Moving.

My husband and I have now moved four times in the two and a half years we've been married. Every time we're about to move, I get really excited. It's fun to think about upgrading into a brand-new place that doesn't have all the annoying problems of our current place.

Somehow in my mind I just sort of skip over the actual moving part. Now I'm in this old, crummy apartment, and soon I'll be in a shiny, glittery new house with tons more space and much better flooring! (The last time we moved, "much better flooring" meant hardwood floors. Now that we have a baby, better flooring means carpet. My baby has celebrated by scooting around all over our new carpet.)

But this time, I decided to make our move as seamless as possible. I created a Master Plan. Unpacking this time would not be a drag--in fact, it would be unbelievably easy! Never again would I spend two hours unpacking a single box, running all over the house with various mismatched items that each belonged in a totally different place than the last. This time, packing would be logical and unpacking would be mindlessly simple. The Master Plan was foolproof.

Except, of course, that it wasn't.

Apparently, I'm not the genius that I thought I was.

I'm not exaggerating about my obsessive planning, as you can see from these labeled pictures of every single storage space in our house.

There were a few flaws in the Master Plan (surprise). For one thing, I severely overestimated the actual amount of space in each storage area. I assumed that merely wanting to put a million things in a closet would mean that they would all fit there. Like maybe the closet would sense my desires and would expand just a little bit to accommodate my stuff.

Like maybe instead of moving to a small town 20 minutes away, I was moving to Narnia.

(Hey, you never know.)

Another problem was that I now have no idea exactly what is in each box. I was so proud of myself for labeling each box simply with the code I came up with for the storage area where all the stuff belonged--but when I was packing, sometimes I would decide to label a box after I had filled it up, just in case I changed my mind about where the stuff belonged (which, by the way, I never did), and then I would forget to label it at all. So yeah, I got out of spending fifteen minutes writing all over a single box detailing its contents, but it also took me five days after we moved before I found my hair dryer. And my living room is filled with unmarked boxes.

However, I do take a little pride in the fact that the Master Plan worked like a charm in one room of the house: the kitchen. I was so detailed about where everything belonged that my brother-in-law actually did some unpacking for me without any supervision, and I was perfectly happy with where he had put everything.

So yeah, my Master Plan had a few kinks, but I've already figured out how to fix them for our next move. The next move really will be smooth and painless. Right?

Right.