The Relocation Motivation

In the movie “Under the Tuscan Sun”, Diane Lane’s character says about relocating that “the trick to relocating is to take a small space and make it yours”. She started with her office space. It’s no wonder that upon moving in with Aaron (Mags), that’s the same place I started.
My desk and computer are set up, I’m having to write this in Word and post it later because we haven’t gotten the wireless network set up yet. It’s Sunday and I’m just beat! Yesterday was hellacious, but we were both surprised at how well it went. He showed up early with the U-Haul, all of my stuff was ready to go, we packed it up did a last minute vacuum of the living room, and headed off. Once we got here we unloaded everything and rearranged to make it tolerable, then threw a few things into the van that needed to go to the storage unit, drove out there, unloaded that stuff and dropped off the U-Haul. Other than the drive up we didn’t really stop moving from about 11:30 till 9 pm.
Today Aaron had to go into work for a few hours, so after helping move a few large items in the office he left me on my own to handle things.
Take a small space and make it yours. He has a few small spaces that are his, I asked what areas I shouldn’t tinker with and was informed that the computer, the entertainment center, the Coca-Cola items, and the wizard shrine are the only things he’s particular about. Good thing too, cuz they’re just about the only things in the house that are fine just how they are and I wouldn’t want to tinker with anyway (except maybe to dust them).
For the time being the office is at least in usable order, at first I was afraid that we’d be bumping elbows while we were typing, and knocking things over on each other. It’s actually not bad though, and I even put a few extra things in it that I thought we might need to put in storage. Maybe I’ll even be able to motivate him to clean his desk off by pointing out how tidy mine is and how I actually have room to move.

Little did I realize when I agreed to this that I would be moving in with a pack rat. It wasn’t obvious before because I didn’t closely inspect the closets and corners, but now I’m realizing just what I’ve gotten myself into. I’m a pack rat by nature too, but I try to fight off my nature as much as possible, partly because I just didn’t have space to pack away unneeded items in my apartment, partly because I have a need for open space. I don’t like the look of clutter, I don’t like not being able to move. Right now I can’t move anywhere in this house without bumping something. It’s driving me crazy.
So I’ve put together a few small spaces; my desk, the coffee area in the kitchen, the spice cabinet, the canned food area, and one corner of the dining room, near the Coca-Cola shrine.
At this rate it’ll be a week or two before I have everything out of boxes, and a month or two before the house is comfortably livable for three people, two cats and a fish.

I’d better get back to work or it’ll never get done. Wish me luck, I’m going back in!...