless.  Ah well.  Not the first time, probably not the last.

Everything will stay in a storage unit here in Marseille while I'm gone for my required year out of France, and then my six(ish) months of stateside assignment.  I've got four suitcases packed that I'll take with me to the ME and then to the US.  Wherever I end up moving permanently after my time in the US, they'll send my stuff.  But it is crazy to think that I probably won't see my things for nearly two years.

In the two weeks after the walk-through, I have to wait for my electricity, gas, and electric companies to finish out my accounts and either charge/reimburse me one final time at the bank.  I'd hoped to be able to close my bank account before I left, but that's not going to happen.  I'll have to mail a letter, probably in August, to have them close it.  I could've booked my ticket for about 5-7 days later and been able to close the account in person, but that seemed like a long time to sit around with nothing to do.  I don't love leaving without everything finished, but what can you do?

While packing up was exhausting and had some underlying stress, it was so much less painful that I'd anticipated.  People have been so sweet and supportive the past few weeks, sending messages and texts.  I felt like my phone would buzz all day long with someone telling me they were thinking of me.  I honestly believe that it was so painless because of these sweet prayers of friends, and the help from the friends who were here.  I survived and lived to tell about it.

Thanks everyone!