By NICOLE CARTRETTE

We’re moving.

I can’t honestly say that we have moved (notice the past tense) because we are far from finished. Our garage may not know for months to come its real purpose. There is no room for a car with all the boxes scattered randomly about the floor.
I had a plan before moving. Months before the big day, after work or on weekends, I would pack a box or two. They were neatly packed boxes, clearly labeled.

I anticipated and envisioned a fairy tale move: everything in place, nothing lost and everything neatly packed in a box where it belonged.

In the end, everything would just fall into place, like in “Cinderella” or “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” Now, I can only laugh at having ever thought it in the first place.

One week and one day before the move, it became pretty clear that my fairy tale was subject to an alternate ending. When the glass slipper doesn’t fit, go barefooted.

The overwhelming task called for overwhelmng measures. So, we called in the troops.

My brother-in-law, nephew, two guys from the community, my brother, my in-laws, and a co-worker here and there answered the call to duty (thank you, Brian, B.K. Mike, Stevie, Kevin, Mark and Ila).

In one day, most of our things were moved. Boxes and bags marched down a make-shift line of hands tossing them along.

I have no doubt I was much better off with my crew. I would not have traded them for the seven dwarfs any day.

It was in the afternoon when I had to beg my hungry and tired volunteer crew to actually stop and eat. I didn’t want to see any of them pulling a Goldilocks on me: lost and hungry in Roseland wandering to Mrs. Keel’s in search of a bowl of porridge.

Amidst the blitz of boxes and bags shuffling about the garage and house, part of my clothes and shoes decided to play a little game of Hide and Seek. Today, most of them are still hiding and didn’t get the memo that I was calling the game off.

The good news is we have a washer and dryer installed now (thanks, Timmy) and my in-laws can have their laundry room back.

Our closets have clothing and shoe racks (thanks, Nelson and Cathy) so when my clothes do stop hiding they will have a place to hang out.

We also have a place to call home (home as in I never want to move again and, therefore, I will love it forever).

Home as in not bad for something that began on a napkin and turned, by my father-in-law, into much more (thank you, Sterling).

So while there may be no yellow brick road or driveway yet, things are coming together pretty well. What’s a fairy tale without a few complications, anyway?

And as that wonderful little magnet that was on my old refrigerator, but now is on vacation in a box somewhere, read: “Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.”
I bet glass slippers aren’t all that comfortable anyway.