You never know how many things you really have until you have to pack it all up in a box truck and then move it across town. When I first moved into my small house, it only took me one trip, and I was done . Only three years later, it took me two trips in my ten food U-Haul and about twelve trips in my brother-in-law's truck; I still had enough junk to fill and entire dumpster. I still don't even know where all this stuff came from! I didn't go to cheap furniture stores or garage sales continuously. It is just remarkable how clutter seems to grow.


Then, even after you move everything, there is still the house cleaning with degreaser that needs to be done to make sure that you get you deposit back. I am also amazed at how dirty everything seemed now the clutter had been hauled away. There were grease stains on the carpet from my bike, minor little nail holes in the dry wall that required filling in, mildew on the tiles and around the taps in the bathroom and the kitchen. I don't even want to talk about those little drip pans that were caked with grease from three years worth of meals


I had presumed falsely that my oven somehow was self cleaning. I figured if I turned the burner on blast and let it burn long and hot enough, that it would magically incinerate all the muck beneath it. Not so my buddy, not so. In fact, apparently the longer you go without cleaning those drip pans, the more impossible they become to clean. I even tried to soak them in the strongest degreaser I could find at the time, and left them soak for over 8 hours. It sort of improved, but not nearly the degree I was hoping for, only taking off about one year's worth of crud off. I really should just have bought new ones.