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I've only made three big moves in my life since moving out of my parents' house in Kickapoo that I lived in since I was born.  The same house my parents still live in today, just with a lot more stuff, including nine pinball machines that I wish were there when I was growing up!

A lot of the other stuff is what my brothers and I just didn't feel like taking with us since we left home, which is mostly things of sentimental value from our childhood that we feel is safer at their house. They continue to provide this free storage for whatever we have acquired since then, so you can't even imagine how much stuff my parents have. Thank goodness for organizational skills and their ability to use all available space!  You never know when you're going to want the official membership card as the 512th member of the New Kids on the Block Fan Club ... my brother was a big fan :)

My first move was to Kirksville, Missouri for four amazing years of college.  I moved four times in college and had 14 great roommates throughout the process -- well, it was more like 11 great roommates and 3 not-so-great roommates actually, but who's counting.  I lived in a five-bedroom house my last two years so when you throw in friends and significant others who frequently crashed at our place it felt like a lot more. 

But I loved it despite the couches on the front porch, the broken screen door, the teetering carport, people parking in our front yard because they were late for class, etc.  Usually after a party at our place, people would whistle the theme song to Sanford and Son when they were walking up to the porch.  Not too surprising, the house was condemned shortly after we moved out and then turned into a parking lot.

After college I moved to Evanston to work at Northwestern University where I stayed for almost 13 years.  While I never moved far, I lived in six different places during that time, including 1.5 years in the suburbs before I got the itch to move into the big city of Chicago.  I absolutely love that city so I moved around to experience different neighborhoods, including living 20 yards from Wrigley Field for a few years, part of which was during the 2003 National League Championship Series where I had to go through security to get from the El on my way home from work to my apartment during playoff games.  I also had to dodge homerun balls on that short walk home down Sheffield and Waveland during the regular season.  We went to a ton of games during those years, but even when we weren't at Wrigley we would open our windows and watch the game at our house to hear the crowd reaction, including during the infamous Bartman Incident.

I still own a condo in Chicago with my best friend in the adorable neighborhood of Roscoe Village.  We have all of our "regular" spots, including the best late-night food at Tony's Tex Mex where he always made sure we got cheese fries from the guy we affectionately call "Cheese Fry Guy".  Every time I go back to Chicago he asks me how everything is going in Arkansas.  Close enough. 

When I moved to Oklahoma last year, Zac literally ran around Norman looking at places for rent so I could have an apartment close to Old Hat.  He even met with my future landlord, took video footage of the place (including its proximity to the liquor store right across the street) and signed my lease.  He also said that it hardly ever snows in Oklahoma and then emailed this photo a few weeks before I moved with the subject line: "I Lied"

There is some snow here, but the warm weather more than makes up for that so living in Norman was the perfect place for me to get a feel for the area before moving into the big city, Oklahoma City.  I found a cool apartment complex that feels more like a vacation resort with two pools, two gyms, a basketball court, a sand volleyball court and a club house with a pool table and huge TVs. I made the move over the weekend, which was awesome, but also kind of a painful process.  I hired movers because it's blazing hot here and I'm moving to the third floor so I didn't know if I would survive the move. But it turns out it was just one obstacle after another beginning on Friday when Ashley and I went to get the keys to my new place in an effort to make sure everything would run smoothly with the movers on Saturday.  When I got there, they told me that they put down the wrong move-in date and that the apartment wasn't scheduled to be ready for five more days.  The woman apologized and said she would "try" to figure something out.  She had me worried the rest of the night, but then called in the morning to let me know they worked it out.

The next step was waiting for the movers on Saturday.  They were scheduled to be at my place between 2 pm - 4pm, but they called at 1 pm saying that was going to be tough, but they would try to be there by 5 pm.  Well, the leasing office at the new place is only open until 5 pm so I still needed to get my keys in order to move once they showed up, so thank goodness Ashley offered to help so she waited at my apartment while I drove to the city to get everything squared away up there.  I called the movers after 5 pm to get a guess on when they would be there, but had to leave a message.  Around 6 pm, they called to let me know that the movers would be at my place at 10 pm to move my stuff.  When I told the guy that wasn't going to work, he apologized and then said that I could pick any time the next day and the movers will be there.  He said that as if he was giving me something really special with that deal, but I was pretty sure he already promised me that same thing when I booked them for Saturday. 

So with the few things I brought to my new apartment, I decided just to stay there for the night because I loved the place so much.  It has a great view of the sand volleyball court and the pool so that helped to pass the time ... not much to do without a TV or internet. I didn't even need binoculars to see that people were drinking at the pool! Everyone was walking around in their pool attire and cooking out on their patios so that was fun to see.  If I had brought my swimsuit and vodka, I would've been out there too!  But it was actually a nice night to catch up with some friends and family on the phone who I hadn't talked to in awhile so I enjoyed having some time to do nothing. I also used my iPhone to find potential new Cheese Fry Guys by my new place!

I went back to Norman in the morning and the movers were only 30 minutes late, which after the day before seemed totally acceptable.  Despite me paying them by the hour, the head guy was super chatty.  Some of my favorite lines of the day were:

"On the cross-country moves, if I have friends or family in that town I tell my boss the truck overheated so I can stay an extra day to see them."

"I hope you don't have stuff from IKEA.  That stuff tends to break when we move it."

"That TV cabinet is really heavy.  Are you sure you want to take it with you?"

"I've had a lot of customers tip me $150 because they think I'm a hardworker."

So it was true that they break hings from IKEA as one of my closet organizers and my hamper both took big hits.  I suggested that maybe next time they don't put a 20 pound toolbox on top of them while banging them up the stairs on a dolly so I'm hoping I've saved the next IKEA owner from suffering the same fate.  And it was a sad ending when he said he just had one more item to move, which was the mirror I made when I was 11 years old.  In the past, it didn't matter if I hired movers or if my friends helped during my many moves, I always move that mirror myself.  It means a lot to me so I should've trusted my instinct because the guy walked into the apartment and laid the mirror down on the floor because it no longer had the legs to make it stand.

The conversation went something like this:

Mover: "Here are the legs that broke off of your mirror."

Me (gasp): "You broke my mirror?"

Mover: "No, it's not broken."

Mover (as he takes the legs out of the back of his extremely sweaty pants): "You can easily fix that."

Me: "If it's not broken, why do I need to fix it?"

Mover: "Well, you know what I mean."

He didn't stick around for his tip, but if he had this it what it would've been:  Don't break stuff.