The One Where There’s A Billion Things to Do…

So now that you all have had a moment to get excited for me and are super jealous that I’m going to be living in paradise and sipping piña coladas with my toes in the sand at luaus every weekend, I wanted to give you a little insight into what actually goes into a move like this, especially for someone who is almost 30, owns a home and car and is deeply rooted in a state she’s lived in her entire life. What follows is a list (off the top of my head) of all of the tasks, big and small, that I’ve had to check off since accepting my job in Kauai. I’ll try to lump it into categories:

Home:

• Make several updates to my house in order prepare it for listing (I won’t even go into all of that but it was a lot in and of itself)
• Get professional photographs taken for listing
• List home for sale (lucky for me my dad is my realtor and can help me take care of all of these things!)
• Sell essentially everything I own in a Moving Sale (can we take a minute on this one… I literally opened my front door to a bunch of strangers for two full days and let people come in and just start taking apart my life piece by piece and buying it for pennies on the dollar for what I purchased it for and then walk back out my front door with it – goodbye couches that provided some of the best naps of my life, goodbye dinning room table at which I basically never sat down for a meal but it sure was pretty with my settee and chairs, goodbye Pampered Chef cooking stones that somehow magically made me chef-like and for which I considered selling my eggs in order to pay to have shipped to Hawaii, goodbye…well you get the idea. They were my belongings, with them went my memories, and it was tough.
• Setup a pickup time with American Kidney Foundation so that they would come pick up everything that didn’t sell (which thankfully wasn’t much)
• Arrange for a local consignment store to come pick up the last two pieces of furniture left
• Cancel monthly services (i.e. Weed treatment for my lawn, cable and internet – had to physically go return those boxes, etc.)
• Get my mail forwarded to my parents address who are so graciously letting me crash with them until I leave for good
• Do a final deep clean of the empty house
• Make an appointment with and go see an attorney in order to obtain a Power of Attorney for my mom to represent me at the closing of my house because I’ll already be in Hawaii by the time that comes around
• Say my goodbyes to the first home that I owned and spent 4 1/2 incredible years in

Pets

Well this is one you’ve really got think about if you ever even consider moving to Hawaii. Turns out there are no rabies there, which is fantastic, but also results in several more hoops you’ve got to jump through if you’d like to bring your fur baby with you! In my case, I had three pets to figure out what to do with: Kodie – my dog of 15 years, Kit – my blue-eye beauty of a cat that I got in a moment of weakness a few years ago when a co-worker was trying to find a home for a litter, and Kleo – who was a completely unexpected feline addition to the fam. I found her at 3 weeks old at the back of the school where I used to teach and she was wounded and malnourished. I took her home and bottle fed her and had every intention of finding her a home, but when you save something’s life it kind of gets attached to you and you to it and… well she’s still with us. Anyway we knew right away Kodie wouldn’t be able to handle that move; he is a 15 1/2 year old Golden Retriever after all, and it would just be way too much stress on the poor old guy. So he’s staying behind with the grandparents (my parents are literally the BEST and I’m an emotional wreck about it). And with alllllllll of the requirements and costs associated with getting the cats there, it made sense to just bring one so my parents are also taking Kit for me and I’ll be, hopefully, taking Kleo. She’s in her 120 day post-blood work quarantine right now so she won’t be coming until November when my best friend comes to visit, but that’s where we are. So in order to get the pets situated here’s what’s happened:

• Updated shots/records for each pet
• Kodie’s old man medicine ordered for the next few months and sent to my parents house (he’s on Glyde for dogs – highly recommended!)
• The next 6 months of flea and tick medicine ordered and delivered for each pet
• My indoor/outdoor cats have had to get acclimated to a new home and slowly re-acclimated to the outdoors at my parents’ (please don’t leave me comments about how I shouldn’t let my cats out or how dangerous it is – I’m aware – but they both came from feral mothers and will tear up my parents’ beautiful home and wail like dying hyenas trying to get out, so feel free to come break them of that if you’d like)
• Make a list of exactly what medicines to give and when to the pets and what their routines are so my parents know how best to care for them and so their transition is as easy as possible
• And I won’t even list all I’ve got to do to get Kleo to me in Hawaii (or how much I’ll be spending) but if you’re interested in the process you can find out more information on the Animal Quarantine Information Page or at the FAQ for Animal Quarantine!

Car

• Make an appointment with and visit an attorney to obtain Power of Attorney to allow my dad to sell my car once I’m gone. I didn’t want to sell it prior to me leaving because I still needed to get around here in Georgia, so my dad is going to take care of that for me. (are ya’ll starting to see that pattern of just how great my parents are?)
• Discuss with insurance agent to determine what/how insurance can be transferred to the vehicle I’ll be purchasing once I get to the island
• Make sure car itself is ready for sale: oil change, detailed, fluids topped off, etc.

Miscellaneous

• Run around like a mad woman trying to get all of my paper work for the Hawaii DOE completed and sent back (that is a whole nother posts worth – bank visits, notarizations, and signatures – oh my!)
• Find and apply for gap healthcare coverage for all those “in cases” and my migraine meds
• Compare prices and purchase flight to Lihue, Kauai
• Go through a clothing purge round 2 and 3 because I still have too many things to fit in the luggage items I’m taking
• Get my driver’s license renewed as it was set to expire while in Kauai
• Find and book an AirBnb to stay in temporarily for when I first arrive on the island (I have a potential future roommate who has been fantastic about this)
• Start getting an idea for what’s for rent – housing decision won’t be made until I’m there (aggghhhh!)
• Attempt to attend dinner/lunch/coffee dates with several friends and family members sprinkled in between all these errands
• Drop my parents off at the airport for their 2 week trip to Canada which was planned long before I even thought about moving 4,500 miles away. However, unfortunately they’ll be gone when I fly out so this means I had to say goodbye to them until Christmas in the drop-off lane at Hartsfield Jackson with honking horns as our farewell accompaniment – that was fun!

This is just a start on what I’ve been up to lately (I’m sure there are several things I’ve left off)… Yet somehow I’ve managed to still find time for Real Housewives…