This weekend was exhausting. I’m still tired. Moving’s a pain in the ass.

We did this move ourselves instead of using movers. Matt’s new job has provided us with a temporary apartment for six months, so we’ll have to move again and we didn’t want to pay movers twice in one year. Plus, we’re moving from a furnished apartment to an unfurnished apartment, so in six months we’ll have furniture to move, whereas right now we don’t have much.

I took off work on Friday. From Thursday night to Friday night, we loaded and taped up one box after another. Box after box after box. Then we had to bring everything downstairs to a small storage room, so we’d have everything set to move on Saturday. On top of that, the people down the hall were having a noisy party. On top of that, the main elevator chose this weekend to break, so it was out of order all weekend. Fortunately, we were able to use the freight elevator. But by Friday night, Matt and I were both tired and stressed and snapping at each other.

There is always so much more to move than you expect, because you have to move every single thing that you own, including things you didn’t even think about, like the iron and the blender and the baking sheet and the bottle of glass cleaner and the toaster and the humidifier and every last wine glass (two of which broke in the move). It never ends.

Friday really was the worst of it. After that, things got better. On Saturday morning, my brother and I picked up a U-Haul van — Matt and I haven’t driven in a long time, and neither of us wanted to re-acclimate ourselves by driving a van through the streets of Manhattan. Fortunately, the van had much more storage space than I’d thought, and we managed to accomplish everything in two trips, plus a swing by my brother and his wife’s apartment to pick up a leather recliner they wanted to give us. It was a long drive, though – we’re moving from West 8th Street to 110th Street. Up and down and up and down the West Side Highway. (This is a nice building to look at, though.) Plus it was raining. We’d move stuff in the rain, then we’d get everything inside and it would stop raining, and then it would start again once we were ready to move more things.

On Saturday night we went to K-Mart to buy new pillows and bedding. We’re sleeping at the old place through tomorrow night, because Matt still has to run the building for a couple more days. We still have a bed there, but it has a crappy mattress, and I only remembered to leave one pillow there (I need two).

Yesterday morning Matt and I met my dad at IKEA, where we bought a couple of dressers and a table and chairs. (I wanted a computer desk but they were sold out.) We loaded everything into the SUV, drove back to the old apartment to pick up a few more things, then drove up to the new place (taking the West Side Highway again).

After we said goodbye to my dad, we went back downtown, where we went over to Levitz to look at sofas. Nothing there appealed to us. At night, Matt had his last weekly staff meeting, so I went upstairs to the old apartment, did the Sunday crossword, then fell asleep on the couch. I slept from about 7:30 to 9:20. I would have slept longer if Matt hadn’t called me so we could get dinner.

Tonight we’re going to Macy’s and Crate & Barrel to look at more couches. Then we have to clean up the old place, throw out all the trash and discarded clothes, etc.

Eventually we can put together the IKEA furniture and unpack our stuff. But of course we don’t want to get too settled in, because soon we’ll have to look for a place on our own. We have the new place through May, and it’s rent-free, so we should probably milk that as long as we can. I’ll see if I can stand the commute from 110th Street to Newark. We’re a bit sad that we’re so far north and that there are fewer restaurants nearby than in the Village and that parts of the area are a little sketchy. We were really spoiled living in the Village. We’re hoping to eventually settle somewhere in Hell’s Kitchen or south of it. At least we have a long time to look, and we have flexible moving dates.

Me, I’m really looking forward to next Saturday morning, when I can sleep as late as I want. I can’t wait.