Pretty soon the last 2 weeks of our stay in Seattle was on to us and we still had a lot of stuff to take care of. Finally Arti was off work and so she could spend substantial time on move related stuff. The big thing to take care of was the categorization of stuff that we were going to take with us. We had 3 options
- Immediate need items. they would go in our checkin luggage. We would be very limited by what we could take.
- Intermediate need items. We had 400 lbs of air shipment that would reach bangalore about 10 days after we reached. So we could replenish supplies (diapers, wipes, clothes, etc).
- Everything else that would reach us after 60 days by ship.
This was important since we had to set aside stuff for air shipment and sea shipment for the movers to pack. The movers were due to arrive 4 days before our departure. By default most of the stuff was categorized for sea shipment. There is a lot of small stuff that actually needed to be sent in the 1st 2 categories. However we didn't have much time for detailed categorization and so we ended up sending less stuff by air. After staying in temp housing for 3 weeks, we have now realized so many things that we could have sent by air.Secondly, we were buying stuff (mostly from amazon) and everyday we had a parcel or two. So every few days we had a trip to drop off boxes and trash as well as donate stuff to thrift store. The process of selling furniture and cars was also in full swing and taking up a lot of our time. We also had 2 kids to take care of. We really utilized the help of our wonderful nanny by asking her to stay extra hours. inspite of all this help, we felt that we had too many things to take care of. The last few days were also taking up by change of address notifications, closing of accounts, taking copies of our medical records, get kids immunizations up to date, etc. Some of this stuff, we could and should have taken care of before. A couple of weeks before our departure, someone from the moving company came over to take a look at the stuff that needed to be moved. We did a walk through the house and at the end he estimated about 125 boxes worth of shipment. 15 yrs ago, I came to US with 2 suitcases and slowly accumulated all the stuff for the whole family. The movers were scheduled to arrive on wednesday and thursday and we were scheduled to depart on sunday. The days leading up to the movers arrival were very frantic. Ideally we had to be very organized so that we could pack all related stuff together and keep things that we had take in checkin luggage separate. During the walk through the person from Grebel had joked that there have been cases where the movers had packed passports since they were not kept separately and then they had to open a hell lot of boxes to find the passports. Now that seemed like a distinct possibility. Surely we would miss to separate out something very important. My brother came to help us during the move. His help proved invaluable. He did a lot of errands (trash removal, boxes recycling, donation of items, depositing checks) and also helped with packing stuff for the movers. The movers would ultimately pack stuff themselves but we had to keep stuff organized so that it would be easier to unpack. Also for kitchen, we had to empty out a lot of containers so that we could ship the containers. We were literally on 3-4 hrs of sleep everyday and were pretty much standing the rest of the time. Our feet were killing us. The day the movers came was the busiest of all. There were 4-5 people in different rooms packing stuff as fast as they could. Since we were not completely organized, for certain rooms we had to tell them which stuff went where. At the same time we were getting kitchen, some restrooms and garage in a state where the movers could start packing stuff. Also by this time we were both mentally and physically dead tired. The 1st day the movers just packed most of stuff. The only rooms remaining were garage, restrooms and kitchen. They also kept the beds so that we could sleep in our house. The next day was supposed to be easier since they had to pack the remaining stuff and then load it. However the next day was also equally taxing and we felt it more since our energy level was further down. Finally by about 5 pm on thursday the big truck left our house and we had an almost empty house with lot of trash in it. My brother also left around the same time. We were so busy that we didn't get any time to sit and chat. inspire of all the effort there was stuff that didn't go by the route it was supposed to go and we are finding that out in bangalore. I guess that is inevitable. I really feel for the movers. It is hard work and they end up eating junk food all the time. Both the days the movers were here, we ordered pizza for lunch for everyone. For us it was a welcome break from the usual stuff we have and very convenient. For them it was everyday meal, but they still devoured with gutso. For the next fews days we were going to stay at our friends place. So we had to pack our checkin bags. Also we had to get the house ready for prospective tenants to come and take a look. We had called a handyman on friday, move out cleaners on saturday and carpet cleaner on saturday evening. The handyman took 9 hrs on friday to fix small things here and there as well as do touch up paint. However there was a fiasco with the touch up paint. The extra paint that we had was all dried up. The one he got from Home depot was a slightly darker shade (he found that out after doing most of the touchup work) and the one from our neighbor was a lighter shade. So the touchup job was still outstanding when we left seattle. It took another 3-4 days to get that completed. The last day when I bid farewell to our house, it was a very sentimental moment. I was completely alone is an empty house and felt bad leaving our house which was our home for almost 8 yrs and where we started our family. Rest of the stuff went ok and we got to spend some time with different friends for lunches, dinners, etc. We were really thankful to our friends for helping out so much. Without their help we wouldn't have been able to be half as organized as we were.
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