It’s official. We left California for Arizona two years ago! I can’t believe how quickly our years flew by — and in some respects how long it has seemed.
Here’s what I thought about moving two years ago today:
Friday was moving day. Our movers arrived at 9 a.m. and we thought it would be a couple hours and we’d hit the road. No, we were wrong. By 5 p.m. the movers realized their truck was full and we still had a bunch of stuff in the garage like bikes, a wheelbarrow and my daughter’s desk. Plus the STORAGE UNIT where we’ve been squirreling away boxes and stuff for months.
Yikes! The movers had to rent a U-Haul and we gave them the keys to our storage unit. Of course there weren’t any U-Hauls in town and they had to drive to San Diego or some place to find a U-Haul. They said they’d come back to our California house the next morning and pick up the rest of our stuff in the garage when our housekeeper and dear friend Delia would be cleaning.
We drove to Arizona and our new home, minus our furniture that night. We thankfully packed suitcases and bedding. Our fellow swim team parents and close friends drove one of our cars packed to the hilt, plus their car complete with all the stuff from our freezer and fridge. Now, those are true friends who volunteer to drive an 8-hour round trip to make our move easier!
I have driving anxiety and panic attacks driving on freeways. I couldn’t face the four-hour drive on Interstate 10. Our daughter promised to fly down from SFO and drive one car and help us unpack. Then California went into lockdown. Our daughter didn’t feel good about flying. So our friends volunteered to help us out and meanwhile our daughter’s supposed flight was cancelled. It all worked out in the end.
We got to our Arizona home at 10:30 p.m. We unpacked our suitcases, settled into bed around midnight exhausted beyond comprehension. Thank goodness we bought the furniture in the casita from the sellers. Otherwise, we’d have been on the floor. We never saw our friends who drove our car for us. They not only drove our car, but they filled our fridge with all our condiments, frozen foods and perishables — before heading back to California.
The next day, the moving van and U-haul arrived at 2 p.m. We worked throughout the weekend to get the kitchen in order and our closet organized. Kitty is stressed and hiding under the bed in the casita, where we’ve been living.
I don’t recommend moving after living in one house for 28 years. It’s an unusually hard task, mentally and physically. But, when we’re more settled the sunsets will make it all worthwhile.
What’s the longest you’ve lived in one place? How did you handle packing and going through years of stuff when you moved? Did you think of moving during the COVID shutdowns? A lot of people did move.
We have moved a lot in life. My husband was in government service so we moved after 4-5 years to another city.
I think that would be easier than moving after almost 30 years. But the frequency would be difficult.
We got used to it. My father had a similar job so we were ready to move every few years.
Interesting. My parents stayed in the same house like we did.
It is! Perhaps fate steps in when we are paired
Wow! 28 years! I’ve never lived in a place longer than 6 years. I guess it has been good in the sense that I have purged many, many times. My parents moved a few years ago after having lived in their house for about as long as you had been in yours. There were a lot of memories to sort through. That’s tough.
I still have boxes in the guest room closet that I haven’t unpacked. I can’t make decisions about old photos, etc. After Christmas I plan on tackling those. Moving after six years would be good to get rid of stuff.
We’ve been in this house for 25 years and probably won’t move. We just helped mom-in-law move and it was a real chore. Fortunately I was not as attached to some of the things as she was so it was easier for me to let it go.
I think about wanting to get rid of stuff to make it easier on my kids in the future going through our stuff. It’s kind of morbid, but we may need their help — or we may be gone.
I’ve never done multi state moves but moving in general is stressful I think. Our move from newly married house to bigger version when 6 months pregnant at holiday time with 3rd child was interesting…
I made that same move from starter home to our home we just left when I was six months pregnant!
Welp we moved 4 times before the “big” move. Two of the locations we were there for 11 years. Our big move was 1,800 miles with 3 cats, & 2 dogs. I lied at 3 hotels and told them 1 dog. Anyway, we rid ourselves of alot of stuff before the movers arrived and it was still too much stuff. BEAUtiful views BTW.
Thank you! 1800 miles with three cats and two dogs. Yikes! I got an Rx for our kitty to make the four hour move.
We had a spray to chill them out but no such luck.
Next time try gabapentin! I tried a spray after we moved and let her out of the crate. It didn’t do much.
LOL, Thansk for the recommendation. I’m hoping we don’t do anything so foolish again. Originally I want to move to AZ (Prescott, Cottonwood or Flagstaff) but she said NO – too hot.
Tell her I’m sitting here freezing! It was 30 degrees when I woke up. It’s much colder than where we moved from.
We were at 10 when I got up. I have a window cracked (its 33 now) – the sun is hot.
Haha!
Fun to look back. We’ve been in our house for a long time too and have debated moving. We’re thinking about it. When our son graduates college, I could see us moving somewhere warmer. What drove you the decision? Was there any one thing?
It became so expensive to live in CA that my husband felt he’d have to work until he died. He wanted to retire some day to AZ and when he was working remotely he said he wanted to make the move right away and not wait until “someday.” I wasn’t for the plan. I talked the realtor and my husband into ridiculous listing price on our house, thinking nobody would pay that much. We got four offers above asking in four hours!
My wife and I’s current residence is where we’ve lived the longest, which will be 18 years in April. We know the next move is coming down the road soon, and we’ve started to donate items in order to reduce the amount of “stuff.” Not sure where we want to go, aside from the fact we’d like it to be the last move. Moving is a pain, but in your instance the pain had to be relieved a bit by your new residence, of which the views look great. Who knows…maybe Arizona is in our future as well.
For six months before we put the house up for sale, I took weekly trips to donate items to a look charity-based thrift shop. We still had way to much stuff! We had gorgeous views downtown Palm Springs, but I’m liking the wilderness of our new home. 18 years is plenty of time to accumulate stuff!
If you don’t mind me being nosey..what prompted the move to AZ from Cali? That would definitely be hard to be that long @ one place, then decide what to take… Fingers crossed, we are now @ the same place for 27 years, thinking it will be our forever home. I love living in a110 yr old farmhouse in the middle of flyover country.
The writing was on the wall. The state was talking about taxing texts, water, wealth, etc. Our electric bill in the summer was $1100 to $1200 a month and was going up by 25%. My husband is working remotely due to COVID. He’s been wanting to retire in AZ where we had a close friend and a rental house. So we went for it. He’s still working, but can someday retire here. We sold our house in four hours with four offers above asking. We took the one with no inspections. Oh, we also had a homeless guy in our yard for two years who scared me to death. Every day I went out for a walk, he’d come into our yard. He slept on our steps, dragged in a BBQ and his belongings. I loved our old house. It was an 80-year-old Spanish Colonial, which is similar to your old farmhouse probably with character.
I wondered…..that electric bill is nuts! I’m excited for you that you were able to get out of dodge like you did. I knew someone who lived in Northern California, got tired of all the malarkey and moved to Prescott AZ a few years ago. And to think Reagan came from California. I think it’s a rigged system. You can’t tell me their current governor can do all of the crazy stuff he pushes and people keep voting for me. I don’t believe it for a second.
It’s a one-party state with gorilla primaries. The top two candidates go on to the general election and it’s usually Democrat vs. Democrat. Gov. Newsom won his recall effort and re-election easily. Also, there was a recall petition of Gascon, the LA DA — and they rejected 25% of the signatures to recall him!
Never heard of that term before (gorilla primaries) like “gorilla warfare”?
Maybe it’s jungle? I tend to think it’s guerrilla 🙂
(that’s supposed to read, voting for him/ not me) 😉
Got it!
Arizona seems lovely but I can imagine how tough moving must have been after living in one place for so long.
It was hard to leave friends and people I’d chat with at the grocery store, park and post office. All the people you encounter in your everyday life.
My longest before moving was 12-13 years before Divorcing my first husband. It sucked going from a beautiful 4 bedroom house to a one bedroom apartment. I had to get rid of a lot.
No kidding! But you got rid of the husband 😅
We’ve lived in this apartment for over 20 years. This is my longest stint
Anything over 20 years is a long time.
What a lovely pool and view!
Thank you! I enjoy being outdoors with the birds, desert plants and wildlife.
It’s good to look back and see how far you’ve come
😊
I don’t know if I shared this when I read this post of yours 2 years ago (see how long we’ve been blogging friends? I honestly don’t know how long) but when I 1st got married, I was living in a rented house until my son turned 1. Then we moved to a new house my husband owned (the one im living in now). It was a month-long process. I lived at my in-laws for a week (living hell) and at my mom’s for 3 weeks while they installed ACs and heaters in our place. The 1st while was weird even though we moved within the same city but to a different area. However, I love everything about my house, except that one of the bathrooms is annoyingly tiny. It worked well when my son was little. Now it’s just the bathroom nobody will go into (I have 4 bathrooms).
That sounds hard to live with the in-laws. I’m glad you like your house.