Welcome to Episode 1 of the Chronicles of Moving. I can promise you one thing, it will be long, it will be boring, but always at the end there will be a photo of a super cute baby or child to make you smile. I’ll be documenting the process of moving our lives from Los Angeles, CA to Atlanta, GA and you’ll be with me every step of the way (if you don’t want to be, come back in August and I promise the blog will be back to normal! 
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I’m beginning to feel like I’m the only person who has ever moved out of Los Angeles. Yes, I promise that’s how I feel. Now I know this possibly can’t be true as my friend Rachel moved from LA to Australia just a couple of months ago. So what, that makes two of us right?
Oh alright millions of people come and go from here every. single. day. That being said you would think it would be a easy process with all that coming and going. Well it’s not. Being the planner aheadererer (that’s a new word I just made it up feel free to use it in your daily conversations), I’ve been trying to get all of our ducks in a row trying to make this process as easy as possible. So shortly after we found our new home I started calling to schedule dates for the utilities to be turned on – gas, water, electric, phone, cable, trash, internet. I swear I feel like I’m trying to pass a bill through congress. If I had a dollar for every time someone said 1. just wait til you get there or 2. now why in the world are you leaving Los Angeles, well for all those dollars I could retire to Maui and say to hell with everything because I would be one rich woman.
I’m not sure people really understand that having electricity when you arrive to your new home is sort of a cool thing to have. I dunno, call me spoiled, but I fancy running water and electricity.
The biggest debacle of all is trying to get a permit to have the moving truck parked in front of our house here in LA. I’m trying to be a good citizen, getting a permit, paying the fees, all that legal stuff. I have a list that is compiled of 14 phone different phone numbers of all the offices that I have been passed off to. Finally 3 weeks ago I ended up with one that said oh yes yes we are the correct office, now go on our website and select building materials and then select dumpster. What? This can’t be right, no no mam, that is what category moving is under. Ok whatever you say. So I submit my permit request, “thank you for blah blah, it will take three business days.” Yes that was three weeks ago.
So I call up today to find the status, five more phone numbers later and I’m told that permits are not allowed for moving and it’s illegal to park a moving truck on your street. What? No no you simply must be joking. The past week alone I’ve seen moving trucks, pods, storage containers, all sorts of moving “things” being parked on our street (it’s a long street and there have been multiple ones at a time). “Well Mam they did that illegally and you could be fined and your truck or storage container could be towed and impounded.” I’m sitting here wondering how the heck you get a storage bin out of the impound lot, but that’s something to ponder another day. So I asked the woman, so you are saying it’s pretty much illegal to move out of Los Angeles? Well Mam I’m not saying that she said. But honestly in so many words she was in fact saying that.
Being the overwhelmed wuss that I am I started crying. Shhh… pretend you did not just read this confession, but yes I broke down and cried. Because after calling all these numbers and dealing with this over three weeks, I just had enough and I was not sure what the heck I was supposed to do. So just like all the rest she passed me off to YET ANOTHER phone number. I called that number and was sent to another one. Finally I think I have the right office, but man there is a lot of buck passing going on here. This “supervisor” promised me that I could in fact get a permit but I have to call back the week before the move to get it. Seriously freaking over that one, because he said oh just ask for me and I’ll be able to do it and then he followed that with – but I might not be here then because we get transferred around a lot.
I wish that I had one of those machines like they had on the Jetsons where they put it in the little machine and it would teleport to the next place. That would be so much easier than getting a permit to park a moving truck in front of my home.
Stay tuned for Episode 2…
As promised, here is today’s sweet baby. This is Miss Quinlan, one of my recent newborn clients. She makes me smile, her silly Daddy and beautiful Mommy make me smile too. They are wonderful clients and I will miss them dearly.
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