Take My Advice Because I'm Not Using It

I did a terrible job of taking my own advice this past week. You know how I'm always saying that people should see the humor in stressful situations, don't worry be happy, this too shall pass, use your inside voice, blah, blah, blah?

Yeah, well sometimes there isn't an ounce of humor in a situation, if I don't worry no one will, this too shalln't pass soon enough, and I'll use whatever voice I want thank you very much, blah, blah, blah. I am this close to recanting my entire life philosophy, all because I lost my cool with an appliance store.

Last week was supposed to be the week that my kitchen renovation was finished. It would have only been a month overdue. The new and improved finish date was April 21, and the closer it came, the more hopes I pinned on that day. By the time I woke up that morning, I was thinking there might be a parade in my kitchen's honor right down Pine Street and maybe Jay Z would come by for a cup of tea, with water boiled on my new six-burner Wolf rangetop.

It has been a rough four months. Not having a kitchen is hard. I started this process back in January with what I thought was a youthful, cheerful optimism, but what ended up to be an immature, dumbass denial of the facts. I was cooking dinners in a crockpot that was twice the size as the mini-bar sink in which I cleaned it. The little pieces of food stuck to the bottom of the crockpot (probably chicken. It was always chicken) were larger than the sink drain and I had to often stick a coat hanger down the drain to unclog it. That was on a good day. On a bad day we went out to a restaurant and overspent and then fretted about the expense.

So yeah, it was a rough four months.

When things started to come together and the punch list got smaller and smaller, I got more and more excited about the kitchen being usable. The last piece of the puzzle was the delivery of our new appliances. The kitchen wouldn't be completely done, but it would be perfectly fine for cooking in. You can cook with boarded up windows, no shelves in the cupboards, and wires hanging down from under the cabinets, right?

The appliance delivery team arrived at 11 a.m. Twenty minutes later it was clear that they weren't going to be able to deliver my new refrigerator because of a string of mistakes by employees of theirs who were either on long-term disability or had quit.

I try to be like my mom, really I do. When my mom would get jerked around by a business who disregarded her patience, the worst that would happen is she would get on the phone and use her Mrs. Laney voice. This is Mrs. Laney, she would say, starting out in a high voice and ending low and stern. When we heard my mom on the horn saying This is Mrs. Laney, we knew - uh-oh - someone was careless enough to tick off the nicest woman on the planet.

My nephew was here when I called the appliance store owner and while I thought I was coming across as really badass, he says, yeah, no. "You said in a little voice, 'Really? You can't do it until next Wednesday?'"

So the result was that I flipped out angrily enough that I regret sounding like a raving lunatic, but not raving enough to get any result from it.

The point is, I stopped taking my own advice. I stopped finding any humor in my situation, even getting my sleeve wet every time I turned on the mini-bar sink to wash a dish. I spent less time laughing at myself and more time plotting my revenge on contractors. And I know from listening to my own speeches that no good can come of that.

I did try to remind myself to laugh. And also to remember what my son told me once, when I was over-the-top frustrated with a Philadelphia Holiday Inn desk clerk who would not give me the room that was comped me by Delta airlines.

"Just remember, Mom," he said. "Tomorrow at this time you'll have gotten your room and you'll be the same nice person that you are. Tomorrow at this time that girl will still be working here and looking for a ride to her GED class."

My kids got their positive outlook from me, but they didn't inherit a thing from their grandmother, that nice Mrs. Laney.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

When the Bus Takes a Learning Curve

They say that if you stay in learning mode throughout your adulthood and old age, you can stave off Alzheimer's, dementia and just plain being a boring person who never gets invited to parties. If that’s true, then I’m golden.

The person who moves a lot is in a constant state of learning. We spend the first year doing it wrong, the next year learning how the locals are doing it, and then the rest of the time settling into auto-pilot, until it’s time to move again. And then we have to learn all new bus routes and how to pronounce everyday household objects in an all new way.

Because I’ve lived in the Midwest, the Northeast, the South, the West Coast and the in-a-league-of-its-own-Florida, I’ve spent my entire adulthood learning.

Moving here to California last year, I finally got over my fear of buses. My experience with buses was spotty until then. My only childhood bus ride (besides school buses for field trips) was a trip into Youngstown with my big sister to meet my grandfather. I don’t know why my mom would put us on a city bus by ourselves, but she apparently didn’t have the same fear of buses I had when I was her age. In college, I rarely rode the campus loop bus, because the first time I tried it, I got on the wrong one and ended up out of town at the mall. I explained to my professor that I was sorry I missed class but to make up for it, I would never ride a bus again for 10 years.

What was the learning curve for you during your moves?

But when I moved out here to the city, it made too much sense to take the bus. I had to face my fears and learn how to ride a bus again.

Of course I did it wrong.

I knew where my stop was, thanks to my iPhone GPS. I knew to pull the cord when my stop was coming up. I made my way to the back door, where there was a big sign with red letters that said DO NOT STEP DOWN UNTIL THE DOOR OPENS. The bus driver stopped and then continued on, never opening the door for me to get off.

“What just happened here?” I turned to a woman standing near me. She said, “You have to step down so that the driver knows you’re getting off.”

“But I pulled the thing! It made a ding! And the sign says DO NOT step down.  See? It’s right there.”

“Yeah,” the woman said. “You gotta step down.”

Well that doesn’t make sense. They’re doing it wrong, I thought. But in the end I had to concede that even though I was following the rules, I was the one who was doing it wrong. I learned, though, and now I take the bus often. And bonus - I’m not afraid of any buses now and I never end up at the mall.

There are all kinds of unwritten rules that you have to learn when you move to a new city. Also new customs, pronunciations, and do’s and don’ts. Learning how to ride the bus may have added a year or two to my life of not putting Comet in my coffee and calling my daughter by my sister’s name.

What was the learning curve for you during your moves?

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

That Awkward Moment When Your Bourbon Barrel Won't Fit

Yeah, whatever. I have a bourbon barrel. What about it?

The empty barrel (well, almost empty; it had some aromatic remnants sloshing around in there for the first few months before they either soaked into the wood, evaporated, or one of our teenagers figured out how to put a bendy straw in there) came from Woodford Reserve bourbon distillery in Kentucky. It was a gift to my husband, and like all of my surprises for him, it was awkward.

Getting it home was a feat. Luckily we had a pickup truck (did I mention that we lived in Kentucky at the time?) so I had it loaded into the back and very carefully drove it home. Bourbon barrels are big. And heavy. I had to wait until my son got home to help me get it out of the back of the truck and then we put it on a dolly and took it over to the back stairs to the basement. Then we bumped it down the steps and walked it to the corner of the storage room, where I put the Barbie dream house on it. It remained undetected until his birthday.

The bourbon barrel made two moves with us. From Kentucky to Florida, where it went onto the back patio. The move from Florida to California, however, was another story. The barrel was one of six pieces of furniture (I know, I’m using that term very loosely) that would not fit through the front door and up the main staircase.

Which brings me to today’s moving lesson: If someone tells you that something that you own cannot be moved to your new house, refuse to accept this. Don’t take no for an answer and somehow everything will work out.

In the case of my my move, the six items were: Two box springs, two couches, a baby grand piano, and the aforementioned bourbon barrel.

The confrontation with my moving crew went something like this:

Mover-who-I-nicknamed-Joe Mantegna: “This black couch won’t fit.”

Me: (Nothing) (Not saying anything) (Smile)

Joe: “Yeah, so it gets through the door but when we get to the top of the stairs, we can’t make the turn. It’s too long.”

Me: (Smile)

Joe: “We tried.”

Me: (Smile)

Joe: “Um, yeah, so . . . (Sigh!) Hoo-boy. That’s a tough squeeze there. That is one long couch.”

Me: (Still smiling but my look is becoming a vacant stare. I am becoming bored with this conversation and I’m not afraid to show it.)

Joe: “Yeah, so . . .”

Me: “I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”  (Smile) (Return to Bejeweled game on iPad)

And guess what? They did. They brought in a crane and swung that black couch right through the front windows. By that time, they had assembled a small pile of other things that wouldn’t fit through various doorways, stairwells and openings - including the bourbon barrel - and it all worked out. All because I took the position that there was no other option.

It wasn’t until after this happened that I started to read about people who had to sell or give away furniture, not because rooms weren’t big enough or shaped right for the furniture, but because getting the stuff into the house wasn’t going to work. When my sister and her husband moved, my brother-in-law sawed a box-springs in half to get it up a staircase. Then he put it back together and no one was the wiser. It’s that kind of thinking that your movers are going to have to have, if they’re going to end up with nicknames like Joe Mantegna and not Stubborn Weirdo Who I Hate.

I’m not claiming to test the laws of physics; I’m fully aware that two masses can’t occupy the same space (thank you, high school science teacher Mr. Clark) but I also know that during a move, if you refuse to tolerate your movers’ excuses, they’ll eventually come up with a solution.

Because of the crane, my bourbon barrel is now on my upper deck patio, where it holds my glass of wine and my candles from Phoenix. I’d say that’s a successful move.

Other things I've seen on this topic:

The ____ Won't Fit!

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If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

Take This Job and Move It

I’m putting together some fodder (love that word) for a radio show on work-at-home parents, where I’ll be sharing my wit and wisdom. (Love that phrase - my husband came up with it for me.)

Here’s the thing: If you move a lot - whether you’re a military family who’s PCSing or a corporate relo always on the move or just someone who loves the adventure of living in new places - if you’re the trailing spouse you probably aren’t going to be putting a lot of effort into your own career. Moving for your spouse’s job puts a big stumbling block in your own career path.

I survived several moves during the years in which my husband and I both worked. The out-of-town move that had me looking for, finding and starting a new job was horrible. In addition to the never-ending moving to-do list, I had to buy new work clothes for a different office attire protocol, bone up on required job skills (in my case, page layout. I read two college textbooks on newspaper design and page layout in three days), and work overtime making connections with my new colleagues and community leaders. On the day that the movers were loading our house, I wasn’t even there. I was already at the new place, started my job, and left the moving details to family and friends.

I'd love to hear how you handled a job and a move at the same time.

That move put into motion a working mom hamster wheel for me. The entire time we lived there I felt like I was one step behind in my work, in my child-rearing, in my family obligations and in my personal life. When I was at work, I was stressing about all the things I had to do at home; when I was at home, I was thinking of all the work that I had piling up at my office. It was generally sucky. I blame bad moving mojo.

For my subsequent moves, I was either a stay-at-home mom or working from home or I didn’t mind leaving the job I had. I had to quit jobs because we moved, but I didn’t have to find a new one right away, which put me in unemployment well before our leave date.

I honestly don’t know how the rest of you do it. Moving out while you’re working, moving in while you’re starting a new job - how can you do it? The move itself involves enough challenges to be considered a part-time job. Adding in a “real” job makes it almost impossible.

I can’t think of a better argument for working at home. That’s going to be my message on this upcoming radio show. Being able to work out of your house, wherever that may be, is the mother of all job perks.

I’d love to hear how some of you handled a job and a move at the same time. Did you keep a steady handle on your sanity? Was there any prison time or involuntary commitment involved? Did your boss notice that that piece of strapping tape on the back of your skirt? Or the fact that you were eight weeks past due for a haircut and color?

Let me know. I'd love to go on the radio with your perspective in my tool belt. Comment here or email me at info@homesweethomesbook.com.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

Military Moving Madness

Nobody rocks a relocation better than a military wife. 

I got to see that firsthand this week, when I spent a half hour chatting with Janet and Emily of the Army Wife Network. We talked about moving (PCSing in Army wife lingo), getting kids adjusted to a new home, and some of the funny and not-so-funny things that happen when you pick up and move your life from one place to another.

Some of their experiences moving for the military were not so different from my civilian moves. We all experienced unpacking garbage cans with the garbage still in them (I forgot to mention the time I unpacked an ashtray with ashes still in it), nuts and bolts for beds going AWOL (As I say in Home Sweet Homes what started out as a bunk bed became just a pile of lumber), and having precious possessions lost and broken. The only difference is, these women have done it a lot more than me.

While we were on the air swapping stories about moving, other team members of the  Army Wife Network were busy hosting a Twitter party and taking Facebook comments on the subject. The Facebook convo centered around “the biggest PCS lesson you’ve learned.”

I had to share some of the lessons these ladies have learned. If you didn't already have an overwhelming pride of our military and their families for the sacrifices they make for the rest of us, you will now.

Tracy: Do you have a game plan for your PCS? Great! Now scrap it bc the Army has their own plans and it will be nothing like yours!

Cindy: Biggest PCS lesson: Don't wait until you have paper orders to start decluttering and packing!

Lori: Make sure the dishwasher is empty. Just sayin’.

Cortney: I’ve learned that it is possible to pack 2500 square feet of stuff in one week. Always stock beer and pizza for movers and anyone who helps load. Always pack the safe in the car. A DITY move may be miserable while doing it but, you can use the money from it to get a massage.

Valerie: Never ever PCS without a spool of 550 cord! It makes an EXCELLENT shower curtain ring set substitute when you arrive in a new home but have no way to hang that shower curtain. Can be used to rig up a mattress when the bed slates are MIA. For a pet leash upon discovering the movers packed those. Or a pet tie out too. For an impromptu clothesline when you had to hand wash a few things and now need to dry. And of course to securely strap down all the 'extra stuff' we seem to wind up with after the moving truck has pulled away and now we need to try to stuff into already overstuffed vehicles!  Yup - 550 cord - a PCSing spouses best friend!

Alice: Never let your husband’s co-workers organize and load the truck. They may be able to fit a years worth of gear into a shoe box but give them an empty 26-foot trailer and it is chaos!

Julie: Getting a bigger U-Haul or two big ones next time. We’re a family of 9, yes 7 kids and have a lot of stuff! One wasn't enough! And to try and keep calm n label things during a pcs move!

Joan: Be very nice to the movers.

Terri: Keep the key to the lock on the moving truck in your pocket - Don't hand it to your spouse or anyone else for that matter. You will have NO idea where it is when you arrive and end up having to get a lock cutter only to find the key shortly after you've just cut the lock off.  Also . . . always take pictures before loading and after unloading. You never know what you might find. We don't smoke but our packers did and must have mistaken our tote for garbage.

Rhonda: To remember what is important. Furniture gets broken, household goods disappear, but those can all be replaced. The important thing to me is, if we are PCSing, we are still all together and healthy, planning our next adventure as a family!

Shalee: Make sure you get a big enough truck!!! Had to leave a lot on the curb and a friend had to bring us a truckload. Better to have too much room then not enough.

Teresa: Don’t be shy. Meet your neighbors. They can help you and you might help them. Whatever you're experiencing, your not the first, or the last.

Stephanie: Remember that once a friend always a friend and a lifelong one at that. You may not chat on the phone all the time but when you PCS cross country and need someone to check out a neighborhood for you as they live/lived there once. Don't hesitate to reach out so that you know what you are getting into. We have all been there once and are more than happy to help out.

Sylvia: Make sure that the 'necessities' are really necessities. We had what we thought were just necessities to take with us which was a small trailer with a microwave and our inflatable beds, etc., so that we could cook while we waited for our goods when we finally moved into our home, but it ended up taking up all the space when we finally figured out how much we really could have let the packers take. We thought keeping a 'few things' wouldn't be so much, but it was! So PURGE, PURGE, PURGE!

Julie: If you feed the movers, and give them dessert, they will do anything for you!

Kim: Any sense of control goes out the window the second orders are stamped.

Montana: Thoroughly check your belongings for creepy crawlies, after they've been in storage! A spider bite on your butt is not a welcoming PCS gift! OUCH!!

Kimberly: Always stay at a hotel with a pool so the kids can get all their energy out after a long day of driving towards the new duty station.

Megan: Always make sure you have a pair of shoes! The packers packed all my shoes last time except one flip flop!

Karen: I learned that I have to pack as early as I can instead of last minute b/c then it'll be too stressful on me.

A big thank-you to all who listened in to the show and all the Army wives who participated in the Twitter party and Facebook chatter. You can listen to the show on  Army Wife Talk Radio anytime.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

Get Ready to Be a Tourist at Home

As soon as I get organized, I’m going to start telling you about my Tourist at Home thing. Right now it’s a thing, because it’s too small to be a movement, and too undeveloped to be a project. My Tourist at Home 30-Day Challenge is going to be a blast, as soon as I can stop having so dang much fun myself to stop and tell you about it. To coordinate other people’s fun, apparently you have to stop gallivanting around town yourself.

The idea is to spend 30 days exploring your city, whether you’re a newbie or a lifelong resident, and discovering all the things that tourists find fascinating. Sometimes, especially if you’ve lived in the same town for many years, you might be even less acquainted with what is around you. There is fun and adventure, history and uniqueness right under your nose. Too often, the only people in on the action are visitors and people who have just moved in.

When we lived in New Jersey, just outside Philadelphia, we must’ve gone into the city to see the Liberty Bell at least eight times, not counting the times we took visitors. My next-door neighbor, Gina, would call out to me as we were filing into the mini-van, “Going to the Liberty Bell again?”

“Yep.”

I’d invite her to come along and she’d laugh and go back in the house. Gina was born in South Philadelphia and had lived within a 20-minute drive from Independence Hall her entire life, and she had never seen the Liberty Bell.

“Gina,” I’d tell her, “you realize, don’t you, that school kids from all over the country come here on buses, full of teen BO, spilled juice boxes and tears, just to see the Liberty Bell. Teachers and chaperones risk their lives and sanity to see the Liberty Bell. Hell, even I have to close my eyes and floor it to get into the right lane after I cross the Ben Franklin, just to see the Liberty Bell.”

Gina would look at me with pity and a little derision, laugh and go back into the house.

I was used to teasing for being a “tourist in my own backyard.”  Because we were constantly moving, we saw each new city, in its turn, as an exciting adventure just waiting for us to explore. We would see all the interesting places, start bragging about what a great city we had just moved to, and then the visitors would start arriving. And we’d be in a good position to show them around.

This week our Florida friends came to visit and we did many of the obligatory San Francisco tourist spots. I don’t know who had more fun, our visitors or my husband and I. The giant camera I carry around completes the picture.

In the next couple of weeks I’ll be unleashing my Tourist at Home 30-Day Challenge. So here’s your heads-up: Check out the list and start planning your 30 days of adventure. Post photos on our Facebook page or on Twitter using the hashtag #touristathome. I hope to see photo evidence of your fabulous views, museums, historic sites and monuments. And could someone in South Jersey please go into Philadelphia? I want to see my old friend the Liberty Bell.

~~~

If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.

A Little Bribery Goes a Long Way

I heard from a super nice Realtor from South Carolina this week and in telling me about her move from Ohio with two - count ‘em two - teenagers, she told me about the bribes.

We’ve all done it, haven’t we? Worrying about the kids is the hardest thing about a move. If it weren’t for them and their precious stability, self-esteem and security we could rock a relocation, am I right? My concern for my kids during our moves had me a nervous wreck, I have to admit. I was more worried about their first day at the new school, specifically the 30 seconds that they walked into the cafeteria with their tray and stood looking for a table, than I was about the neighbor who may or may not have been a registered sex offender.

So . . . bribes? Heck, yes.

Here’s what Cathy, my new South Carolina Realtor friend, said:

“Oh the bribing that occurred . . . We bought iPods and a souped-up golf cart and even a piercing - LOL! Now looking back it’s comical but it was as stressful as it was exciting.”

What? No tattoos?

I wish I had thought of the golf cart. I promised a pool, then a bigger, better, in-ground pool, both on which I made good. Those were followed by a trampoline and a treehouse, which I backed out on. The trampoline is still brought up by my daughter 14 years later as a sign of my deceptive parenting. The treehouse I had to nix because, while we had a beautiful wooded lot behind our house in New Jersey, that lot was inhabited by black bears, which I was told could climb trees better than a monkey or two middle-school kids hanging out in their cool treehouse.

Giving your child a golf cart or a tree-death-house to soothe the sting of a move is perfectly acceptable. I’m not even sure it counts as a bribe, by definition. It’s more of a prize. Or a reward. Or a get-well-soon gift.

What you’re really doing is saying, “I know this move is going to be hard for you. But there’s a bright side to every life event. In this case, if you weren’t moving, you’d never get this brand new iPhone5!” And they’ll get the unspoken rest of the sentence:  “. . . which you’ll get if you stay positive and don’t whine too much.”

What you want to be careful of, however, is to keep it in the bribe column and out of the blackmail category. I’ve had some tough moves, but I’m proud to say I never threatened to show my kids’ friends their toddler naked bathtub photos if they didn’t help me pack.

Have you ever resorted to outright bribery to get your kids to be happy about a move? Or are you too ashamed to go public with it? Come on! Spill it!

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If you like Diane's humorous take on moving, you'll love her book Home Sweet Homes: How Bundt Cakes, Bubble Wrap, and My Accent Helped Me Survive Nine Moves.